WHISPERS OF THE RED DRESS 119

The words left his lips with a rhythmic, quiet precision that sent a shiver straight down my spine.

"...May the light before us soften the shadows behind, and may the hand that guides us never slip into the dark."

I opened my eyes slowly, my lungs frozen, my hands resting stiffly on the edge of the cheap folding table. The two flickering wax candles on the grocery-store cake cast long, dancing shadows across the empty folding chairs of St. Bridget's parish hall.

Stefano was staring at me. His eyes weren't the dark, impassive obsidian they had been when he first walked through the double doors. They were sharp, searching, and filled with a dangerous, ancient recognition.

"Where did you learn that prayer?" I whispered. My voice sounded fragile, barely louder than the hum of the radiator in the corner. "My mother wrote that. It isn't in any prayer book. She never wrote it down."

Stefano didn't answer immediately. He reached out with long, calloused fingers and took the plastic cake server resting beside the cardboard box. His movements were smooth, calculated, and possessed an unsettling grace.

"Your mother was Clara Vance," he said quietly, his low baritone resonating through the silent room. "And she didn't write it alone, Elena."

My blood went cold. The air in my chest turned to lead.

"I didn't tell you my name," I breathed, backing my chair up an inch. The metal legs scraped violently against the linoleum floor.

At the far end of the hall, Mrs. Higgins and Mr. Gable—the two seventy-year-old parishioners who had stayed out of pity—looked up from their Styrofoam cups of decaf coffee.

"You didn't have to," Stefano replied. He cut a precise slice of chocolate cake, placed it on a paper plate, and slid it toward me. "And your friend Paula didn't change her number twenty years ago. The state of New York reassigned it after she died in a house fire in Brooklyn."

"Paula is dead?" My hand flew to my mouth. Tears stung the corners of my eyes. "No... she moved to Seattle. She sent me postcards—"

"I sent you those postcards," Stefano interrupted, his dark eyes unwavering. "For twenty years, I made sure you believed your childhood best friend was living a quiet, happy life on the West Coast. Because if you knew the truth—if you knew why her house burned to the ground—you would have started looking into your mother's past."

I stared at him, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. "Who are you?"

He slowly reached inside his dark suit jacket. I flinched, expecting steel, but he pulled out an old, faded black-and-white photograph. He slid it across the table, right next to the red-frosted cake.

In the photograph was a young woman in a tailored vintage suit, her dark hair pinned back with diamond clips. She was standing in front of an iron gate, smiling softly at a handsome young man with dark, wavy hair.

It was my mother. And the man beside her was Stefano—looking exactly as he did now, minus the silver at his temples.

"My name is Stefano Rossi," he said quietly. "Twenty-five years ago, your mother was the head of security for the Rossi Syndicate. And twenty-five years ago tonight, she faked her death to hide you from my father."