Chapter 4 - THE BREAKING OF THE ICE
The dining room of the Grand Aurelia continued its polite, aristocratic rhythm around them.
Near the bar, the pianist’s fingers danced across the ivory keys, playing the soft, cascading chords of a French lullaby. Glasses clinked at Table Twelve; a cork popped at Table Four.
Inside the alcove of Table Nine, however, time had stopped entirely.
Evelyn stood pinned beneath the collective gaze of the Belandi family. The little girl in the white dress kept her dark eyes locked onto Evelyn’s face, her small hands slowly gripping the edge of the white tablecloth.
The girl’s lips parted.
At first, no sound came out. Her throat worked dryly, her small chest rising and falling in short, rapid gasps, as if she were trying to drag a word out from the deepest, darkest depths of a two-year-old ocean.
Evelyn leaned slightly closer, completely instinctively. She forgot about her boss, she forgot about her rent, she forgot about the feared mob boss sitting three feet away. All she saw was a terrified, heartbroken little girl trying to speak to her.
"It's okay, sweetheart," Evelyn whispered, her voice so soft it was barely a vibration in the air.
The little girl took a deep, shuddering breath.
She reached up with her tiny right hand, her small fingers reaching toward her own left temple, lightly touching the vintage silver swallow clip pinning her light-brown hair.
She opened her mouth.
A sound broke past her lips—a tiny, raspy, fragile whisper that sounded like a dry leaf scraping across a granite pavement:
"Sellar."
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Evelyn’s body twitched in violent, involuntary shock.
Her grip on the silver serving tray slipped. The heavy polished metal tilted sharply in her hands, the crystal water carafe sliding two inches across the surface with a loud, sudden CLINK that shattered the quiet alcove like a thrown stone.
