Chapter 2 - THE RECIPE HIDDEN FOR THIRTY-FOUR YEARS
I'd never heard anyone call a child a second chance before, but the expression on Roman's face convinced me that my answer mattered.
“My grandmother told me stories about a little boy,” I admitted. “She said he was brave, stubborn, and hated eating vegetables. She never gave me his name.”
Roman's jaw tightened.
“She used to call me Piccolo Leone. Little Lion.”
I nearly dropped my tray.
That exact nickname appeared in one of my grandmother's favorite bedtime stories.
I remembered the words clearly. A little lion had lost his mother, and a kind woman had promised to help him find his way home. Every time I asked how the story ended, Grandma Lucia would say, “Some stories cannot be finished until the people in them are ready.”
Roman looked toward the abandoned plates on his table.
“Can you make the soup?”
“I don't know the entire recipe.”
“Then tell me what you remember.”
I described the ingredients: chicken broth, lemon peel, wild fennel, tiny pasta, and a pinch of saffron added only at the end. My grandmother insisted that the soup needed to simmer slowly and that the cook must never leave it unattended.
Roman closed his eyes.
“That was her recipe,” he whispered.
For the first time, his men looked uncomfortable rather than frightened.
I explained that my grandmother had died eight years earlier. I had inherited her belongings, including an old recipe book kept inside a battered metal tin.
Roman immediately offered to pay for every medical bill my younger brother Noah owed.
I refused.
“I'll accept help finding the truth,” I told him. “But you don't get to buy my cooperation.”
Something unexpected flickered across his face.
Respect.
Then Victor approached with a tablet displaying an old photograph recovered from Roman's private family archive.
A woman stood beside a kitchen stove, holding a baby.
May you like
The woman was my grandmother.
And the baby was Roman Vale.
