Chapter 4 - Secrets in the Flour SacksThe neon light from the diner sign flickered outside, casting long, dancing shadows across the bags of flour stacked around us. Moretti didn't bite down on anything; he simply clenched his jaw, his knuckles turning white as I pushed the needle through his torn flesh. Not a single sound escaped his lips, save for a sharp intake of breath that whistled through his teeth.
"You've taken bullet wounds before," I noted, my hands moving with mechanical precision as I tied off the first suture.
"More times than I can count," Moretti muttered, staring straight ahead at the opposite wall. "When you run the North River docks and half the import syndicates in Manhattan, enemies come with the territory. But tonight wasn't a rival family. It was an inside job."
I paused, holding the suture thread in mid-air. "An inside job? You think Marco set you up?"
"Not Marco," Moretti's eyes narrowed, a dark, dangerous light returning to them. "Marco is a blunt instrument. He hits what I point him at. But someone higher up—someone who knows my security routes—leaned on my driver tonight. They wanted me dead before the midnight summit at the harbor."
"And instead of going to your crew, you stumbled into a greasy-spoon diner in Queens?"
"My phone was destroyed in the ambush," Moretti said bitterly. "And yours was the only light on for three blocks. I didn't plan on dragging an innocent girl into a war, Elena."
"Well, you did," I said, finishing the final knot and snipping the thread with the kitchen shears. I slapped a large sterile gauze pad over the stitches and taped it down securely. "And now I'm an accomplice. If Marco comes back and finds out I patched you up, they'll feed us both to the Hudson."
Moretti reached into his ruined pocket and pulled out a heavy, platinum signet ring encrusted with a small diamond and engraved with the same black serpent emblem. He held it out toward me.
"Take it," he said.
I stared at the ring, then back up at his face. "What am I supposed to do with this? Pawn it? I'd get arrested for fencing stolen mafia property in five minutes."
"If anyone from my organization—or any rival family—bothers you again, show them that ring," Moretti said firmly. "Tell them Dante Moretti is still breathing. It will buy you safe passage anywhere in New York. And tomorrow morning, once the sun comes up and my people secure a safehouse, you'll never see me again."
I looked at the platinum ring glinting under the harsh yellow bulb. It represented everything I had tried to escape for three years—danger, blood, and the dark underworld of Italian-American syndicates that had swallowed half my neighborhood growing up.
Slowly, I reached out and took it. It was heavy, cold, and unnervingly personal.
"All right," I whispered. "You stay here until dawn. I'll lock the front doors, flip the sign to closed, and pretend the diner is empty. But the moment the sun hits that street, you walk out that back door and disappear."
Moretti nodded slowly, closing his eyes as exhaustion finally took over his battered frame. "Agreed."
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I stood up, wiping my hands on my jeans, and walked out of the storage room, locking the door behind me with a heavy steel padlock.
Little did I know, dawn was still hours away—and the real nightmare was just beginning to knock on my front door.
