Chapter 3: The Trap at Table Four
Salvatore released the pendant.
“Who was your father?”
“Daniel Mercer,” David said.
“He was seventeen when Elisabetta left Sicily.”
Tessa moved between them.
“How did a seventeen-year-old American boy know my great-grandmother?”
“His father worked at the port.
Daniel carried messages for Giancarlo.”
Salvatore’s hand closed around his cane.
“Then your father served my brother.”
“No.
Not at the end.”
David tucked the pendant beneath his shirt, but Mateo caught his wrist.
“You brought Tessa to that table.
Why?”
“Let go of me.”
“Answer him,” Tessa said.
David pulled free.
“My father told me Elisabetta had gone to Chicago under another name.
When Tessa applied here, I saw Hayes on her records.”
“That proves nothing.”
“You listed Evelyn Hayes as the relative who raised you.”
Tessa’s face tightened.
“You checked a woman who had been gone for eleven years?”
“I checked because you spoke Sicilian on your first day.”
“I was talking to the pastry chef.”
“And you used Elisabetta’s exact dialect.”
Salvatore stepped forward.
“You knew before tonight.”
“I suspected.”
“You used her,” Mateo said.
“I needed to see Salvatore’s reaction.”
Tessa stared at David.
“You put me in front of him like bait.”
David’s mouth flattened.
“And it worked.”
The office door swung open.
Aaron stood there with Tessa’s coat over one arm.
“Everything all right?”
“No,” Tessa said.
“David has been investigating my family.”
David pointed into the corridor.
“Go back to work.”
Aaron gave Tessa her coat.
“My shift ended five minutes ago.”
“Then leave.”
“I’ll leave when she does.”
Tessa slipped on her coat, but David blocked the doorway.
“Your great-grandmother owned a yellow cookbook.”
Her hands stopped at the buttons.
Salvatore looked at her.
“The book you remembered?”
“How do you know about it?” Tessa asked.
“My father wrote one sentence before he became too ill to continue: ‘The truth is with Elisabetta’s recipes.’”
“You think I have it.”
“I know you do.”
Tessa lifted her chin.
“Then you also know it belongs to me.”
David leaned closer.
“Bring it here tomorrow, and this can remain a private family matter.”
“Is that a request?”
“It’s advice.
Nursing programs don’t like scandal.
Hospitals like it even less.”
Mateo stepped between them.
“Do not speak to her that way again.”
David smiled.
“You cannot protect her from a story the newspapers would love.”
“What story?”
“An unknown waitress appears, claims a connection to Salvatore Vitiello, and suddenly wants part of his fortune.”
“I haven’t asked him for anything,” Tessa said.
“You won’t need to.
People will assume.”
Salvatore struck his cane against the floor.
“You no longer work at Bellori.”
David’s smile widened.
“You should read the lease before dismissing the man whose company holds it.”
Mateo went still.
“What did you say?”
David opened a drawer and placed a folded document on the desk.
“Your family used this building as collateral years ago.
The final transfer became effective last month.”
Salvatore looked at the signature and shook his head.
“I never signed this.”
“According to the document, you did.”
Aaron quietly lowered his phone beside his leg, its screen still glowing.
Tessa saw it.
David did not.
David picked up the paper and opened the door.
“Bring me the cookbook by ten tomorrow morning, Tessa.
Otherwise Bellori closes—and your name becomes tomorrow’s headline.”
He walked away.
Mateo reached for his phone, but Salvatore remained fixed on the empty doorway.
May you like
“That signature,” the old man whispered.
“Only Giancarlo knew how to copy it.”
