Chapter 3
A week later, on a Thursday night, he came back.
The restaurant was packed. Bella was carrying a heavy tray of entrées when she felt the familiar drop in pressure, the way the room seemed to lean.
She looked up.
He was standing at the host stand. Alone. No Vinnie, no bodyguards. Just him, in a charcoal gray suit that probably cost more than her car, and Sophie the hostess visibly trembling in front of him.
“Mr. Moretti, welcome!” Henderson rushed forward, hands flapping. “A table for you? Right this way, our best—”
“No.”
The word cut through the manager’s sentence. Moretti was not looking at him. His dark eyes moved across the dining room until they found her, and locked, and a slow, almost imperceptible smile touched his mouth.
“I’ll wait for her section.”
Bella’s tray suddenly weighed a thousand pounds.
Table 12 was occupied — a family celebrating an anniversary. The only open table in her area was a small two-top against the far wall.
“Of course,” Henderson stammered. “Table nine. Isabella, Miss— Mr. Moretti will be at table nine.”
She delivered her entrées. She took one deep breath in the kitchen. Then she walked back out.
He was seated with one long leg crossed over the other, studying the wine list like a man who had never done anything else.
“Isabella.” His voice was a low purr. “A pleasure to see you again. I’m glad Mr. Henderson recognized your value to his establishment.”
So he knew about that too. He knew everything.
“Good evening, Mr. Moretti. Can I get you something to drink?”
“Just a ’97 Brunello. And your recommendation for the second course.”
He was testing her. Playing a game. She could have recommended the most expensive thing on the menu, but she understood that wasn’t the point.
“The osso buco is particularly good tonight. The chef braises it for eight hours.”
“Osso buco.” He handed back the menu. “Thank you.”
She walked away feeling his gaze on every step.
For the next two hours she served him, and he was the perfect guest. Polite. Quiet. He complimented the food. He read a small leather-bound book he produced from his coat pocket.
But he watched.
Every time she passed his table she felt it — not sexual, but possessive. The way he had looked at Salvatore Bianke before he threatened him. The look of a man who had seen something he wanted to own.
He was dissecting her. And he was enjoying the quiet, simmering fear he was causing — not just in her, but in the whole restaurant.
When he finished, she brought the check. He had barely touched his wine.
“Will there be anything else, sir?”
He looked up from his book.
“Yes. I was wondering — why did you do it?”
“I’m sorry?”
“At table 12. You risked your life. Your job. For what? To protect a coward like Bianke? For the rules of the restaurant?”
She looked him straight in the eye. The fear was still there. But so was the anger.
“I did it for me, Mr. Moretti. You were disrupting my place of work. You were going to cost me my night’s pay, and maybe my entire job. My job is important to me.”
“Important.” He tapped a long finger on the cover of his book. “Because of your brother, Marco, at St. Jude’s.”
The notepad slipped from her fingers and clattered on the floor. She did not stoop to pick it up.
“How do you know that?”
“It’s my business to know things, Isabella.” He said it softly. “I know he has a rare autoimmune disorder. I know the treatments are twenty-four thousand dollars a cycle. I know you’re working two jobs — this, and data entry on your days off — to cover it. And I know you’re still falling behind.”
He knew.
He knew her deepest, most desperate secret, and he had peeled her open and was looking at her insides.
“What do you want?” she asked, and her voice came out raw.
“I want to understand.” He leaned forward. “You have everything to lose. More than anyone in this room. And yet you were the only one who stood up. You put your hand on me. You told me no.” A pause. “I haven’t been told no by someone who wasn’t immediately silenced in a very, very long time. You are either incredibly brave or incredibly foolish.”
“I’m desperate.”
The word tore out of her.
“And desperation makes you different.”
“Yes,” he said, and his eyes darkened with an understanding that frightened her more than anger ever could. “It does.”
He stood. He left another obscene amount of cash on the table. Then he paused beside her, close enough that she caught the faint scent of his cologne — sandalwood and bergamot.
“The world is a hard place, Isabella,” he murmured. “It’s not kind to lionesses who are all alone. Eventually, the hyenas come.”
He walked out.
Bella stood frozen for a full minute.
He had not threatened her. He had *exposed* her. He had shown her, in no uncertain terms, that he could touch every part of her life — from her job to her brother’s hospital bed.
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He was not going to kill her.
He was going to dismantle her.
