Chapter 155 Table for Two (and a Tail)
Valentina
The inside of the café was a hush of clinking spoons and hushed conversations. A fan overhead turned slowly, stirring the scent of coffee and warm sugar. I barely noticed.
My attention was locked on the couple near the window.
She sat across from him, sipping something pale and citrusy, legs crossed like it was second nature to make herself small. Sunglasses too big for her face. Shoulders too straight to be casual. Movements too measured to be free.
Matteo and I slipped into a corner booth with a half-wall between us and them. I angled myself just enough to catch her reflection in the glass.
“I need to see her face,” I murmured.
“You will,” he said, calm. Controlled. Dangerous.
“But what if I don’t recognize her?”
His eyes flicked to mine. “You’ve never met her.”
“I know.”
“Then what are you expecting?”
I exhaled slowly. “Something. Anything. A feeling.”
Because even though I’d never heard her voice or held her hand, some stubborn part of me was screaming that I’d know. That if I saw her—really saw her—something inside me would shift and say there. That’s her. That’s blood.
“Intuition’s a tricky bitch,” Matteo muttered, watching me instead of them now. “You see what you want to see.”
I didn’t deny it.
“Maybe I want to see her.”
“Or maybe,” he said, “you already do. And your gut’s not wrong.”
I swallowed hard, eyes drifting back to the woman in the window.
She tilted her head slightly when she listened, like she was waiting for a permission that never came. Her body language was polite. Obedient. But there was tension in her fingers—bare, no jewelry, nails trimmed close. Not a woman who chose luxury. A woman who survived it.
“She’s too young,” I whispered. “Too small.”
“People shrink when they’re trapped,” Matteo said quietly. “They get smaller to avoid being noticed.”
A chill skated down my spine.
I didn’t want to imagine what kind of cage she’d been kept in to make her sit that still.
“What do I do if it’s her?” I asked.
“You wait. We track them. We verify. And then we move.”
“I don’t want to wait.”
“I don’t want you walking into a goddamn trap,” he snapped, and just like that, the edge was back in his voice. The one that wrapped around me like barbed wire and silk.
“Then find me a way to be sure.”
He leaned forward, just slightly. “I will.”
The girl across the room laughed. Just once. A soft exhale that curled through the air like déjà vu in sound form.
I froze.
My fingers curled around the edge of the table.
Matteo didn’t say anything.
Because we both felt it.
Something in that sound—a cadence, a tone—tugged at something older than memory.
I didn’t know her.
But something in me did.
And that was enough to tear the whole world open.
I sipped my coffee too fast, burning my tongue. Across the café, the woman with Bexley set her glass down with care. She was delicate with everything—how she moved, how she blinked, how she kept her eyes hidden behind those oversized sunglasses like they were armor.
But then Bexley leaned in and said something low, sharp enough to slice through the hum of conversation.
She flinched.
It was tiny. Most wouldn’t have noticed.
I did.
Her hand drifted up—not to touch him, not to reply—but to her sunglasses. And slowly, as if the weight of the lenses had become unbearable, she pulled them down.
And looked up.
Our eyes locked.
It was like staring into a warped mirror. Not perfect, not identical—but the shape of her jaw, the slope of her nose, the way her brow furrowed slightly when confused… it was mine. Or maybe mine was hers.
As if in a trance, she rose from her chair and walked over to our booth.
Her lips parted like she was about to ask who I was, but I beat her to it.
“Liana?”
Her mouth froze around the breath she’d just taken. And then, like a whisper curling around disbelief, she asked, “How do you know my name?”
I slid out of the booth and stood up slowly. My voice barely made it past the thud of blood in my ears.
“Because… you’re my sister.”
Bexley called after her and strode up next to her asking why she got up.
Bexley appeared beside her like a shadow cast too close to the flame. “Liana. What the hell are you doing?”
She didn’t answer.
Didn’t even flinch.
Her eyes stayed locked on mine like she was still trying to piece together what she was seeing. Like if she blinked, I might vanish.
“Come on.” He reached for her arm.
I stepped between them before he could touch her.
“I wouldn’t.”
His eyes flicked between us—once, twice—then locked on mine like he was seeing a ghost. Like he knew.
“Who are you?” he asked, breathless. Not hostile yet. Just… off balance.
Liana didn’t move. Didn’t speak. She just kept staring at me like the floor beneath her had dropped out.
I stepped forward slowly, every part of me shaking, but steady enough to say it.
“She’s my sister.”
Bexley’s expression morphed—confusion, recognition, then something too tangled to name. “No,” he whispered. “That’s not possible. That would mean…”
His voice trailed off. Then his eyes widened.
“Lenti?”
I flinched like he’d slapped me.
“Don’t you dare call me that.” My voice came out sharp, cold. A blade wrapped in velvet. “Only a monster ever did.”
Something cracked behind his eyes. That was the moment. The one where he knew exactly who I was—and exactly what that meant.
He took a slow step back, his whole demeanor shifting. Calculating. Danger pressing behind his eyes like a loaded gun.
“I didn’t know,” he said quietly. “I didn’t know you were alive.”
“No one was supposed to,” I said. “That was the deal, right? Fake the death certificate. Sell the girl. Disappear the evidence.”