Chapter 3 - The Price of a SecretMarco’s eyes lingered on the narrow corridor at the back of the diner. The air seemed to drop ten degrees as he took a slow, deliberate step toward the hallway.
"Marco," the scarred man warned softly from the pastry case. "The boss wants confirmation tonight. We don't have time to play games with a waitress."
Marco stopped, his boot hovering inches from the linoleum line that separated the dining room from the back corridors. He turned his head back toward me, a slow, predatory grin spreading across his face.
"You're right, Leo," Marco muttered. He pulled a silver cigarette case from his coat, flipped it open with his thumb, and extracted a cigarette without lighting it. He tossed a twenty-dollar bill onto the counter, letting it land right in front of me. "Keep the change, Elena. Buy yourself a new mop. You're going to need it."
With a final, lingering look around the room, Marco turned on his heel. Leo followed close behind, his hand still resting inside his coat. The bell above the door jingled once as they stepped back out into the freezing New York downpour, vanishing into the gray shroud of the early morning.
I waited until the sound of their idling sedan engine faded down the avenue before my legs completely gave out.
I grabbed the edge of the counter, sliding down until I hit the floor, letting out a ragged breath that felt like broken glass in my lungs. My hands were shaking so violently I couldn't even ball them into fists.
They almost checked the storage room. If Marco had taken two more steps, Moretti and I would both be dead on the floor.
"Elena."
The voice came from the darkness of the hallway.
I scrambled to my feet, grabbing a heavy ceramic mug from the counter just in case. Moretti was leaning heavily against the doorframe of the storage room. He looked even worse than before; his face was chalk-white, and sweat plastered his dark hair to his forehead. He had managed to wrap a roll of industrial paper towels tightly around his shoulder to stem the flow of blood, but crimson was already soaking through the thick brown paper.
"They're gone," I snapped, my voice shaking with a mixture of terror and white-hot fury. "They're gone, but they know someone helped you. They left a twenty-dollar bill and a threat."
Moretti slid down the doorframe until he hit the floor, letting out a low groan. He looked up at me, his dark eyes no longer fierce, but strangely reflective.
"You lied to Marco's face," Moretti said, his voice barely a rasp. "In fluent Italian earlier... and now you lie to the most dangerous enforcers in the Tri-State area without missing a beat. Who taught you that?"
"My grandmother," I snapped, walking over and grabbing my medical kit from the shelf behind the counter—a dusty box containing rubbing alcohol, gauze, and sutures I had bought after a grease burn last winter. "She immigrated from Calabria when she was twenty. She taught me Italian, she taught me how to cook, and she taught me how to spot liars. Unfortunately, she forgot to teach me how to say no to dying mafia bosses."
Moretti let out a dry, wheezing laugh that quickly turned into a cough. "Calabria... that explains the stubbornness. A Calabrian mule has nothing on you."
"Shut up and let me look at that shoulder," I ordered, dropping to my knees beside him.
I cut away the remaining scraps of his expensive charcoal suit jacket and the blood-soaked shirt beneath it. When the fabric peeled back, I saw the entry wound—clean, deep, and cauterized slightly at the edges.
"It went through clean," I whispered, relief washing over me. "No bullet lodged in the bone, but you've lost a lot of blood. If we don't stitch this up and get you antibiotics, infection is going to finish what Marco's gun started."
May you like
Moretti grabbed my wrist again, his grip surprisingly firm for a man on the brink of collapse. "No hospitals. The emergency rooms in this city answer to the syndicate. If I walk into a hospital, I'm dead before they prep the table."
"Then you're lucky I'm stubborn," I said, pulling out a curved needle and pouring rubbing alcohol over the stainless steel. "Bite down on something. This is going to hurt."
