Chapter 4 - THE BROKEN COMPASS
The white linen tablecloth suddenly felt like ice.
Roman didn’t wait for me to speak. He dropped a hundred-dollar bill onto the table—ten times the cost of the sparkling water—and grabbed his mother’s arm.
“Get your coat, Beatatrice,” he commanded in a low, ruthless tone.
“Roman, no,” Beatatrice signed rapidly, her hands moving with fierce authority. The girl’s father had nothing to do with the docks war! If Marcus Vance knows she’s here, she’s in danger just for sitting at this table!
“She was already in danger the moment she walked into my restaurant wearing her father’s face,” Roman replied, his jaw tight. He looked down at me. “Harper. Stand up.”
I stayed in my chair, my fingers gripping the edge of the wood. “I live two blocks from here. I have rent to pay. I’m not running from a federal agent I’ve never even met.”
“You think Marcus Vance cares about rent?” Roman leaned down, his face inches from mine, his dark eyes fierce and terrifying. “He spent twenty years burying the men who tried to audit the South Branch terminals. Your father kept a duplicate key to locker 412-B. Vance has been hunting for that key since 1992. And you just sat at my table and proved you’re Arthur Hayes’s daughter.”
Before I could answer, the kitchen doors flew open behind us.
Paul the manager didn’t walk out; he was shoved aside by two massive men in dark wool coats who hadn’t been sitting in the alcove. They weren’t Roman’s guards.
They wore federal windbreakers beneath their open jackets.
“Federal task force,” the lead agent announced, flashing a badge at the empty dining room. “Nobody moves. Close the restaurant doors.”
Roman stepped in front of me instantly, his broad shoulders blocking the agents’ view of my face.
“You’re out of your jurisdiction, Vance,” Roman called out into the dining room.
From behind the two agents, a tall, silver-haired man in a tailored charcoal suit stepped into the dim light. Marcus Vance. He looked older than he did in old newspaper clippings, but his smile had the same razor-thin cruelty.
“Good evening, Roman,” Vance said, walking slowly toward the south alcove. His eyes swept over Beatatrice, lingered on the empty plates, and finally locked onto me sitting in my busser’s uniform. “I see you’ve upgraded your staff training program. Since when do waitresses sit at the VIP table?”
Roman’s hand drifted toward his coat. His bodyguards materialized from the shadows of the main dining room, their hands ready.
“Step back, Marcus,” Roman warned.
“I have a federal warrant for restaurant payroll audits, Roman,” Vance replied smoothly, stopping ten feet away. “And incidentally, a missing-property inquiry regarding Arthur Hayes’s estate. It appears his daughter never turned over her father’s personal effects when she applied for her restaurant license.”
Vance’s gaze fixed on me.
“Nora—sorry, Harper,” Vance smiled coldly. “Hand over the silver pocket watch your father left you. Or I’ll have the IRS freeze every bank account your mother touched before she died.”
My breath caught. My mother’s watch. The only thing I had left of my father.
I looked at Roman.
The mob boss looked back at me, his expression unreadable, waiting to see what the busser from the back station would do when a federal agent put a gun to her life.
May you like
Instead of trembling, I reached down, pulled the heavy silver pocket watch out from the hidden apron pocket where I kept my tips, and laid it directly on the white tablecloth next to the yellowed ticket stub.
“You want the watch?” I asked, my voice steady enough to surprise even myself. “Come and take it.”
