Dena’s hand paused over a ramekin of garlic aioli. Her dark eyes, usually sharp with the cynical exhaustion of ten years in the Chicago restaurant scene, softened into something genuinely worried.

"Ellie, your face looks like you just saw a ghost," Dena whispered, leaning in close so the clatter of the line cooks wouldn't drown her out. "And not the friendly Casper kind. The kind that leaves a body behind."

"It's nothing," I lied, the words tasting like ash on my tongue. I forced my fingers to curl tightly around the edge of the stainless-steel counter until my knuckles turned white. "Just... an old customer. Someone I knew a long time ago."

"A long time ago," Dena repeated, raising a skeptical eyebrow. She glanced past the swinging kitchen doors into the dim, moody amber lighting of the dining room. "Honey, the guy sitting at Table 12 isn't just an 'old customer.' He looks like he owns the block. Or like he'd buy the block just to burn it down for insurance. Look at his security detail. Those two guys in the custom-tailored suits standing by the exit aren't waiting for a calamari appetizer."

My breath hitched. I hadn't even dared to look at the men standing behind him. I had been too paralyzed by the sheer, terrifying gravity of Dominic’s presence.

"I have to take his drinks out," I said, my voice barely a rustle of dry leaves.

"Let Marco take them," Dena offered instantly, her loyalty fierce. "You look like you're about to pass out."

"No." I shook my head, a stubborn surge of pride overriding the sheer, screaming terror in my chest. If Dominic Castiano—the boy who had promised me the stars and then vanished into the Chicago fog like a phantom—wanted to walk back into my life, he was going to see me standing upright. He wasn't going to get the satisfaction of knowing he broke me completely. "No. I'll do it. It's my table."

I picked up the heavy crystal tumbler filled with amber Macallan and placed it alongside three craft IPAs on a silver tray. My forearms shook slightly as I lifted it, the muscles straining under the weight.

Deep breath, Ellie.

I pushed through the swinging doors and stepped back into the dining room. The hum of conversation, the clinking of silverware, and the soft jazz playing over the speakers seemed to fade into a hollow, high-pitched ringing in my ears.

Table 12 sat in the secluded back corner booth, draped in deep navy velvet that swallowed the light. Dominic was leaning forward, his forearms resting on the dark wood table. His custom suit—charcoal grey, impeccably cut—stretched across broad shoulders that were much wider than the scrawny, angry eighteen-year-old boy I had loved with a blind, desperate foolishness.

As I approached, his companions fell silent. One of them, a mountain of a man with a broken nose and eyes like chipped flint, tracked my every movement. But I didn't look at the bodyguard. My gaze locked onto Dominic.

"Your Scotch," I said, setting the glass down. My voice was smooth, trained by years of dealing with difficult drunks and entitled businessmen. "And the IPAs for your guests."

Dominic didn't touch the glass. Instead, his eyes slowly rose from the polished wooden table, tracing up the black apron, past the frayed collar of my blouse, until they met mine.

Up close, the changes were devastating. The soft, reckless edges of his youth had been hammered away by whatever underworld furnace had forged him into Chicago's most feared kingpin. The scar cutting vertically through his right eyebrow gave him a permanent, predatory edge. But it was his gaze—intense, burning, and completely unblinking—that paralyzed me.

"You didn't change your perfume," he murmured. His voice was lower now, a gravelly baritone that seemed to vibrate straight down my spine.

"People grow up, Mr. Castiano," I replied coolly, stepping back. "Can I get you anything else to start? Our specials tonight are—"

"Ellie."

He didn't say it loud, but the single word dropped onto the table like a lead weight. The two men flanking him stiffened almost imperceptibly.

"My name is Eleanor," I corrected, my chin lifting defensively. "If you need anything else, flag down another server. I have other tables."

I turned on my heel to walk away, fully expecting him to let me go. But a large, warm, heavily calloused hand shot out, catching my wrist with a grip of iron—firm enough to stop me dead in my tracks, but not tight enough to bruise.