Chapter 2 - THE BETRAYAL AT THE BAR
The voice right behind Mia was impossibly calm.
She knew that voice. She had heard it every night for the last six months, pouring drinks, joking with the regulars, telling her she was doing a good job.
Enzo. The head bartender. The man who had gotten her this job.
Mia slowly turned her head.
Enzo stood there, his apron discarded, a suppressed pistol gripped firmly in his steady hand. But the barrel wasn't pointed at Luca Moretti.
It was pressed directly against Mia’s spine.
The cold wind howled through the shattered restaurant window, blowing rain and broken glass across the polished mahogany tables. Luca’s men instantly raised their weapons, a dozen red laser sights painting Enzo’s chest.
But Enzo didn’t flinch.
“Drop the guns, Luca,” Enzo said, his voice carrying effortlessly over the wind. “Or the girl dies. And if she dies, you’ll never find out what happened to your mother.”
Luca Moretti stood perfectly still in the center of the room. His dark eyes darted from the broken window—where Mia’s father’s voice had just echoed from the darkness—back to Enzo.
“You’ve been working for Salerno this whole time?” Luca asked. His voice was a deadly, quiet rasp.
“Salerno is a dog,” Enzo spat, a flash of pure disgust crossing his features. “He thinks he’s pulling the strings tonight. He thinks this is about territory. But this is about debts, Luca. Debts your family owes.”
Mia’s heart pounded against her ribs like a trapped bird.
Her father. He was out there.
Five years ago, her father had kissed her forehead, told her to lock the doors, and walked into the rainy night. He was a low-level accountant for the syndicates. He never came back. The police said he had run away. The streets whispered he was at the bottom of the river.
But he was alive. And he sounded terrified.
“Mia,” her father’s voice echoed again, this time crackling slightly.
Mia’s eyes widened. It wasn’t coming from the darkness outside. It was coming from a high-powered speaker mounted in the alleyway. A recording? Or a live broadcast?
“What did I do?” Mia whispered, tears hot on her freezing cheeks. She looked at Enzo. “What did I do that he knows about?”
Enzo stepped closer, the gun digging harder into her back. “You kept the bracelet.”
Luca’s head snapped toward Mia.
“What bracelet?” Luca demanded, stepping forward, his expensive leather shoes crunching over the shattered glass.
“Stay back!” Enzo warned, clicking the hammer of the gun.
But Luca didn’t stop. He walked until the barrel of Enzo’s gun was inches from Mia, until Luca’s chest was almost touching it. Luca’s men held their breath, their fingers trembling on their triggers.
“I don’t know what he’s talking about,” Mia sobbed, terrified of the violent mob boss standing in front of her.
“She’s lying,” Enzo sneered. “She wears it around her ankle. Hidden beneath her socks. Every single shift.”
Luca looked down.
Without a word, he knelt on the broken glass. The sharp shards bit into the fabric of his tailored trousers, drawing blood, but he didn’t seem to care. He grabbed Mia’s ankle.
She gasped and tried to pull away, but his grip was like iron. He pushed down her black sock.
A tarnished silver bracelet rested against her pale skin.
It was delicate, heavily oxidized, with three small charms hanging from it: a star, a crescent moon, and a tiny, intricate silver rose.
Luca stared at it. The air seemed to leave his lungs.
His hand began to shake.
He looked up at Mia, his dark eyes wide with a sudden, devastating vulnerability that completely shattered his ruthless facade.
“Where did you get this?” Luca whispered.
“My… my father gave it to me,” Mia stammered. “The night he disappeared. He told me to never show it to anyone.”
Luca stood up slowly. He didn’t look at Enzo. He didn’t look at his men. He just looked at the silver rose.
“My mother was wearing that bracelet the night she was murdered,” Luca said, his voice hollow. “Twenty years ago.”
Mia’s breath caught. “No. No, my dad isn’t a killer. He’s an accountant!”
“Your father stole it off her dead body,” Enzo said. “He’s a scavenger. And he knows exactly who pulled the trigger that night.”
“If you know who pulled the trigger,” Luca said, turning his lethal gaze to Enzo, “why orchestrate this entire circus? Why the fake bomb? Why the speaker in the alley?”
“To get you both in the same room,” Enzo said. “To prove to you that she’s the key. Salerno’s men are going to breach that door in exactly thirty seconds. They have orders to slaughter everyone inside, including me, to cover their tracks.”
Enzo suddenly lowered his gun.
He flipped it around and held it out to Luca, handle first.
“I’m not your enemy, Luca,” Enzo said softly. “I’m your mother’s brother. I’m the uncle you were told died in a car crash.”
The room spun. Mia felt her knees buckle, but Luca grabbed her arm, holding her upright.
“You’re lying,” Luca snarled, ignoring the offered weapon. “My mother’s brother died before I was born.”
“I went into hiding,” Enzo said urgently, checking his watch. “Because I found out who really ordered the hit on your mother. It wasn’t a rival family. It was someone inside your own house, Luca.”
A loud, heavy boom echoed from the front of the restaurant. The heavy oak doors shuddered.
Salerno’s men were breaching.
“You have a choice, Luca,” Enzo yelled over the splintering wood. “Kill me now and die in this room. Or take the girl, follow me through the basement tunnels, and find out the truth about your bloodline!”
Luca looked at the cracking doors. Then he looked at the silver bracelet on Mia’s ankle.
“Dante,” Luca barked to his second-in-command. “Hold this room. Nobody gets past the bar.”
“Yes, boss,” Dante said, racking his shotgun.
Luca grabbed Mia’s hand, his grip tight but strangely protective. “Show me the tunnels.”
Enzo sprinted toward the kitchen.
They burst through the swinging doors just as the front of the restaurant exploded in a hail of gunfire. The sound of automatic weapons tore through the elegant dining room, shattering bottles and tearing apart the mahogany furniture.
Mia ran blindly, her hand locked in Luca’s, her mind a hurricane of terror.
Her father was alive. He had a connection to the Moretti family’s darkest tragedy. And the quiet bartender she had trusted was a ghost from a mafia bloodline.
Enzo kicked open a heavy iron door near the walk-in freezer. A dark, narrow concrete stairwell plunged into the earth below the city.
“Down!” Enzo ordered, pushing them inside.
He followed, slamming the heavy iron door shut and sliding a massive steel deadbolt into place just as bullets sparked against the other side.
The stairwell was pitch black, smelling of damp earth and rust.
Mia leaned against the cold concrete wall, gasping for air. She had barely survived the last three minutes.
Luca turned on his phone flashlight. The harsh beam illuminated Enzo’s face.
“You said my father took that bracelet off her body,” Mia said, her voice shaking. “Why? Why would he take it?”
Enzo looked at her with a profound, terrifying sadness.
“Because, Mia,” Enzo said quietly. “He didn’t take it to steal it. He took it to hide the message carved into the back of the rose.”
Luca knelt quickly, pulling a pocket knife from his jacket. “Take it off.”
Mia unhooked the clasp, her fingers trembling. She handed the heavy silver jewelry to the mafia boss.
Luca held the tiny silver rose up to his phone’s light. He used the tip of his knife to pop open the back of the hollow charm.
A tiny, tightly rolled piece of paper fell into his palm.
Luca unrolled it.
His eyes scanned the microscopic handwriting.
When he looked up, the ruthless Mafia boss looked entirely broken.
“What does it say?” Mia whispered.
Luca stared at Enzo, his voice thick with a devastating realization.
“It says,” Luca breathed, “*My husband is trying to kill me. If I die, save my daughter.*”
May you like
Luca looked directly into Mia’s terrified eyes.
“My mother,” Luca said slowly, “didn’t just have a son.”
