Chapter 2 - The Man Across the Street
Sophie did not remember deciding to move.
One moment she was standing beside Alessandro’s table.
The next she was rushing toward the window.
Rain painted silver lines across the glass.
Across the street, traffic moved through Manhattan as if nothing extraordinary had happened.
Yellow taxis.
Black SUVs.
Umbrellas.
Pedestrians.
But the man with the cane was gone.
Sophie pressed closer to the glass.
“Where did he go?”
Matteo was already speaking into his phone.
“North side. Gray coat. Sixties. Don’t approach unless confirmed.”
Alessandro remained behind Sophie.
“Was that your father’s cane?”
She turned.
“I don’t know.”
“You reacted.”
“My father had one like it.”
“Silver wolf?”
Her breathing stopped.
“You know that too?”
Alessandro nodded once.
“Étienne carried it for years.”
Sophie stared at him.
“My father had a knee injury.”
“That’s what he told people.”
“What are you saying?”
“The cane wasn’t medical.”
Alessandro walked toward the table and picked up Sophie’s reserve list.
He opened it absently while thinking.
“That silver wolf was a signal.”
“For what?”
“Trust.”
Sophie gave a disbelieving laugh.
“A cane was a signal?”
“Not the cane. The wolf.”
She shook her head.
“This sounds insane.”
“It should.”
“Why?”
“Because your father designed his life so his daughter would think this world was insane.”
Sophie’s anger returned.
“My father was not part of your world.”
Alessandro closed the wine list.
“Your father created part of my world.”
The statement landed heavily.
Before Sophie could respond, the restaurant’s side entrance opened.
A man entered.
Mid-forties.
Dark overcoat.
Graying hair.
He removed wet leather gloves while walking toward Alessandro.
“Tell me you’re wrong,” he said.
Alessandro nodded toward Sophie.
The newcomer stopped.
His face lost color.
“Mon Dieu.”
Sophie stiffened.
The French startled her.
The man stared at her for several seconds.
“You have Claire’s eyes.”
Sophie’s voice became cold.
“Who are you?”
“Luca Bernard.”
“That means nothing to me.”
“It should.”
Alessandro interrupted.
“Luca worked with your father.”
Sophie turned.
“As a diplomat?”
Luca and Alessandro exchanged a look.
Then Luca sighed.
“No.”
Sophie folded her arms.
“Fine. Let’s stop pretending I’m going anywhere until one of you explains what’s happening.”
Luca glanced around.
“Here?”
“The restaurant is secure,” Alessandro said.
Luca gave a humorless smile.
“There’s no such thing.”
He removed his coat and sat.
Sophie remained standing.
Luca looked at her.
“Your father was recruited by French intelligence in his twenties.”
Sophie said nothing.
“He started in financial investigation. Offshore accounts. Arms networks. Smuggling routes. Political corruption.”
Sophie’s eyes narrowed.
“That isn’t diplomacy.”
“No.”
“So he lied.”
“He protected you.”
“By lying.”
Luca accepted the accusation without argument.
“Yes.”
Sophie looked away.
The father in her memories seemed suddenly unstable.
The man who taught her chess.
The man who burned toast every Sunday morning.
The man who corrected her French grammar even while washing dishes.
The man who told her he spent his days writing boring reports for people in expensive government offices.
Intelligence.
Secret networks.
Organized crime.
It felt like someone had replaced her childhood while she wasn’t looking.
Luca continued.
“Étienne discovered something in the late nineties. An alliance between businessmen, politicians and criminal organizations across Europe and the United States.”
Alessandro sat opposite him.
“The Argent Circle.”
Sophie looked between them.
“What is that?”
“A financial network,” Alessandro said. “Not a family. Not a gang. Something worse.”
“How is that worse?”
“Families have loyalties. Gangs have territories. The Argent Circle has only money.”
Luca nodded.
“They arranged wars between criminal groups, destroyed companies, bought elections, moved stolen assets and eliminated anyone capable of exposing them.”
Sophie stared.
“You expect me to believe my father discovered some international conspiracy?”
“No,” Luca said softly. “I expect you to hate us before you believe anything.”
That honesty unsettled her.
Sophie looked at Alessandro.
“And you?”
His expression changed.
“My father did business with them.”
“Did you?”
“Not knowingly.”
“That sounds convenient.”
“It is.”
“And you’re New York’s most feared crime boss?”
Luca raised an eyebrow.
Alessandro almost smiled.
“People enjoy dramatic titles.”
Sophie glared.
“Did my father know you?”
“Yes.”
“How well?”
Alessandro hesitated.
“Very.”
A strange feeling moved through Sophie.
She sat down slowly.
“Why?”
Alessandro leaned back.
“When I was nineteen, I was arrogant, reckless and determined to prove I could run operations my father wouldn’t trust me with.”
“Operations.”
“Illegal ones.”
“At least you’re honest.”
“Tonight, yes.”
He continued.
“My father sent me to Marseille to negotiate something I didn’t understand. The deal was a trap. Two men were killed. I would have been third.”
Sophie watched him.
“Your father saved me.”
“My father?”
“He got me out.”
“How?”
“By exposing himself.”
Luca looked down.
“Étienne had spent three years infiltrating the Circle. Saving Alessandro risked everything.”
Sophie turned toward Luca.
“Why would he do that?”
Neither man answered immediately.
Sophie’s suspicion sharpened.
“What?”
Alessandro’s voice was quieter.
“Because he believed I could eventually become useful against them.”
“That’s all?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
Alessandro looked directly at her.
“Your father and mine were enemies.”
Sophie waited.
“But your mother,” he said, “changed things.”
The room suddenly seemed colder.
“My mother?”
Luca closed his eyes briefly.
Alessandro continued carefully.
“Claire Dubois knew the Moretti family.”
“How?”
“She worked for my father.”
Sophie stood.
“No.”
“Sophie—”
“My mother taught art.”
“She did.”
“She restored paintings.”
“She did that too.”
Sophie’s voice rose.
“She died of cancer when I was eight.”
Silence.
Alessandro looked at Luca.
Luca stared at the table.
Sophie’s stomach twisted.
“No.”
Luca finally spoke.
“Claire did not die of cancer.”
The words seemed to echo.
Sophie stepped backward.
“What?”
“Your father created that story.”
Her hands became numb.
“I watched her get sick.”
“She was poisoned slowly.”
Sophie shook her head.
“No.”
“Étienne realized too late.”
“You’re lying.”
“I wish I were.”
“You’re lying!”
Her voice cracked through the empty restaurant.
Alessandro rose but did not approach.
Sophie turned away from both men.
Memories attacked her.
Her mother sleeping more often.
Her mother’s hands trembling.
Her father whispering behind closed doors.
Doctors who came to the apartment instead of hospitals.
Suitcases packed suddenly.
The move from one neighborhood to another.
Claire telling Sophie never to open the door unless her father used a particular knock.
Sophie had forgotten that.
No.
She had chosen to forget.
Three knocks.
Pause.
Two knocks.
She gripped the edge of a chair.
“Why would anyone poison her?”
Luca answered.
“Because Claire found a ledger.”
“What ledger?”
“A record of every financial transfer made by the Argent Circle for almost twenty years.”
Sophie turned slowly.
“Where is it?”
“No one knows.”
Alessandro studied her.
“Your father disappeared with it.”
“My father died.”
“Maybe.”
That single word broke through everything.
Sophie stared at him.
“You think he’s alive.”
“I think someone carrying his cane stood across the street.”
“That could be anyone.”
“Yes.”
“But you think it’s him.”
“I think tonight stopped being a coincidence the moment you spoke French.”
Sophie looked toward the entrance.
“What does my French have to do with this?”
Luca leaned forward.
“L’Étoile Noir wasn’t chosen randomly.”
“I applied here because they were hiring.”
“Who told you they were hiring?”
Sophie paused.
“A woman from another restaurant.”
“Name?”
“Mrs. Bellamy.”
Luca and Alessandro exchanged another glance.
“What?”
Alessandro asked, “Did you know Mrs. Bellamy before?”
“No.”
“Where did you meet?”
“At a coffee shop.”
“What did she say?”
“That she’d heard L’Étoile Noir needed staff.”
Luca swore softly in French.
Sophie became uneasy.
“What?”
“Bellamy was your mother’s maiden name.”
The floor seemed to tilt.
Sophie stared at him.
“No.”
“Claire Bellamy.”
“My mother never used that name.”
“That was intentional.”
Sophie sat again.
“Who was the woman?”
“That,” Alessandro said, “is what we’re going to find out.”
Matteo returned quickly.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“The man across the street is gone.”
“You lose him?”
“He entered an alley. Camera coverage disappeared for ninety seconds.”
“And?”
Matteo placed something on the table.
A small cream-colored envelope.
“He left this taped beneath the rear door.”
Sophie stared at it.
Her name was written on the front.
SOPHIE.
The handwriting made her heart stop.
She recognized the sharp D.
The sloping S.
The strange way the final E curved upward.
Her father’s handwriting.
“No.”
She reached for the envelope.
Alessandro caught her wrist gently.
“Wait.”
She pulled free.
“It’s from my father.”
“Or someone who wants you to think that.”
“I know his handwriting.”
“So would his enemies.”
Sophie opened the envelope anyway.
Inside was a single photograph.
A little girl standing beside the Seine.
Seven years old.
Red coat.
Dark hair.
Sophie.
Her father stood beside her smiling.
But another man was visible at the edge of the frame.
Young.
Dark-haired.
Nineteen or twenty.
Sophie lifted the photograph toward Alessandro.
His face changed.
“That’s you.”
“Yes.”
“You were there.”
Alessandro took the photo slowly.
“I told you your father saved me in Marseille.”
“This is Paris.”
“It was after.”
Sophie looked again.
On the back, handwriting covered half the photograph.
She read aloud.
“If Sophie ever meets Alessandro Moretti, the truth has already failed to stay buried.”
Nobody spoke.
There was another line.
Smaller.
Written beneath it.
Sophie’s throat tightened.
“What does it say?” Alessandro asked.
She handed him the photograph.
His eyes moved across the words.
Then he went still.
Luca stood.
“What?”
Alessandro turned the photograph toward him.
Luca read.
His face drained.
Sophie whispered, “Say it.”
Alessandro looked at her.
“Sophie…”
“Say it.”
He placed the photograph on the table.
The final message was only six words.
CLAIRE’S DAUGHTER IS NOT ÉTIENNE’S CHILD.
Sophie stared at the sentence until the letters blurred.
May you like
Then she looked at Alessandro Moretti.
And for the first time, she understood why he looked terrified.
