Chapter 6 - A New Ledger
Three weeks passed like a fast-forwarded film reel.
The autumn chill deepened, turning the breath of pedestrians into white clouds as they rushed past the windows of Ilbastion. Life inside the restaurant had settled back into its chaotic, rhythmic normal. Tommy was long gone, replaced by a clumsy teenager named Leo who actually had calluses on his hands and dropped coffee cups with alarming regularity.
Ruby was now a senior floor captain, a promotion that came with a twenty-percent pay bump and a uniform shirt that didn't have frayed cuffs. More importantly, an envelope had arrived at Clara’s apartment two weeks ago containing a certified cashier’s check covering the entirety of her nursing school tuition for the next three years, with no return address save for a small, embossed wax seal of a crest that matched the design on Valente Carmine’s gold card.
Clara had cried for an hour, calling Ruby a miracle worker. Ruby hadn't corrected her. Let her think it was a lucky grant.
But high-end mafia syndicates don't disappear into thin air, and power vacuums never stay empty for long.
It was a Friday night—the busiest shift of the week—when the front doors pushed open and the air pressure in the room shifted once again.
Ruby was balancing a tray of three steaming ribeyes when she saw them. They weren't Carmine men. These men wore cheap nylon windbreakers over bulky shoulders, their eyes hard, cold, and calculating. There were four of them, and they didn't wait to be seated by the maître d'. They walked straight past the host stand, scattering a party of tourists, and headed directly toward the back corner booth—booth four.
The dining room went instantly quiet. Conversations stuttered and died out. Chef Rossy poked his head out through the swinging kitchen doors, his face pale.
The leader of the group—a stocky man with a jagged scar running from his ear down to his collarbone—slapped both palms down on the white tablecloth of booth four, glaring around the room with undisguised menace.
"Listen up!" the scarred man barked, his voice echoing off the mahogany walls. "The old management is restructuring. Effective tonight, this territory belongs to the Chicago outfit. Anyone serving food in this district pays a twenty-five percent tax starting now, or this place gets a remodel."
Panic rippled through the tables. A few diners began gathering their coats, desperate to escape.
Ruby stood frozen near the service station, her tray steady in her left hand. She looked at the scarred man, then down at the gold card resting securely in her apron pocket.
Not my war, whispered the old survival instinct. Call the cops. Let them deal with it.
May you like
Then she looked over at table six, where an elderly couple sat holding hands, frozen in terror. She looked toward the kitchen doors, where Rossy stood holding a cleaver like a shield, ready to protect his restaurant.
Ruby took a deep breath, set her heavy tray down on the service station with a firm, deliberate clatter, and reached into her pocket.
