A feared crime lord spent days trying to get his traumatized daughter to eat, until an exhausted waitress made her speak a single word. / Chapter 14 / 120

Chapter 14 - Green Dinosaurs and Cold Bread

The bedroom was silent save for the steady scratch of crayon on paper. Outside, rain tapped softly against the thick, double-paned window glass, accompanied by the distant rustle of hemlock trees in the wind.

Maya didn't invite Sofia over. She didn't ask how she was feeling. She merely turned the page, picked up a bright orange crayon, and drew a bizarre, jagged sun wearing crooked sunglasses.

*Scritch. Scritch. Scritch.*

Out of the corner of her vision, Maya saw the girl shift. Sofia lowered one knee from her chest. Her small, stockinged feet slipped silently from the window bench onto the deep carpet. Her grip on the purple crayon never loosened, but her body leaned forward, drawn by the simple, non-threatening rhythm of color appearing in the dark.

Step. Step.

The little girl took two silent steps across the rug. She stopped about three feet away, clutching her purple crayon to her chest, staring down at Maya’s drawing of the dinosaur now wearing a ridiculous orange top hat.

"He lost his hat in the wind," Maya said casually, addressing the dinosaur, not the child. "Now his ears are freezing. Do dinosaurs have ears? I don't think so. Maybe he just has cold scales."

Sofia remained motionless, but her lips parted slightly. Her breathing, which had been shallow and rapid, began to slow down.

Maya picked up a third crayon—a soft sky-blue. She drew a lumpy raincloud above the dinosaur, followed by big, cartoonish drops of water falling toward the ground.

"It rained on the subway today," Maya continued in her warm, low, gravelly voice—the voice that had calmed belligerent drunks and crying line cooks at Bellanote for four straight years. "A lady had an umbrella with little yellow ducks on it. One duck had an eyepatch. I think he was a pirate duck."

Sofia took another step. She was close enough now that Maya could smell the faint lavender scent of baby soap in her dark curls.

Maya didn't reach for her. Instead, she picked up a fresh, blank sheet of paper and set it flat on the carpet between them. Alongside it, she placed three crayons: yellow, brown, and pink.

Then, Maya reached into her jacket pocket. She pulled out a small, foil-wrapped package from Bellanote’s kitchen—a warm, freshly baked buttermilk biscuit that Tony had wrapped up for her before she left, still soft, with a tiny container of sweet strawberry preserves.

Maya peeled the foil back. The sweet, buttery aroma instantly cut through the sterile lavender air of the room.

She broke the biscuit in two. She smeared a tiny dab of strawberry jam onto one half, lifted it to her mouth, and took a small, loud, satisfying bite.

"Mmm. Tony makes the best biscuits in Manhattan," Maya muttered, chewing slowly. "A little crunchy on the outside, like a toasted cloud."

She placed the second half—untouched, gleaming with a bright red dollop of strawberry jam—on the clean corner of the blank yellow paper.

Then Maya went back to drawing. She didn't look at Sofia. She didn't say, *Eat.* She didn't say, *Try it.*

For three long minutes, nothing happened. Through the door’s crack, Maya knew Dante Russo was watching, holding his breath, his knuckles likely turning white against the polished wood.

Then, a tiny, pale hand crept forward.

Sofia reached past the yellow crayon. Her fingers hovered over the biscuit for a split second, trembling with an ancient, exhausting hunger that her traumatized mind had tried so desperately to suppress.

She picked up the biscuit.

Sofia looked at Maya. Maya didn't look back; she kept coloring a purple umbrella over the dinosaur's tail.

Sofia brought the biscuit to her mouth. She took one tiny, tentative nibble.

The sweet strawberry jam touched her tongue. A soft, shuddering gasp escaped the little girl’s throat—a sound so small, so fragile, it sounded like the snap of a twig in a silent forest. Then, with sudden, ravenous desperation, Sofia shoved the rest of the biscuit into her mouth, chewing frantically, tears suddenly spilling over her lower eyelids and running silently down her pale, hollow cheeks.