The name landed harder than the thunder outside.
Dante Russo.
For a second, I couldn’t remember why it frightened Maggie so badly.
Then scraps of memory clicked together: conversations overheard in the hospital cafeteria, newspaper headlines glimpsed on discarded pages, people speaking carefully whenever the Russo name came up.
Nobody ever seemed to say exactly what Dante Russo did.
They didn’t need to.
In Boston, there were names people repeated loudly because they wanted attention, and names they lowered their voices to say because they didn’t.
Dante Russo belonged to the second kind.
Marco didn’t seem to notice any of that.
He ran.
“Papa!”
The man who had entered the coffee shop dropped instantly to one knee.
Everything intimidating about him vanished for one unguarded second.
He caught Marco against his chest with both arms and held him so tightly that the little boy’s leather shoes lifted from the floor.
Dante closed his eyes.
He didn’t speak.
Neither did I.
Marco buried his face against his father’s shoulder.
“I couldn’t find Uncle Nico.”
Dante finally pulled back enough to inspect him.
His hands moved over Marco’s shoulders, his face, his arms, checking for injuries.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Did anyone touch you?”
“Ellie did.”
Dante’s head snapped toward me.
Marco immediately added, “She gave me her scarf.”
I almost laughed from nerves.
Almost.
Dante looked back at the damp scarf wrapped around his son’s neck.
Then he noticed the towel, the half-finished hot chocolate, and Marco’s wet dinosaur backpack sitting safely on the booth.
The sharpness in his expression shifted.
Not disappeared.
Shifted.
“Tell me what happened,” he said.
Marco explained in the fractured way children do when too much has happened at once.
Uncle Nico wasn’t where Marco expected after school.
Marco thought he knew the way home.
Then the rain started.
He took a wrong turn.
He got scared.
He hid in the alley.
Then Ellie came.
Every time Marco said my name, Dante looked at me.
I suddenly became aware of my soaked hospital uniform beneath my thin jacket, my ruined clearance shoes, and the fact that I was standing three feet from a man Maggie appeared afraid even to look at.
The door opened again.
Nicholas Russo rushed inside.
I recognized his voice before Marco shouted, “Uncle Nico!”
Nicholas stopped dead when he saw the boy standing safely beside his father.
His face showed pure relief for half a heartbeat.
Then Dante stood.
The relief vanished.
“Where were you?” Dante asked.
Nicholas swallowed.
“There was confusion at pickup.
I thought—”
