Chapter 2: The Look She Already Knew
He reached our table before I could breathe.
"Nia." His voice was low.
Controlled.
But his hands were not.
I stood slowly.
"Luca.
This isn't the place."
"Are they mine?"
The restaurant had gone quiet around us.
Evelyn stood two steps behind him, her eyes moving between me and the children like she was solving an equation she hadn't agreed to solve.
"Lower your voice," I said.
"Are.
They.
Mine."
My daughter looked up at him with those dark eyes — his eyes — and said nothing.
My son had stopped drawing.
He was watching Luca the way children watch something they don't have a name for yet.
"You need to walk away," I said quietly.
"I need the truth," Luca said.
"You owe me that."
Something inside me went cold.
"I owe you nothing, Luca.
You made your choice.
You said yes when I asked if it was what you wanted.
Remember?"
His jaw tightened.
Then Evelyn stepped forward.
"Luca." Her voice was careful.
Practiced.
"We should go."
But the look she gave me wasn't confusion.
It was recognition.
Like she already knew something.
May you like
Like she had always known something.
And that terrified me more than anything Luca had said.
