Chapter 2
The room didn't breathe.
Luca was half out of his chair, his tattooed hand still flat on the edge of the black marble, his eyes locked on Vanessa. The chipped bowl sat between them on its gold charger, steam curling up thin and straight. None of the guests moved. Someone's champagne flute had left a wet ring on the marble and nobody reached to wipe it.
Vanessa smiled. It was a small, practiced thing that didn't reach her eyes.
"Darling, let's not make a scene," she said, her voice lighter than it had been. "Your mother called this afternoon. She said she wasn't feeling well."
Luca didn't sit. He didn't look at me.
"Who told you that?" he asked her. His voice was low and even. "Who told you my mother was sick."
Vanessa's fingers tightened around the stem of her glass. The diamonds at her throat caught the candlelight.
"I spoke to her," she said. "On the phone. She sounded exhausted, Luca. I told her to rest. I was trying to protect her."
I could hear my own breathing. The white cloth in my hands was damp where I'd been twisting it.
Luca's jaw worked once. He glanced down at the bowl again, at that dark crack running through the white glaze like a vein of gold.
"She's downstairs," he said, not to Vanessa now, but almost to himself. Then he looked at me. Really looked at me for the first time that night.
"Emma."
I flinched.
"Is she downstairs right now?" he asked.
My throat was so dry I had to swallow before I could answer.
"Yes, sir," I said. "In the kitchen. She ate alone."
Vanessa let out a soft laugh, the kind meant to make everyone else relax.
"Emma, honey, I think you're confused," she said to me, still smiling. "Mrs. Moretti wasn't supposed to come tonight. Luca, tell her —"
"Bring her up," Luca said to me, cutting her off. He didn't raise his voice. He didn't need to.
I stared at him.
"Right now," he said. "Bring Rosa up here. Bring her to this table."
For a second I couldn't move. My feet felt stuck to the rug. Bringing Rosa up meant leaving the dining room, walking past all those staring guests, going down the narrow stairs to the kitchen where she'd been sitting at the little prep counter with her soup.
Vanessa's smile slipped.
"Emma, wait," she said quietly, and her tone changed. It wasn't sweet anymore. It was a command, sharp under the candlelight. "Stay where you are. This isn't your place."
I froze halfway between them.
Luca straightened to his full height. He put his hand lightly on the rim of the gold charger, not to move the bowl, but to hold it there. To claim it.
"Emma works for this house," he said to Vanessa, his eyes never leaving her face. "And Rosa is my mother. In my mother's house, you don't tell my people to stay."
The silence that followed was different. It wasn't shocked. It was watchful. At the far end of the table a man in a tuxedo looked down at his plate. A woman beside him kept her hands folded too tightly in her lap.
Vanessa's cheeks colored. She opened her mouth, then closed it. Her hand went to her necklace.
"Luca, you're embarrassing me in front of our friends," she whispered.
He didn't answer her. He turned to me again and his expression softened by a fraction. Just enough that I could breathe.
"Go," he said gently. "Please."
I nodded once and stepped back from the table. My shoes made no sound on the carpet as I moved toward the hallway. The swinging door to the service corridor was ten feet away and it felt like a mile.
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I could feel them watching me — all of them — as I reached for the brushed brass handle. Behind me, I heard Luca shift his chair out further, the legs scraping softly against the floor. He wasn't sitting down. He was staying on his feet, guarding that chipped bowl in the middle of all that crystal and gold, letting the whole room see it.
I pushed the door open and slipped through, and the warm light of the dining room fell away into the cooler, quiet hall that led down to the kitchen stairs. The door swung shut behind me with a soft click.
