HIS BELLISSIMA

THE GIRL IN THE PHOTOGRAH

Morning had settled over the city, but inside Matteo's office, everything was unnervingly quiet.

He sat behind the large mahogany desk, leaning back in his chair as the events of the previous night replayed in his mind. The room was spacious and imposing, its dark wooden walls and floor-to-ceiling windows giving it an air of quiet authority. Shelves lined with leather-bound books occupied one wall, while every other detail, from the polished furniture to the carefully chosen décor, spoke of wealth, power, and influence.

But Matteo's attention was on none of it. His gaze remained fixed on the gun resting in his hand.

The golden weapon had been passed down through generations of the Santoro family. It was more than a firearm. It was a physical representation of the title he now carried, the mark of the Don. Almost a year ago, his grandfather had placed it in his hands, along with the title that had belonged to generations of Santoro men before him.

DON MATTEO SANTORO.

He turned the weapon slowly between his fingers, studying the polished gold surface as the memory of the night before surfaced again. He had come to America to finish what his grandfather had started years ago, to seize complete control of the rival organization that had been at war with the Santoros for generations. The conflict had begun long before Matteo was born, both sides fighting over the same territory and the same operations. For years, his grandfather had worked to weaken the organization from the inside, taking piece after piece of it while eliminating anyone who stood in his way. One man had always remained untouchable, though. The organization's right hand, the one who kept their empire from falling apart.

Until last night.

By morning, his men had delivered the man's severed head to the rival family in a carefully sealed box. It wasn't a warning. It was a declaration that the Santoros were no longer negotiating, and that a new Don had arrived to make sure of it.

The role had never felt like a burden. He'd been prepared for it since he was old enough to understand what his last name meant, trained to see the Santoro legacy as something built on power, loyalty, and fear in equal measure. His father, the man meant to inherit the title before him, had been murdered before he ever got the chance, and his death had put Matteo in the seat years earlier than anyone expected, making him the youngest Don in Santoro history. Perhaps that was why his grandfather had never once doubted whether he could carry it. Even as a boy, Matteo had unsettled people without trying, calm in rooms where calm didn't belong. His grandfather had noticed early, and had spent years shaping that stillness into something the whole family could stand behind.

He didn't intend to be the one who let it fall apart. Whatever it took to hold the line, he'd do it, the same as he had last night.

The office door swung open. Matteo's head snapped toward it, and in one motion he had the golden pistol raised and level with the doorway.

Dante froze mid-step, hands lifting slowly, eyes fixed on the barrel.

"Good morning to you too."

Matteo's expression didn't change. "Next time, knock."

"Noted." Dante lowered his hands but didn't quite relax. "Although if you shoot me over a closed door, you're the one explaining that to your grandfather."

Matteo set the gun down against the edge of the desk without comment, his narrowed gaze settling on his oldest friend. "What is it?"

Dante stepped in and shut the door behind him. "We found something."

"About the girl?"

"Yeah." He crossed the room and dropped a brown envelope onto the desk, tapping it once with two fingers. "You're going to want to see this."

Matteo tore it open and slid out a handful of photographs. In the first, the woman stood between two others, a golden-brown skin and dark waves that fell loose past her shoulders. The other, a light-brown-skinned Black woman, had a mess of curls and the kind of wide, easy smile that suggested she laughed often. Another photo showed her beside a young man with tousled brown hair, his arm slung around her shoulders in the casual way of someone who'd known her for years. A few more showed her with one friend, then the other, then all three together.

Her friends, he assumed, in the group shots. Whoever had taken the last one, he couldn't say.

The last photo in that set was different. Just her, alone, sitting on a set of concrete steps somewhere, knees pulled up, laughing at whoever was holding the camera. Matteo studied it a second longer than the others before setting it aside.

He looked up. "Her name?"

"Alondra Rosario." Dante moved to the small wine cabinet against the wall, pulling out a bottle of whiskey and pouring himself a glass.

"Twenty-four. Parents died in a car accident a few months back. No siblings, small circle of friends, nothing that reads as trouble." He knocked the drink back in one motion. "On paper, she's nobody."

"And off paper?"

Dante didn't answer right away. He set the glass down and reached into the envelope for a second set of photographs, laying them out on the desk like he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to.

"Her parents," he said.

Matteo's eyes went to the photographs. One stopped him.

A middle-aged man stood beside a woman who looked to be in her mid-thirties, both of them caught mid-laugh, her hand resting on his chest like it belonged there. There was an ease to the photo that felt out of place next to everything else on the desk.

He picked it up.

The resemblance hit him before he'd even fully processed what he was looking at. The same nose.The same set of the jaw. If he hadn't known better, he'd have guessed it was Alondra herself, years from now, caught in a moment of unguarded happiness.

"Her mother," he said. It wasn't a question.

"That's what it looks like." Dante was watching him now, not the photograph.

Matteo said nothing. He couldn't explain why a stranger's face, a woman he'd never met and likely never would, had any business settling under his skin the way it had. It wasn't recognition, not exactly. Just a familiarity he had no name for, and no patience for, either.

He glanced at Dante. Dante returned the look. The unspoken message was passed.

This woman was something.

His mind drifted back to the night before, to the moment they'd caught up with her in that alley and Dante had a gun half-raised before the sound of sirens made the decision for them. There'd been no time to think, only to move, to get her out before the police intervened.

She hadn't gone quietly. He remembered that much clearly, the way she'd twisted against Ron's grip and driven an elbow back hard enough to leave the man cursing under his breath for the rest of the drive.

It was a small thing, over in half a second, and it had changed nothing about how the night ended. But it had told him something about her anyway, something that had stayed with him longer than it should have. Most people froze. She'd fought. Even half-drunk, terrified, and outnumbered three to one, some part of her had refused to just let it happen.

He found that he liked it more than he probably should have.

It wasn't until they were back at the estate, until she was laid out and someone had wiped the blood from her temple, that he'd actually looked at her.

She hadn't looked like a liability then. She'd looked like someone who'd had a very bad night, which, in fairness, she had. And yet even unconscious, there'd been nothing helpless about her, not really. He couldn't decide if that made the situation better or considerably worse.

"Boss." Dante's voice pulled him back. "You've been staring at that picture for a solid minute."

Matteo set it down, a little more deliberately than the moment called for. "It's nothing."

Dante didn't look convinced, but he let it go, which was one of the things Matteo valued about him. He picked up the empty glass and headed for the door, leaving Matteo alone with the photographs still spread across the desk.

He wanted to see her again. Not unconscious this time.

He wanted to know what her eyes looked like when they finally met his, and for reasons he couldn't quite explain, he found himself impatient for it.