“Don’t Be Afraid… I’m Here,” The Poor Waitress Said—Then She Took A Hit For The Mafia Boss’s Sister

The ceiling was the first thing Harper noticed. It wasn't the water-stained plaster of her tiny apartment. It was ornately carved mahogany, glowing under soft, recessed lighting.

She tried to sit up, but a sharp, localized pain flared in her left shoulder. She gasped, falling back against the mountain of silk pillows.

"Don't move."

The voice came from the corner of the room. Harper turned her head, her vision slowly coming into focus.

Dante Rossy was sitting in a high-backed leather chair, nursing a glass of amber liquid. He was out of the charcoal suit, wearing a black dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up, revealing a map of dark, intricate tattoos creeping up his forearms. He looked just as dangerous as he had in the restaurant, but the manic energy of the firefight was gone.

"Where am I?" Harper asked, her throat dry. She looked down and realized she was wearing a silk nightgown, her shoulder heavily bandaged with professional medical gauze.

"My home," Dante said, setting his glass down. "My private doctor stitched you up. You lost a lot of blood, but no permanent damage."

Harper's heart began to race. "I have a shift tomorrow. I need to pay my electric bill."

Dante actually let out a short, humorless laugh. "You took a bullet for my sister, Harper. You think I’m going to let you go back to serving forty-dollar salads to arrogant pricks?"

"I don't want your charity," Harper said defensively, gripping the edge of the blanket.

"It's not charity. It's a debt. The Rossy family does not leave debts unpaid." Dante stood up and walked toward the bed. "But right now, we have a bigger problem."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the tarnished bronze key on the leather cord.

"You said your father gave this to you," Dante said, his voice completely stripped of emotion.

"Yes," Harper said, her breath catching. "Right before he died. He was a mechanic. He died in a car crash when I was four."

"Your father wasn't a mechanic," Dante said flatly. "And he didn't die in a car crash."

Harper stared at him. "You're lying. My mother told me—"

"Your mother lied to keep you breathing," Dante interrupted, leaning closer. "That key belongs to a safety deposit box at the First National Bank of Chicago. A box that my father, the former head of this family, spent the last ten years of his life trying to find."

Harper felt the room spin. Everything she knew about her quiet, struggling life was suddenly fracturing. "I don't understand. Who was my father?"

"His name was Thomas Vance," Dante said softly. "He was my father's accountant. The man who supposedly stole forty million dollars from our syndicate and vanished into thin air."

Harper couldn't breathe. Her father? A thief?

"No," Harper whispered. "That's impossible. We had nothing. My mom worked three jobs until her heart gave out."

Dante studied her face, searching for deception, but finding only pure, unadulterated shock. He sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "I believe you. Which means the money is still in that box. And the people who shot up the restaurant tonight weren't just trying to hit my family."

He pulled something else from his pocket and dropped it onto the nightstand.

Harper recognized it instantly. It was the object Dante had slipped into her apron pocket right before she passed out.

It was a heavy, sterling silver money clip, engraved with the initials C.R.

"I pulled that off the body of the hitman you tackled," Dante said.

"Whose initials are those?" Harper asked, her voice trembling.

Dante looked away, staring at the heavy oak door of the bedroom. The formidable mafia boss suddenly looked deeply, profoundly tired.

"They belong to Carlo Rossy," Dante said quietly. "My uncle."

Harper gasped. "Your own family ordered the hit?"

"My uncle has wanted me dead for three years," Dante said. "But he never goes after Bianca. It's the one rule of our world. Women and children are off-limits."

He turned his dark eyes back to Harper. "Carlo didn't send his men to the restaurant to kill my sister, Harper."

The realization hit her like a second bullet.

"He sent them to kill you," Dante said. "Because Carlo found out who you are. And he wants that key."

Just then, the heavy oak door burst open.

Bianca stood in the doorway, pale and shaking. But she wasn't looking at Dante. She was staring at Harper with absolute horror.

"Dante," Bianca whispered, holding up a crumpled piece of paper. "I went to her apartment to get her some clothes. Someone tore the place apart. But I found this underneath her mattress."

Dante snatched the paper. He read it, his face going completely rigid.

He turned the paper around so Harper could see it.