Chapter 6 - THE GRIP OF A CHILD
Before Dante’s hand could touch Maya’s shoulder, a tiny, warm sensation caught the hem of Maya’s black apron.
Maya looked down.
Sophia had slid off the burgundy leather bench. Her small white shoes stood flat on the dark wood floor. With both of her tiny hands, the five-year-old girl was clutching the fabric of Maya’s apron, her small knuckles turning white with the strength of her grip.
She was pulling Maya closer to her side.
"Don't go," Sophia whimpered softly, her dark eyes looking up at Maya with a desperate, absolute need. "Stay with me."
Maya’s heart melted completely. Forgetting the towering crime boss standing two feet away, Maya immediately dropped back down to one knee, bringing herself back to eye level with the child.
"I'm right here, sweetie," Maya whispered, reaching out to gently smooth a brown curl away from Sophia’s forehead. "I'm not going anywhere."
Dante stood frozen in mid-air.
His hand remained suspended three inches above Maya’s shoulder. He looked down at his daughter’s tiny fingers wrapped tightly around the waitress's apron. For three days, Sophia had recoiled from everyone—from her aunts, her grandmothers, her bodyguards, and even from Dante himself when he tried to hold her too tightly.
Yet here she was, clinging to a stranger in a restaurant as if Maya were the only anchor keeping her from floating away into the dark.
Dante slowly lowered his hand.
He looked back at Maya. The cold suspicion in his pale gray eyes was completely gone, replaced by a look of sheer, stunned disbelief. His hard chest heaved with a deep, shaky breath.
"What did you do?" Dante asked.
His voice was barely a whisper—not an accusation, not a threat, but a raw, bewildered question from a father who felt as though he had just witnessed a miracle in the middle of an Italian restaurant.
Maya looked up at him from her position on the floor, holding Sophia's hand in hers.
"I just talked to her, Mr. Russo," Maya answered softly. "I listened."
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Dante stared at her for five agonizing seconds.
The entire restaurant waited in absolute, pin-drop silence to see what Dante Russo would do next.
