Chapter 4 - The Shadow in the Office
While the kitchen scrambled to fulfill an off-menu order fit for a Sicilian warlord, Richard retreated to his small, cramped office at the back of the restaurant. His hands were shaking as he unlocked his bottom desk drawer and pulled out an encrypted burner phone.
He didn't call the police. You didn't call the police on the Rossis.
Instead, he dialed a number memorized years ago—a direct line to a mid-level fixer named Vincent who handled municipal zoning and police payoffs for the syndicate.
The phone rang twice before a raspy, uninterested voice answered.
“Talk.”
“Vincent, it’s Richard. From Ilvento.”
“Yeah, Dickie. I’m eating dinner. Make it quick. If this is about the health inspector bribe, it cleared yesterday.”
“No, it’s not the inspectors,” Richard whispered frantically, pressing his back against the office door to ensure no one was listening. “Don Salvatore came in tonight. Unannounced. With Gabriel.”
The line went silent for a second. The background noise of clinking glasses and chatter on the other end vanished.
“The old man hasn't left his estate in Jersey in fourteen months,” Vincent said, his voice dropping all pretense of boredom. “Why is he at Ilvento?”
“I don't know! But that’s not the worst part. He started complaining about the food, screaming in Italian, ready to tear the place apart. And... and Tessa handled him.”
“Tessa? Who the hell is Tessa? One of the hostesses?”
“No, the mousy waitress with the brown hair. The one who works double shifts. She walked right up to the table and talked back to him. In his own language. And I swear to God, Vincent, the old man looked like he saw a ghost. He backed down. He actually backed down.”
Another long pause on the line.
When Vincent spoke again, his tone had shifted from annoyed to deeply, chillingly calculated.
“Describe her.”
“What? I don't know—plain, quiet, works hard, always looks like she hasn't slept in a week. Why?”
“Listen to me very carefully, Dickie,” Vincent said slowly. “Don Salvatore lost his only daughter—Gabriel’s twin sister, Elena—back in Palermo during the ’98 turf wars. Her body was never recovered. The old man has spent thirty years looking for ghosts in every crowd. If this girl is speaking the exact dialect of his home village... you keep her in that dining room. Do not fire her. Do not touch her. And if Gabriel asks for her file, you give it to him before he takes it off your cold, dead corpse. Understand?”
Richard felt a cold bead of sweat roll down the back of his neck.
May you like
“I... I understand.”
“Good,” Vincent said, and the line went dead.
