Chapter 2 - THE FIVE-THOUSAND-DOLLAR NAPKIN
Chloe didn’t stop shaking until she reached the stainless-steel prep counter in the kitchen.
Marco stared at her as if she had just walked out of a lion’s den wearing a steak around her neck.
“Well?” Marco hissed, grabbing her apron strings. “Are we shutting down? Did you insult him?”
“Drop one seafood risotto,” Chloe said, her voice steadier than her knees. “Hold the veal. And open the sixty-dollar Barolo.”
The head chef paused, his ladle hovering over a copper pot. “Costello always orders the veal for his mother.”
“Costello doesn’t know what his mother likes,” Chloe replied, grabbing a clean wineglass. “Make it fast. She’s hungry.”
When Chloe returned to the VIP room ten minutes later, the atmosphere had shifted.
The folders were gone from the table. The six men in tailored suits were eating in complete silence. Gabriel sat at the head, swirling a glass of scotch, his dark eyes fixed on the mahogany door the second she pushed it open.
Chloe ignored him. She set the steaming bowl of risotto in front of Beatrice and poured a generous glass of red wine.
Beatrice’s eyes lit up. She inhaled the aroma, then looked at Chloe and signed rapidly beneath the level of the tablecloth, out of Gabriel’s direct line of sight.
Be careful with the tall one on my left. Dante. He has been lying to my son all evening.
Chloe froze, her hand still on the bottle of Barolo.
She glanced briefly at the man to Beatrice’s left. He was in his late forties, wearing a silver tie and an immaculate charcoal suit. He smiled politely at Chloe, his eyes cold.
“Is she complaining about the temperature?” Gabriel’s deep voice cut through the silence.
Chloe looked at him. “She said it smells wonderful.”
Beatrice picked up her fork, took a bite, and closed her eyes in bliss. Then, with her left hand resting near her bread plate, her fingers moved again. Small, sharp, deliberate signs.
Do not translate this. My nurse is poisoning me. They think I am losing my mind, so nobody listens.
Chloe’s breath caught in her throat.
She forced her face to remain completely blank—a trick she had learned waiting tables for rich, entitled men for six years.
Are you sure? Chloe signed back casually with one hand while pretending to adjust the salt shaker.
Beatrice tapped her water glass once for yes. Then she reached into the pocket of her cardigan and pressed a folded linen napkin into Chloe’s palm as Chloe reached for the empty appetizer plate.
“What was that?” Dante asked sharply from across the table.
Every muscle in Chloe’s back tensed.
Gabriel stood up. He didn’t shout, and he didn’t rush, which somehow made him terrifying. He walked around the table and stopped two inches from Chloe. He smelled like cedarwood, expensive wool, and rain.
“Give it to me,” Gabriel said quietly.
Chloe clutched the plate against her chest, the napkin crushed beneath her thumb. “She was just thanking me.”
“My mother doesn’t pass notes to waitresses,” Gabriel said, holding out his hand. “Empty your pocket, or I’ll have Dante empty it for you.”
Beatrice watched them, her frail chest rising and falling rapidly. She didn't look afraid of Gabriel. She looked afraid of Dante.
If Chloe gave him the napkin right here in front of his men, Dante would see it.
Thinking fast, Chloe reached into the left pocket of her apron—not the right one where she had just slipped Beatrice’s napkin—and pulled out a crumpled piece of yellow carbon paper from her previous table.
She slapped it into Gabriel’s palm.
“Table four didn’t want their receipt,” Chloe said, tilting her chin up to meet his gaze. “Feel free to audit their tiramisu.”
Gabriel looked down at the yellow slip, then back up at her eyes. A muscle ticked in his jaw. He knew she was playing games, and nobody played games with Gabriel Costello.
“Get out,” he said softly.
Chloe didn’t need to be told twice. She turned and walked back into the kitchen.
Thirty minutes later, Table 7 emptied out. Marco came rushing into the back alley where Chloe was dumping the recycling. He was waving a black leather billfold like a winning lottery ticket.
“Chloe!” Marco gasped. “Look at this.”
Inside the folder sat fifty crisp one-hundred-dollar bills. Five thousand dollars.
Pinned beneath the cash was a heavy cream business card with an embossed silver crest. On the back, in bold, sharp handwriting, was a residential address in Beacon Hill and three words:
Tomorrow. 9 AM.
Marco grinned. “You’re rich! He loved you!”
“He didn’t love me,” Chloe murmured, staring at the card. “He’s buying my silence, or he’s hiring a translator.”
Once Marco went back inside, Chloe stepped under the dim yellow light of the alley lamp. Her fingers trembled as she reached into the right pocket of her apron and pulled out the linen napkin Beatrice had slipped her.
She unfolded the cloth.
There was no note inside. Instead, lying in the center of the white linen was a heavy, antique rosary made of black onyx beads and tarnished silver.
Wait. Chloe knew this rosary.
She turned the silver crucifix over with shaking fingers. Scratched into the back of the cross were two tiny, crooked initials that a twelve-year-old boy had carved with a pocketknife ten years ago.
L.B.
Leo Bennett. Her dead brother.
Chloe backed up against the cold brick wall, the air rushing out of her lungs.
May you like
Leo had been wearing this exact rosary in his jacket pocket the night the hit-and-run driver left him dying on the wet pavement of Route 9. The police had told Chloe his jacket pockets were empty.
How did the mother of Boston’s most ruthless crime boss have the rosary her brother was carrying the night he was murdered?
