BITTERSWEET TASTE

BITTERSWEET TASTE By Ambrosia Naidoo CHAPTER ONE: THE PHOTOGRAPH IN THE RAIN Some people enter your life like a beautiful mistake. Others arrive like a warning you should have listened to. The first time I saw Dante De Velante, he was standing beneath a streetlight in the rain, looking like the kind of man mothers warned their daughters about and daughters secretly hoped to meet anyway. He wore black from head to toe, his dark hair damp against his forehead, and his expression carried the kind of coldness that made strangers lower their eyes before he even looked at them. He was beautiful in a way that felt almost unfair, with sharp features, a strong jaw, and eyes so dark they seemed to swallow whatever light dared approach them. There was something dangerous about him, something that made the air around him feel heavier, as though the world itself knew better than to disturb his peace. But the strangest part wasn't his appearance. It was the fact that, when our eyes met across the crowded street, he looked at me as though he had been searching for me for years. Then he turned away, stepped into a waiting black car, and disappeared into the night. I should have forgotten him. I should have gone home, made myself a cup of tea, and continued pretending my life was ordinary. Instead, three hours later, I would find his photograph inside an envelope on my bedroom floor, accompanied by a warning that would change everything I thought I knew about my family, his family, and the dangerous space between us. My name is Shayna Alvarez, and before that rainy Thursday evening, I believed the worst thing that could happen to a person was discovering that the life they had carefully built was not the life they had actually been living. I was nineteen, studying literature at a university in the heart of Bellarosa, a city famous for its ancient cathedrals, expensive restaurants, narrow streets, and families who had been wealthy for so long that they treated money like an inherited language. Bellarosa was beautiful when the sun shone. Its buildings glowed golden beneath the afternoon light, flowers spilled from balconies, and the air smelled of fresh bread and coffee. At night, however, the city became something else. Shadows stretched between old buildings, rain turned the cobblestones black, and every closed door seemed to guard a secret. I had always preferred the city after dark because there was something comforting about the way the night allowed people to hide. That evening, I was walking home from the little bookshop where I worked part-time, holding my coat closed against the cold and silently regretting my decision to wear shoes that looked lovely but were entirely useless in the rain. My phone vibrated for the fourth time in ten minutes. My older sister, Camila, had been messaging me. CAMILA: Where are you? ME: Walking home. CAMILA: In this weather? Shayna, please tell me you took an umbrella. ME: I took an umbrella. CAMILA: And where is it? I glanced at the useless, broken umbrella hanging from my wrist. ME: Emotionally, it is with me. Her reply arrived almost immediately. CAMILA: I swear you are going to be the death of me. I smiled despite myself and slipped the phone into my pocket. Camila had been worrying about me ever since our grandmother died six months earlier. Before that, our little family had been held together by our grandmother's quiet strength and her endless supply of strange sayings. She had believed that certain people carried storms inside them, that some doors were better left unopened, and that the truth had a way of finding you even when you spent your entire life running from it. In her final weeks, she had become particularly obsessed with one name: De Velante. Whenever the name appeared on television or in the newspaper, she would grow silent. Once, when I had asked why, she had gripped my wrist so tightly that her fingers left pale marks against my skin. "Promise me something, Shayna," she had whispered. "Anything, Nonna." "If a De Velante ever comes looking for you, you run." I had laughed because I thought she was being dramatic. Our grandmother had always been theatrical, especially when she was tired or frightened, but she had not laughed with me. Her eyes had filled with something I had never seen in them before. Fear. "Promise me," she repeated, and so I had promised. It had seemed like a harmless request from an old woman who had lived long enough to collect a lifetime of regrets. I never imagined I would have to remember it. A gust of wind pushed rain beneath the awning of a closed restaurant, and I hurried toward the nearest street corner. That was when I saw him again. Dante De Velante stood beside a black car parked across the street, one hand resting on the open door. Two men in dark suits stood nearby, speaking quietly. He wasn't listening to them. His attention was fixed on a woman who had approached him from the pavement. She wore a cream-colored coat and held a red umbrella above her head. Even from a distance, I could see the anger in the way she moved her hands. Dante listened without expression, his posture perfectly still, until she reached up and slapped him across the face. One of the suited men immediately stepped forward, but Dante lifted a hand, stopping him. He said something to the woman. I couldn't hear the words, but whatever he said made her face crumple for half a second before she turned and walked away. He didn't follow her. He didn't even watch her leave. Instead, he touched his cheek once, as if the slap had been nothing more than an inconvenience, and looked directly at me. This time, he didn't look away. I should have kept walking, but instead I stood beneath the broken awning like an i***t, rainwater sliding down the back of my neck. His eyes narrowed slightly. He said something to the man beside him, then began crossing the street. Every sensible instinct I possessed told me to move, but my feet seemed determined to embarrass me. He stopped a few steps away. Up close, he was even more unsettling. He smelled faintly of cedarwood and rain, and there was a tiny scar near his left eyebrow that I hadn't noticed from across the street. His expression was calm, but his eyes were not. They moved over my face as if he were searching for a detail he had forgotten. "You're going to get sick standing out here," he said. I blinked. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize you were in charge of the weather." Something changed in his expression. It wasn't quite a smile, but it was close enough to make me wonder what his smile would look like. "Most people say thank you." "Most people don't approach strangers and criticize their weather-related decisions." "Fair enough." He glanced at the broken umbrella dangling from my wrist. "That thing isn't doing much for you." "It's going through a difficult time." This time, the corner of his mouth actually lifted. The expression lasted barely a second, but it transformed his face in a way that annoyed me. Men who looked like him shouldn't be allowed to smile unexpectedly. It made them seem human, and I had a feeling humanity was the last thing Dante De Velante wanted people to notice. "What's your name?" he asked. I hesitated. There was no reason not to answer a simple question, yet something about the way he watched me made the hairs on my arms rise. "Shayna." His expression changed. It was subtle, almost invisible, but I saw it. His shoulders stiffened, and his eyes flicked briefly toward the men beside the car before returning to me. "Shayna what?" "Do you usually interrogate women you meet on rainy streets?" "Only the interesting ones." "Then you must have a very quiet social life." He looked at me for another moment. "Alvarez?" The sound of my surname coming from his mouth made my stomach tighten. "How do you know that?" For the first time, his expression lost its careful composure. His gaze sharpened, and something cold settled behind his eyes. "Go home, Shayna." I stared at him. "Excuse me?" "Go home. Don't walk alone after dark, and if someone approaches you asking about your family, don't answer them." A nervous laugh escaped me. "You cannot be serious." "I am." "Do you always give strangers mysterious warnings without explaining why?" "Only when they should listen." He stepped back, his face closing off again. Before I could ask another question, one of the men called his name. Dante turned toward the car, then looked over his shoulder at me. "Forget you saw me tonight." Then he left. I watched the black car disappear into the rain, my heart beating far too quickly for a conversation that had lasted less than five minutes. By the time I reached our apartment, my clothes were damp, my shoes were ruined, and I had convinced myself that Dante De Velante was simply another wealthy man who had grown accustomed to ordering the world around him. I told myself I would forget him by morning. I was wrong. The apartment was dark when I arrived, except for the yellow light spilling from the kitchen. Camila sat at the table in her favorite oversized sweater, her dark hair tied into a messy bun, a half-empty mug of coffee beside her laptop. At twenty-two, she had somehow become both my sister and the person responsible for keeping our lives from collapsing into complete chaos. She worked as an assistant at a law firm downtown and had developed the habit of studying every problem as if it were a legal case she could win with enough determination. She looked up the moment I entered. "You're soaked." "Hello to you too." "Shayna." "Camila." She stared at me, unimpressed. "Did you walk all the way home in that rain?" "No, I flew." She closed her laptop. "One day, you're going to answer a question without being difficult, and I will probably faint from the shock." I dropped my bag onto the chair opposite her and peeled off my wet coat. "I met someone strange." Her expression changed immediately. "Strange how?" "Rich. Annoyingly handsome. Possibly allergic to explaining himself." "That describes half the men in Bellarosa." "His name is Dante De Velante." The silence that followed was so sudden that I could hear the rain tapping against the kitchen window. Camila's fingers froze around her mug. "What did you just say?" I frowned. "Dante De Velante." "Where did you meet him?" "Outside the old restaurant on Via Bellini. Why?" She set the mug down carefully, as if the smallest movement might break something. "What did he say to you?" I repeated our conversation, including his warning about going home and not speaking to anyone who asked about our family. The more I spoke, the paler Camila seemed to become. By the time I finished, she was no longer looking at me. She was staring at the kitchen window, where the rain had turned the glass into a dark, wavering mirror. "Camila?" She stood so quickly that her chair scraped across the floor. "You need to stay away from him." I almost laughed. "That's exactly what he told me." "Then, for once in your life, listen." "Why is everyone acting as if I've just announced I'm joining a criminal organization? He's a man, not a curse." "You don't understand." "Then explain it to me!" My voice came out louder than I intended. Camila flinched, and guilt pricked at me immediately. We had been through enough together to know that shouting rarely solved anything, but I was tired of being treated like a child whenever our grandmother's past came up. Camila pressed her fingertips against her forehead. "Nonna knew the De Velantes," she finally said. I waited for more, but she offered nothing else. "How?" "I don't know." "That's not an answer." "It's the only one I have." "Did she work for them? Did they threaten her? Did something happen between our families?" "I said I don't know, Shayna." Her voice cracked on my name. I fell silent. Camila rarely cried. She was the person who handled funeral arrangements, paid bills, made phone calls, and remembered to buy groceries when grief made the rest of us forget that people still needed to eat. Seeing fear in her eyes was worse than hearing it in her voice. She crossed the kitchen and took my hands. "Listen to me carefully. If Dante De Velante speaks to you again, you walk away. You don't argue. You don't try to prove that you're brave. You don't investigate his family because you're curious. You walk away." "Why?" "Because I cannot lose you too." The words settled between us. I wanted to argue, to demand answers until every locked door in our family's history stood open, but then I remembered our grandmother's trembling hands and the fear she had tried so desperately to hide. So I nodded. "Okay," I whispered. Camila pulled me into a hug, holding me tightly enough that I could feel her heart beating against mine. Neither of us noticed the envelope beneath the front door, not until the next morning. I found it at 7:13 a.m., when I stepped into the hallway to collect the newspaper our elderly neighbor sometimes left outside our apartment. The envelope lay directly in front of our door, perfectly dry despite the storm that had continued through the night. There was no stamp, no return address, and no name written on the front. Only one word: SHAYNA. My stomach tightened. I picked it up and turned it over. The paper was thick, almost luxurious, and smelled faintly of smoke and expensive cologne. For a moment, I considered throwing it away without opening it. Camila's warning echoed in my mind, and I could almost hear our grandmother telling me that curiosity had a price. Then I noticed the small black symbol pressed into the wax seal: a rose, its stem curled around a narrow blade. I had seen that symbol before, not on a family photograph or an old letter, but in the corner of a portrait that had hung above our grandmother's fireplace for as long as I could remember. The painting showed a young woman standing in front of a stone mansion, her face turned away from the artist. The rose-and-blade symbol had been carved into the wooden frame. Whenever I asked about it, Nonna would tell me the painting was old and change the subject. My fingers trembled as I broke the seal. Inside was a single photograph. It showed a grand mansion burning beneath a blackened sky. Flames climbed the windows, illuminating the gardens in violent shades of orange. Several figures stood near the gates, their faces blurred by smoke and distance. One figure was unmistakable. Dante De Velante stood in the foreground, dressed in black, his face turned toward the burning building. Beside him was a younger man who looked enough like Dante to be his brother. He had the same dark hair, the same sharp cheekbones, and the same expression of someone who had learned far too young that the world could be cruel. I turned the photograph over. Three sentences had been written across the back in neat, deliberate handwriting. STAY AWAY FROM DANTE DE VELANTE. HIS FAMILY DESTROYS EVERYTHING IT TOUCHES. ESPECIALLY IF HE TELLS YOU HE LOVES YOU. I read the final sentence twice, then a third time. My hands went cold. It wasn't simply a warning. It was a warning about something that hadn't happened yet, something so specific that it felt less like a threat and more like a glimpse into a future someone had already decided for me. I hurried into the kitchen, where Camila was preparing breakfast. "Did you put something outside my door?" She turned around. "What?" I held up the photograph. The color drained from her face. "Where did you get that?" "It was outside the apartment." She took it from me, staring at the image as if she recognized the building. Her thumb moved over the edge of the photograph, and I saw her swallow. "Camila, who is that man beside Dante?" She didn't answer. "Is he his brother?" Her silence told me enough. I took the photograph back. "You knew about him." "No," she said quickly. "I knew there was an older brother. That's all." "What happened to him?" "I don't know." "Why does everyone in this family keep saying that?" "Because sometimes not knowing is the only thing that keeps you safe!" Her voice rang through the kitchen. We stared at each other, and then Camila reached for the photograph again, but I pulled it away. "I'm not a little girl anymore." "I know." "Then stop treating me like one." "I am trying to protect you." "From what? A photograph?" "From people who know things about us that we don't even know ourselves." The fear in her voice silenced me. For a moment, neither of us moved. Then Camila turned away and braced both hands against the kitchen counter. "Promise me you won't go looking for him," she whispered. I stared down at the photograph, at Dante's face, at the burning mansion, at the brother whose name I didn't know. "I promise," I said. It was the first lie I had ever told my sister that I knew, even as the words left my mouth, I would not keep. By noon, I had searched every available article about the De Velante family. Their empire stretched across Bellarosa, from luxury hotels and historic properties to shipping companies and private investment firms. Their name appeared on charity boards, university buildings, and the invitations to events that most people could only dream of attending. Photographs showed them smiling beside business owners and celebrities, always perfectly dressed and surrounded by people who looked as if they had never been told no. Dante De Velante, twenty years old, was described in one society magazine as the family's reluctant heir. He rarely attended public events alone, and he gave almost no interviews. The few photographs of him showed a young man who looked uncomfortable in expensive rooms, as though he preferred the company of shadows to the attention of strangers. His older brother, Matteo De Velante, had disappeared three years earlier. The official statement from the family described Matteo's disappearance as a private matter. No criminal charges had been filed, and no confirmed explanation had ever been made public. The burning mansion in the photograph had belonged to a De Velante property outside the city, abandoned after a fire on the night Matteo vanished. I read the same article four times. Three years. A missing brother. A burned mansion. And Dante standing outside the flames. There was one other detail that made my skin prickle: the date of the fire. It was the same date our grandmother had written on the back of the mysterious portrait above her fireplace. October 17. I glanced at the calendar. October 17 was tomorrow. My phone vibrated on the desk. An unknown number. For several seconds, I simply stared at the screen. Then I opened the message. You have the photograph. Good. A second message appeared before I could respond. Now you need to understand what it means. I typed a reply. Who is this? The response came almost immediately. Someone who knew your grandmother. My mouth went dry. What do you want from me? This time, the pause lasted longer. Then: The truth. Before Dante decides you are more useful to him than you are to yourself. I stood so abruptly that my chair rolled backward and struck the wall. What truth? The message showed as delivered, but no reply came. I tried calling the number, but the call failed. When I searched it online, nothing appeared. It was as if the person on the other end had never existed. I should have shown Camila. I should have called someone I trusted. I should have done any number of sensible things. Instead, I returned to the article about Dante's family and searched for the address of the old De Velante estate. I found it in less than five minutes. A magnificent mansion stood on the outskirts of Bellarosa, surrounded by iron gates and a wall covered in climbing ivy. The property was still owned by the family, although the main house had been closed to the public since the fire. The photographs online showed a place that had once been beautiful, with tall windows, sweeping staircases, and gardens that extended toward the distant hills. I saved the address, then shut my laptop. I told myself I was only gathering information. I wasn't going to visit the estate. I wasn't going to speak to Dante. I certainly wasn't going to involve myself in a mystery that had already frightened my sister half to death. I repeated those promises until I almost believed them. At six that evening, someone knocked on our apartment door. Camila was still at work, and I was alone. I approached the door quietly and looked through the peephole. A man in a dark suit stood in the hallway. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and perhaps in his forties, with silver beginning to show at his temples. He held a small black box in one hand. I didn't recognize him. "Who is it?" I called. "Delivery for Miss Alvarez." "From whom?" "The De Velante family." Every sensible part of my mind told me to leave the door locked. Instead, I opened it a few inches, keeping the chain in place. The man regarded me with a polite expression that did nothing to soften his eyes. "Miss Shayna Alvarez?" "Yes." He extended the box. "Mr. Dante De Velante asked me to deliver this personally." My heart gave a sharp, ridiculous leap. "I didn't order anything." "No, miss." "Then why is he sending me gifts?" For the first time, the man looked uncomfortable. "It's not a gift." I glanced down at the box. It was made of black wood, polished until it reflected the hallway lights. A small silver rose had been fixed to the lid. The same rose-and-blade symbol. "What is it?" "I was instructed to tell you that Mr. De Velante would appreciate a conversation." "Tell him I'm not interested." The man's expression remained unchanged. "I will pass along your message." He handed me a small card before turning away. I closed the door and waited until I heard the elevator descend. Then I removed the chain and hurried back into the apartment, carrying the box as if it might contain something far more dangerous than paper. For several minutes, I simply stared at it. Finally, I opened the lid. Inside lay a black rose, its petals dark as midnight. Beneath it was a folded piece of paper. I unfolded it carefully. Shayna, I don't know who sent you that photograph, but I know why they chose you. If you want answers, meet me tomorrow at eight. The Belladonna Hotel. Rooftop terrace. Come alone. And whatever you do, don't tell your sister. There was no signature. There didn't need to be one. I read the message again, my pulse beating in my throat. I hated how quickly curiosity began to overcome fear. I hated that the man who had warned me to stay away from him was now the one offering answers. Most of all, I hated that some small, reckless part of me wanted to see him again. Because Dante De Velante was a stranger, a stranger with a missing brother, a burning mansion, and a family history that made my sister afraid. A stranger who somehow knew my name before I had told him my surname. And yet, as I held that note in my trembling hands, I couldn't shake the feeling that our meeting had been arranged long before I ever saw him standing in the rain. My phone vibrated again. Another message from the unknown number. Don't go to the hotel. I stared at the screen. A second message followed. Dante isn't the one you should fear. Then a third. Ask him what happened to Matteo at 11:47 p.m. My breath caught. I looked at the photograph lying on my desk, at the flames, the mansion, Dante's expressionless face. And suddenly, I noticed something I hadn't seen before. In the far-right corner of the photograph, almost hidden behind the smoke, stood a woman holding a little girl by the hand. The woman wore a dark coat. The girl wore a white ribbon in her hair. I turned the photograph toward the light, my fingers trembling as I brought it closer to my face. The woman looked familiar. Terribly familiar. Because the woman in the photograph was my grandmother. And the little girl standing beside her was me. I dropped the photograph onto the desk as if it had burned my fingers. For a long moment, I couldn't breathe properly. I was too young to remember the night of the fire, but I recognized the ribbon in the little girl's hair. I had seen it in an old family album, tucked beside a photograph of my grandmother holding me on my third birthday. I had always believed that picture was taken in our old garden. Now I wasn't certain of anything. Why had my grandmother been at the De Velante estate? Why had she never told us? And why had someone gone to so much trouble to make sure I discovered the truth now? I picked up the photograph again, studying the shadows near the gates. There was another figure standing behind my grandmother, almost entirely hidden by smoke. I couldn't make out the person's face, but I could see one hand resting on her shoulder. On the person's wrist was a silver watch with a distinctive black face. I had seen that watch before. Dante had worn one just like it when we met in the rain. My phone lit up once more, but this time it wasn't the unknown number. It was a message from an unfamiliar account with no profile picture. Tomorrow. Eight o'clock. Don't be late, Shayna. I stared at the words, my pulse pounding. I hadn't told anyone I was considering going to the hotel. I hadn't replied to Dante's invitation. And yet someone already knew what I was going to do. I looked toward the window, where the last of the evening light was fading behind the rooftops of Bellarosa. Somewhere beyond the city, behind iron gates and walls covered in ivy, stood the burned mansion where my grandmother had once taken me. Somewhere in this city, Dante De Velante was carrying secrets that could destroy both our families. And somewhere in the darkness, a stranger was watching me uncover them one by one. I should have been frightened enough to walk away. I should have kept my promise to Camila and forgotten the entire thing. Instead, I placed the photograph inside my bag, folded Dante's note into my coat pocket, and made a decision that would haunt me long after that rainy night was over. Tomorrow, I would meet Dante De Velante. I would ask him about his missing brother, about the fire, and about the night my grandmother had tried so desperately to erase from our history. I would demand the truth, even if it shattered everything I believed about my family. What I didn't know was that Dante had already begun asking questions about me, and that the answers he had found were making him reconsider everything he thought he knew. By the time the clock struck midnight, a black car had parked across the street from our apartment building. Behind its tinted windows, a man watched the lights in my bedroom go out. He lifted his phone and made a call. "She has the photograph," he said quietly. A voice answered from the other end, too low to distinguish. The man glanced up at my dark window. "Yes. She found the girl in the picture." There was a pause. Then the man said the words that would have changed everything if I had been awake enough to hear them. "No, sir. Dante doesn't know yet that she's the one who survived." The call ended. The black car pulled away from the curb and disappeared into the sleeping city, leaving nothing behind except the rain and the secrets it carried. And I, Shayna Alvarez, fell asleep believing I was about to uncover the truth about Dante De Velante, never imagining that the greatest mystery of all was the truth about myself.