Chapter 9 - THE FIRST DATE DAMIAN ALMOST RUINED
Z
Tessa chose the taco place because Damian Rossy looked like a man who had never eaten anything wrapped in foil.
She was right.
At 6:58 the next evening, Damian stood outside a narrow restaurant in the East Village wearing a charcoal suit that probably cost more than the building’s monthly rent.
Tessa stopped half a block away and stared at him.
He noticed immediately.
“What?”
“You wore a suit.”
“I own several.”
“To tacos.”
“I had meetings.”
“You could have changed.”
“I did.”
She looked him up and down.
“Into another suit?”
“This one is less formal.”
Tessa laughed.
Damian frowned at his cuffs as though reconsidering every life decision that had brought him there.
Six months ago, the sound of Tessa laughing had been rare.
Now Damian had learned to chase it quietly.
Not with jokes.
He was terrible at jokes.
Mostly by being himself in situations where being Damian Rossy was deeply inconvenient.
“Where’s the bodyguard?” she asked.
“Across the street.”
She looked.
Carlo sat inside a dark SUV pretending not to watch them.
“One.”
“As negotiated.”
“Good.”
Damian opened the restaurant door.
Tessa stopped.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I know.”
“That’s why I like it.”
His expression changed slightly.
The sentence had pleased him.
Inside, the restaurant was loud, crowded, and unapologetically casual.
A waitress with pink hair looked Damian over.
“Two?”
“Yes,” Tessa said.
Damian looked toward an empty table in the corner.
The waitress pointed toward a table directly beside the kitchen.
“That one.”
Damian stared at it.
Tessa leaned toward him.
“Are you going to threaten her?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“I’m considering buying the building.”
“Damian.”
“I’m joking.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“Are you?”
He did not answer.
They sat.
For several minutes, it was almost normal.
No lawyers.
No police.
No hidden bank accounts.
No men following Tessa.
Just chips, salsa, bad fluorescent lighting, and Damian attempting to determine whether tacos required utensils.
“You use your hands,” Tessa said.
“I can see that.”
“You’re holding it like evidence.”
“It’s leaking.”
“That’s what tacos do.”
“This design is fundamentally flawed.”
Tessa laughed so hard she nearly spilled her drink.
Damian watched her.
Not the way Trent used to.
Trent had always watched to measure reaction.
Was she impressed?
Was she angry?
Was she embarrassing him?
Damian watched like he was memorizing something he had no intention of controlling.
Tessa noticed.
Her laughter faded.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re staring.”
“I’ve been accused of that before.”
“By me.”
“Yes.”
She looked down at her plate.
“This is strange.”
“The taco?”
“This.”
She gestured between them.
Damian became serious.
“In a bad way?”
“No.”
That answer mattered to him.
“I spent three years on dates where I was calculating whether I said the wrong thing.”
His face hardened.
Tessa continued before he could turn Trent into the center of the evening.
“I don’t want tonight to be about him.”
“Good.”
“So tell me something embarrassing.”
“No.”
“Damian.”
“I have a reputation.”
“I’ve seen you lose a fight with a pasta machine.”
“That appliance was defective.”
“It was a pot.”
“It was badly designed.”
Tessa smiled.
“Something real.”
He sighed.
“When I was seventeen, I tried to impress a girl by stealing my father’s Cadillac.”
“That is disappointingly on-brand.”
“I crashed it.”
“Better.”
“Into a police cruiser.”
Tessa stared.
Damian took a sip of water.
“You’re lying.”
“No.”
“What happened?”
“My mother cried.”
“And your father?”
“Made the officer disappear.”
Tessa stopped smiling.
Damian immediately realized how that sounded.
“Transferred,” he clarified.
“Transferred where?”
“Long Island.”
“You people have very unusual conflict-resolution skills.”
“So I’ve been told.”
Tessa told him about high school.
About being painfully shy.
About getting rejected from a college she had built her entire future around.
About her mother teaching her bookkeeping at a dining room table covered in overdue bills.
Damian listened.
Really listened.
He did not interrupt.
When she mentioned her mother’s death, his hand moved across the table and stopped halfway.
He waited.
Tessa looked at it.
Then placed her hand in his.
It was the first time she touched him because she wanted to.
Damian’s fingers closed carefully around hers.
Not tightly.
Never tightly.
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Then Carlo appeared at the restaurant door.
Damian’s hand immediately released hers.
Tessa felt the absence.
Carlo did not approach right away.
That told her something was wrong.
Damian saw it too.
“Stay here.”
“No.”
“Tessa.”
“We discussed this.”
He stood.
“So did we.”
“I’m not furniture.”
“I know.”
“Then don’t tell me to stay in place.”
Damian held her gaze.
Then nodded once.
“Fine.”
They walked outside together.
Carlo met them beside the SUV.
His face contained none of his usual dry amusement.
“We have a problem.”
Damian’s voice changed.
“What kind?”
Carlo handed him an envelope.
No stamp.
No return address.
Just Damian’s name.
The paper was old-fashioned.
Cream.
Heavy.
Damian opened it.
Inside was a photograph.
Lucia Rossy.
Not recent.
Twenty-five years younger.
Standing outside a brownstone with Damian beside her as a child.
On the back, someone had written a date.
October 17, 2001.
Damian went completely still.
Tessa looked at the photograph.
“What is that?”
Carlo answered.
“It was left on Mrs. Rossy’s church pew.”
Tessa’s stomach tightened.
Damian flipped the photograph over again.
Beneath the date was one sentence.
YOUR FATHER LEFT MORE THAN SCARS.
Damian’s face changed.
Not fear.
Recognition.
“Who?” Tessa asked.
He did not answer.
“Damian.”
He looked at Carlo.
“Call Luca.”
Carlo froze.
That reaction told Tessa the name mattered.
“Boss…”
“Call him.”
Carlo stepped away.
Tessa touched Damian’s arm.
“Who is Luca?”
Damian stared at the photograph.
“My uncle.”
“You have an uncle?”
“Had.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I haven’t spoken to him in fourteen years.”
“Why?”
Damian folded the photograph.
“Because Luca Rossy believes my father stole something from him.”
“What?”
“I never knew.”
Tessa felt the night changing around them.
The easy dinner disappeared.
The tacos.
The laughter.
The almost-normal first date.
All of it vanished beneath a sentence written on an old photograph.
Carlo returned.
“Number’s disconnected.”
Damian’s jaw tightened.
“Find him.”
Tessa studied the picture again.
The brownstone looked familiar.
“Wait.”
Damian looked at her.
“I’ve seen this building.”
“Where?”
She took out her phone and searched her old compliance scans.
Six weeks earlier, while reorganizing legacy property files at Oak Haven, she had scanned dozens of deeds.
One address appeared repeatedly.
She found it.
Showed Damian.
His face went cold.
The brownstone in the photograph was still owned by a Rossy-controlled trust.
Except the beneficiary had changed twelve years earlier.
Not to Damian.
Not to Lucia.
To a company called Bellhaven Holdings.
Tessa looked up.
“Do you know Bellhaven?”
Damian didn’t answer.
Carlo did.
“Jesus Christ.”
Tessa turned.
“What?”
Damian folded the photograph slowly.
“Bellhaven was my father’s company.”
“So?”
“He supposedly dissolved it before he died.”
Damian’s eyes lifted to hers.
“If it still exists, then somebody has been moving Rossy money through a dead man’s company for more than a decade.”
Tessa thought of everything she had just survived.
Fraud.
Hidden companies.
Men using ledgers as weapons.
And suddenly she understood why the photograph had been sent to Damian.
It wasn’t nostalgia.
It was proof.
May you like
Someone knew what his father had done.
And whoever they were had just invited Damian to start digging.
