Chương 3
Adrian looked around.
The restaurant had returned to normal on the surface.
People were eating.
Servers were moving.
But everyone nearby was listening without pretending very well.
He looked back at Mara.
"Come with me."
Mara almost laughed.
The request sounded less like an invitation and more like something impossible.
"I don't think my manager is going to love me leaving during dinner service."
Adrian looked toward the kitchen.
"Luca?"
The owner immediately understood.
"Go."
Mara frowned.
"Seriously?"
"You can take your break."
"I don't have a break."
Luca gave a small tired smile.
"Tonight, you do."
Mara did not like how easily the situation moved around Adrian.
That bothered her.
People adjusted themselves around him like furniture being rearranged.
She placed Noah back into Adrian's arms carefully.
The baby resisted.
His tiny fingers held onto her sleeve.
The reaction made both of them pause.
Adrian looked down.
Mara looked down.
Neither knew what to say.
"He's attached quickly," she whispered.
Adrian's expression softened.
"Apparently."
Mara slowly removed his hand from her sleeve.
Noah looked unhappy about it.
The sight was strangely ordinary.
A father.
A baby.
A woman leaving after a strange moment.
For a few seconds, Adrian was not a man feared by strangers.
He was just someone watching his child miss someone.
Then the moment passed.
Adrian led Mara toward a quiet private room near the back of the restaurant.
Two bodyguards remained outside.
Mara noticed.
"You really bring security everywhere?"
"Yes."
"That sounds exhausting."
Adrian looked at her.
"Sometimes it is."
The honesty surprised her.
She had expected arrogance.
Not exhaustion.
The private room was smaller than the dining area.
A wooden table.
Two chairs.
A cabinet with old wine bottles.
A painting of the Italian countryside that looked expensive but slightly too ordinary for the rest of the restaurant.
Adrian placed Noah in a carrier beside him.
The baby continued watching Mara.
Mara sat across from them.
She kept her hands together.
A habit from childhood.
Her mother used to tell her that nervous hands gave away secrets.
"Tell me everything your mother said about Elena," Adrian said.
Mara looked at him.
"That is not how conversations usually begin."
"How do they usually begin?"
"With introductions."
Adrian paused.
She almost smiled.
Almost.
"My name is Mara."
"I know."
"That doesn't count."
For the first time, Adrian looked slightly uncomfortable.
"My name is Adrian."
"I know that too."
The smallest hint of humor appeared between them.
It disappeared quickly.
Mara looked down.
"My mother did not tell me much."
"Try."
"She said Elena was someone who disappeared."
Adrian's eyes changed.
"When?"
"I was little."
"How little?"
"Maybe six."
"Anything else?"
Mara thought.
She hated that she was suddenly searching through childhood memories like evidence.
She hated even more that some details were coming back.
A song her mother used to hum.
A woman mentioned in whispered phone calls.
A locked drawer in their apartment.
"My mother had a photograph."
Adrian leaned forward.
"What photograph?"
"I don't know where it is now."
"Was it of Elena?"
"I think so."
"Think?"
Mara looked frustrated.
"I was a child."
She rubbed her thumb against her palm.
"Adults forget that children notice things without understanding them."
The sentence stayed with him.
Because he knew exactly what she meant.
Children collected pieces.
They remembered feelings before facts.
"Where is your father?" Adrian asked.
Mara looked away.
"He left when I was young."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
Again, that answer.
Again, the same uncertainty.
Adrian studied her.
"Your life has a lot of missing information."
Mara gave a quiet, humorless laugh.
"That is one way to describe it."
A silence followed.
Not uncomfortable.
Just unfinished.
Outside the room, plates moved.
Someone laughed too loudly.
A waiter apologized for spilling water.
The world continued.
Inside, Adrian looked at the woman who had somehow calmed his son and found herself connected to a name from his past.
He reached into his jacket pocket.
Mara noticed the movement immediately.
Her shoulders tightened.
Adrian stopped.
"I am not reaching for a weapon."
The comment surprised her.
Then embarrassed her.
"I didn't say that."
"You thought it."
She looked away.
"Maybe."
He took out his phone instead.
On the screen was a picture of Elena.
A different one.
Younger.
Alive.
Smiling beside Adrian.
Mara stared.
The resemblance became harder to ignore.
"Who is she to you?" Mara whispered.
Adrian did not answer right away.
Because the truth had never become easier to say.
"She was my wife."
Mara looked at the photograph again.
Then at Noah.
Her face changed.
"Your son's mother?"
Adrian nodded.
Mara slowly sat back.
The pieces were moving.
But they were not forming a picture she understood.
"Why would my mother know your wife?"
Adrian looked at her.
"That is what I am trying to find out."
The baby made a small noise from the carrier.
Both adults looked over.
Noah had fallen asleep holding the edge of Mara's apron.
Neither of them had noticed him doing it.
And somehow, that frightened Adrian more than anything else that had happened that night.
Because for the first time since Elena died, something about his son felt connected to a part of the past Adrian had never been able to reach.
Because for the first time since Elena died, something about his son felt connected to a part of the past Adrian had never been able to reach.
The feeling unsettled him because he had spent two years convincing himself that the past was finished.
Dead people stayed dead.
Old wounds became scars.
Questions without answers eventually became things people stopped asking.
At least, that was what Adrian had told himself.
But now a woman he had met less than an hour ago was sitting across from him with his wife's eyes, his son's trust, and a story about a name that had followed her since childhood.
He hated uncertainty.
Uncertainty was where mistakes lived.
May you like
"Does your mother still have family?" Adrian asked.
Mara looked toward the sleeping baby before answering.
