She just wanted to finish her shift and go home to her tiny apartment, where her sick grandmother waited. Every day was a fight to survive on the edges of a world that had no mercy for people like her.
Sophia, who had been staring at her plate all evening, suddenly lifted her head.
Her gaze locked onto Elena.
The room fell into an even deeper silence.
Victor Romano frowned. He wasn’t used to interruptions—especially not from his daughter.
Slowly, chillingly, Sophia raised her small hand.
Her index finger extended, trembling, pointing directly at the waitress.
Everyone stopped breathing.
Then—
from the child’s lips came a sound no one had ever heard before.
A single word. Soft. Hoarse. Newly born.
“Mom.”
The wine bottle slipped from Elena’s hands and shattered across the marble floor, red liquid spreading like blood. Her eyes widened in pure shock and terror.
Sophia repeated it, louder this time.
“Mom.”
Victor Romano’s face hardened into a mask that promised hell.
What happened next would freeze anyone to the bone.
