Chapter 1
PART 1: WHO MADE THIS DISH?
The night I served Matteo De Luca at Bellavita in Chicago, he took one bite of my food, and every armed man in the restaurant reached inside his jacket.
Then he put down his fork.
Slowly.
Carefully.
As though the smallest movement might get someone killed.
"Who made this dish?"
Nobody answered.
The violinist stopped playing.
A waiter froze beside the mahogany bar, holding a bottle of wine worth more than my monthly rent.
I stood near the kitchen doors with flour beneath my fingernails and a terrible feeling growing in my stomach.
Because I had made it.
And the man asking the question was someone nobody in Chicago wanted to disappoint.
Matteo De Luca.
I had heard his name long before I started working at Bellavita.
People said he controlled half the city's underground businesses. They said police officers changed sidewalks when they saw him coming. They said men who betrayed him sometimes disappeared before anyone realized they had made a mistake.
I didn't know how much of that was true.
I only knew that whenever Matteo entered a room, conversations stopped.
And now he was looking for me.
"Who cooked it?" he repeated.
His voice was quiet.
That made it worse.
I could have stayed silent.
The head chef might have taken responsibility. He probably would have, if only to protect the restaurant.
But my mother had taught me something when I was little.
Never let another person carry the blame for something your hands have done.
So I stepped forward.
"I made it."
Every head turned.
Matteo looked directly at me.
For one terrible second, I thought he was going to order someone to shoot me.
Instead, he pointed at the floor beside his table.
"Come here."
My legs felt like they belonged to someone else.
I was twenty-five years old.
I had been working since seven that morning.
My shoes were cutting into my heels, my back ached, and I still had six tables waiting for their checks.
I hadn't planned on becoming the center of attention.
Especially not his attention.
I stopped several feet away.
"Closer."
I obeyed.
Matteo studied my face.
He was older than I expected. Perhaps fifty. His dark hair was brushed neatly backward, silver showing at his temples. His black pinstripe suit looked expensive enough to pay off my debts twice over.
But his eyes frightened me more than anything else.
They were calm.
Too calm.
"You cooked this?" he asked.
"Yes, sir."
"From whose recipe?"
"My mother's."
Something changed in his expression.
A tiny movement.
Almost nothing.
But I saw it.
His fingers tightened around the edge of the table.
"Your mother's name."
"Isabella Rossi."
The color disappeared from his face.
He stared at me for so long that I wondered whether he had heard correctly.
"Isabella," he whispered.
He said her name the way people speak when they see someone standing at a grave they thought had been forgotten.
"Yes."
"Where is she?"
My throat tightened.
"She died eleven years ago."
For the first time since I had approached the table, Matteo looked genuinely shaken.
He glanced toward a broad-shouldered man standing behind him.
"Lock the doors."
The man immediately moved.
Two others followed.
A moment later, I heard the heavy brass lock at Bellavita's entrance click into place.
My stomach dropped.
"Mr. De Luca, what's happening?"
He ignored the question.
"Who touched this plate?"
The head chef appeared in the doorway.
"I plated it," he answered nervously. "Marco added the garnish. Elena brought it out."
"Anyone else?"
"No, sir."
Matteo looked at me.
"Did you taste it?"
"No."
"Why?"
"Because I was serving six tables."
His expression darkened.
He turned toward his security chief.
"Luca. Bring him."
A man emerged from the private dining room carrying a small black case.
He placed it on the table, opened it, and put on gloves.
Then he collected a tiny sample of sauce.
I stared at him.
"What are you testing for?"
Nobody answered.
Matteo's gaze returned to the plate.
"Tell me exactly how you prepared this."
I swallowed.
"Garlic. White wine. Butter. Parsley. Lemon."
"And?"
I hesitated.
It was such a small thing.
A detail my mother had insisted upon for as long as I could remember.
"At the end, I added a little crushed fennel seed."
Matteo closed his eyes.
Only for a moment.
But when he opened them, I saw something that didn't belong on the face of Chicago's most feared man.
Fear.
My own fear turned into confusion.
"Did I do something wrong?"
He said nothing.
"Mr. De Luca?"
The man with the testing case leaned close and whispered into his ear.
Matteo's jaw tightened.
"Are you certain?"
"There's evidence of a toxic substance. We'll need a laboratory to identify it, but the preliminary result is positive."
My heart stopped.
"What?"
I looked at the plate.
Then at the men standing around it.
"That's impossible. I didn't put anything dangerous in there."
"I believe you," Matteo said.
Somehow, those words frightened me even more.
Because he sounded certain.
And because he was already looking somewhere else.
At the silver fork lying beside his plate.
He picked it up with a folded napkin.
Turned it over.
And stared at the underside of the handle.
Three tiny scratches had been carved into the metal.
Beneath them were three letters.
M.D.L.
His initials.
Matteo went completely still.
Then he looked up at the security chief behind him.
"Luca."
"Yes, boss?"
"Nobody leaves this building."
Luca nodded.
But I noticed something strange.
For a fraction of a second, the man's eyes moved toward the fork.
And his expression changed.
It wasn't surprise.
It was recognition.
I didn't understand what I was seeing.
Not yet.
May you like
All I knew was that my mother's recipe had made Matteo De Luca afraid.
And the most dangerous part of the evening had only just begun.
