Mafia Don’s Lost Heiress Chapter 02
Carolina dropped into the seat beside me and looked me up and down.
“What the hell are you wearing? Your makeup makes
you look like you crawled out of the gutter, and you think you can worm your way into an old family?”
I said nothing, curling my right hand into a fist beside my knee.
Hold it together. Just a little longer.
Once I made it through tonight, I would finally have enough money to travel to Louisiana and find the person who was said to have seen my father.
I had already been searching for twenty years. I could
survive one more night.
When Carolina saw that I wasn’t talking back, the
contempt in her eyes deepened.
“What are you staring at?”
Her hand cracked across my face again.
I stumbled and nearly fell against the coffee table.
This time, Don Valenti finally stood.
My heart lurched. For a second, I almost thought he
might ask whether I was hurt.
Instead, he walked straight to Carolina, took her hand, and turned it over to inspect her palm.
“You hit her pretty hard. Does your hand hurt?”
His voice was full of helpless affection.
“You’ll be whining to me about your hand again when
we get home.”
Carolina shot me a smug look.
Only after Don Valenti had finished checking her hand
did he turn to me.
“Kid, Carolina was out of line tonight.”
He paused, his voice growing heavier.
“When I adopted her, I thought that if another family had taken in my daughter, at least they might be
treating her like a little princess too.”
Several men from New York’s old families sighed in
sympathy.
“Don Valenti has practically driven himself mad
searching for his daughter all these years.”
“That search is what pushed him to build the Valenti
family into what it is today.”
“You have no idea what it was like when the little
Principessa disappeared. The Don personally led his
men through every corner of Brooklyn for three days and nights, searching for her.”
“Whenever he got drunk, he would say he had failed
his wife and that child.”
Another man added, “I heard the little Principessa has
a burn scar on her right arm. The Don accidentally
spilled scalding water on her while trying to warm her bottle.”
My breath caught.
My right hand moved to my arm before I could stop it.
There was an old scar there too.
The people who bought me when I was little used to
call it ugly. They said it looked like a worm crawling
across my skin.
But I could never bring myself to cover it.
I had a hazy memory of a man holding me, crying as he
kissed the scar.
“Willow, I’m sorry. Daddy didn’t mean to.”
The name was Willow.
It had stayed with me for years.
But I still didn’t know whether it was really mine.
Carolina rested her head against Don Valenti’s
shoulder and clung to his arm.
“Daddy, I’m hungry.”
Laura lowered her gaze and handed her a menu.
Carolina flipped through two pages before saying
casually, “Two orders of pasta. Extra parsley.”
My head snapped up.
Don Valenti was looking down at his phone and didn’t notice.
A memory cut through the fog in my mind.
We almost never had parsley in the house when I was little.
Whenever our nanny cooked, Daddy would remind her
over and over, “Willow and I are allergic to parsley.
Not even a little.”
The words tore through years of fractured memories.
Carolina had already speared a forkful of pasta and
held it out to Don Valenti.
“Here, Daddy. Let me give you a bite.”
“Don’t eat that! It has parsley!”
The warning burst out of me before I could stop it.
Every head in the VIP lounge turned toward me.