Prologue
Espresso, Accents, and the Day Everything Went Wrong
I was seventeen the day I learned that destiny doesn’t arrive on horseback or with ominous violins. It arrives wearing sneakers that squeak on tile floors, speaking too loudly, and asking if a macchiato is “the one with caramel drizzle.”
I am Lotario Alessi- Takanashi. Half Italian, half Japanese, fully irritated by strangers. I don’t smile easily. My father says it’s because our family business trained me to notice threats. My mother says it’s because I was born frowning, like I’d already read the fine print of life and disagreed with it. Both may be true.
On that morning, I was in my Nona’s café—Caffè Belladonna—a place that smelled of roasted beans, old secrets, and pastries capable of making grown men confess crimes. The café was neutral ground. No deals. No weapons. No drama. Or at least, that’s what we told ourselves.
I was behind the counter, pretending to wipe an already spotless espresso machine, when the bell above the door rang.
Enter: the American.
She burst in like the café was on fire and she alone had survived. Blonde hair pulled into a messy ponytail, eyes too curious for her own good, and a confidence that could only come from someone who didn’t know where—or who—she was dealing with.
“Hi!” she said, smiling at me as if we were old friends or coworkers or characters in one of those sitcoms Nona hates. “Wow, it smells amazing in here.”
I nodded once. This was my polite face.
She leaned over the counter. Leaned. Over. The counter. Such a sacred boundary overstepped so casually. “So, do you guys do, like, oat milk? Or almond? Or—oh!—is this one of those places where you judge people for that?”
Honestly me judging her should have been the least of her worries.
Annoyance was a sharp, familiar taste on my tongue. She was disruption, she was noise and she was everything I was trained to eliminate from my world.
Nona emerged from the kitchen, flour on her hands and suspicion in her eyes. She scanned the girl like a customs officer. “Americana?” she asked.
The girl beamed. “Is it that obvious?”
“Yes,” Nona said. “Sit. Rio will make you something. He makes better coffee when he is grumpy.”
“I am not grumpy,” I muttered.
The girl slid onto a stool, spinning slightly. “I’m Sage,” she announced, sticking out her hand toward me. “I just moved here. Your café is, like, the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.”
I stared at her hand. Then at her face. Then back at the hand. “Yeah...l don't think so.” l grumbled as l ignored her hand that was still stretched towards me in silent anticipation.
She laughed. Laughed. As if this were charming. “Okay, mysterious. I get it. Strong silent type. Very anime.”
I don’t watch anime, which somehow made that worse.
As I pulled her espresso shot, she kept talking. About the town. The weather. How Italian words were “aggressively romantic” and how my accent was “illegal in at least five states.” Each sentence slowly chipped away at my patience like water on stone.
I handed her the cup. “Drink,” I said. “Quietly.”
She took a sip. Her eyes widened. “Oh. Oh wow. I think I just understood religion.”
I hated that my mouth almost smiled. Key word: ALMOST.
I didn’t know it then, but that was the moment—the first crack. The start of something slow, unwanted and inevitable. Like rust or love.
I watched her talk to Nona, watched her belong too easily in a place she had no history with. I told myself she was temporary. A tourist and a nuisance.
I was wrong about many things at seventeen.
But that is a story for later.
