Chapter 2
The words hung in the air, vibrating.
*Don’t dare me.*
Vinnie Gallo found his voice first. “You get your filthy hand off him,” he growled, and the pistol grip appeared in his fist, black steel catching the candlelight.
“Vinnie.”
Moretti did not raise his voice. He did not need to. The command in the single word was absolute, and Vinnie froze with his hand still on the gun.
Then Moretti turned his full attention back to Bella, and looked at her the way a man looks at a piece of evidence.
He looked at her eyes — not blue, not brown, but a defiant hazel that flashed with terror and something else he could not name. He looked at her mouth, pressed into a hard, stubborn line. He could see her pulse in her throat. She was terrified.
She was not backing down.
He had been threatened by men with guns. Cursed by rivals. Pleaded with by politicians. He had never in his life been told no by a waitress. He had never been *warned*.
The corner of his mouth twitched. It was not a smile. It was something more dangerous.
Curiosity.
Slowly, deliberately, he relaxed his fingers. The glass slipped from his grip and landed on the linen with a dull thud. It did not break.
Only then did Bella let go, pulling her hand back as if she had been burned.
Moretti rubbed the spot on his wrist where her fingers had been. He looked at Bianke, still whimpering.
“Get out, Salvatore. Before I change my mind.” He flicked his fingers at the envelope. “And you can take your interest with you. It’s not nearly enough.”
Bianke scrambled. He grabbed the envelope and his fallen chair and practically crawled out of the restaurant, not stopping even for his coat. The door slammed, and the bell above it rang in the silence he left behind.
Moretti reached into his jacket.
Bella flinched — a small, involuntary movement she hated herself for.
He paused, watching her reaction. Then he drew out a thick black leather wallet and extracted a stack of hundred-dollar bills, too many to count, and set them on the table. A small mountain of money that more than covered the Solaia and the steak.
He stood. He was well over six feet, and he loomed over her, and she had to tilt her head back to keep his eyes. She refused to step away.
He adjusted his cuffs.
“The steak was excellent, Isabella.”
Her blood went cold. Of course he knew her name. Her name tag was right there on her chest. But the way he said it made it sound like a secret or a threat.
He walked out. Vinnie shot her a look of pure venom — a promise of retribution — but Moretti never looked back, and the bell on the door jangled softly behind him.
The moment the door closed, Bella’s knees gave out. She grabbed the back of the booth.
“Oh my god,” Chloe breathed, rushing over. “Oh my god. What did you do?”
“He’s—” Bella could barely get the words out. “He’s Aleandro Moretti.”
“I *know* who he is.”
Bella stared at the money on the table. It was more than she made in a month. It was Marco’s next treatment, sitting there in a pile on white linen.
“You’re fired.” Mr. Henderson squeaked it from the doorway, his face ashen. “You can’t talk to a guest like that. Not *that* guest.”
Bella turned on him, and the fear in her chest was suddenly replaced by a sharp, cold anger.
“You were hiding in the kitchen, Mr. Henderson. He was about to assault another guest. He was about to bring this entire restaurant down. I saved your precious establishment.” She pointed at the cash. “And he paid his bill.”
Henderson looked at the money. Then at her. Then at the door.
“Just — clean the table,” he stammered, his authority collapsing. “And don’t do it again.”
He scurried away.
Bella cleared the table with hands that shook so badly the plates rattled. She had faced the lion in his den. She had poked the beast.
And as she gathered the money, she had the terrifying, sinking feeling that the beast was not angry.
He was intrigued.
And that was infinitely worse.
—
The next few days passed in a fog of suffocating anxiety.
Bella lived at a heightened alert, jumping at every loud noise, every car that slowed on her street. She expected to be fired the moment she walked in. Henderson simply avoided her eyes. She expected to be pulled into an alley on her way home. The walk from the bus stop was uneventful, populated only by the usual late-night city sounds.
Nothing happened.
And that was the problem. The silence from the Moretti side was louder than any threat. It was a coiled snake, waiting.
Her defiance at table 12 had become restaurant legend. The kitchen staff called her *La Leonessa* when they thought she could not hear. Chloe looked at her with a mixture of awe and terror.
“I still can’t believe you’re alive,” she would mutter while refilling salt shakers.
“Neither can I.”
Bella took the money from table 12. All of it. Just over two thousand dollars. She paid for Marco’s next round of injections at St. Jude’s, and the guilt of using blood money was eclipsed entirely by the relief of seeing the PAID stamp on the invoice.
When she visited him, she put on her bravest face.
“How’s work, Bells?” he asked. His voice was weak but his smile was still bright. He was all hollow cheeks and oversized, hopeful eyes.
“It’s good. Busy. A big tipper came in.”
She smoothed his hair back from his forehead. Her heart ached.
“You just focus on getting strong, okay? I’ve got everything else.”
“You’re the best, Bells. I don’t know what I’d do without—”
“Shh. You don’t have to.”
May you like
The lie tasted like ash in her mouth.
She didn’t have anything. She was dangling by a thread. And she knew exactly whose hand was holding the scissors.
