Chapter 1 - The Waitress Who Answered Back
Tessa Bell slammed the crystal pitcher onto the table and whispered:
“Your grammar is wrong.”
Matteo Moretti lowered the cigarette in his hand and noticed the silver pendant hanging beneath her worn white collar.
Three tiny letters were scratched into its back.
AMB.
Matteo stopped smiling.
He knew those initials.
Six minutes earlier, Tessa had been worried about forty-five dollars.
Forty-five dollars was the difference between keeping her apartment and receiving another notice from her landlord. It was also the price of replacing the black restaurant shoes she had repaired with electrical tape that morning.
Her mother would have laughed at the situation.
Not because it was funny.
Because Anna Bell had possessed the strange ability to laugh when life became cruel enough that crying felt repetitive.
Anna had died eleven months earlier after a long fight with cancer, leaving Tessa with medical bills, an unfinished graduate degree, and a small cardboard box containing everything she had considered important enough to save.
A passport.
Three photographs.
A silver pendant.
And one sealed letter Anna had told her never to open unless someone came looking for her.
Nobody had.
Until tonight.
Matteo stared at Tessa from the curved leather booth.
“The word you used for trash is outdated, Mr. Moretti,” she continued in Italian.
Luca Vieri looked as though somebody had slapped him.
Frank Delaney’s expression barely changed, but his hand stopped halfway toward his water glass.
Tessa should have stopped.
She knew that.
She had spent enough years translating literature to recognize the difference between bravery and stupidity.
Unfortunately, exhaustion had blurred the line.
“And when expressing uncertainty,” she added, “you should use the subjunctive.”
Matteo’s dark eyes narrowed.
Tessa gave him the same professional smile she gave customers who sent back perfectly cooked steaks.
“Your pronunciation is authentic. Your grammar is careless.”
Silence.
Not ordinary silence.
The kind that spread.
At nearby tables, forks slowed.
A waiter stopped beside the service station.
Even the jazz seemed quieter.
Then Matteo leaned back.
Tessa expected anger.
Instead, one corner of his mouth moved.
“You speak Italian.”
“Apparently better than you.”
Luca made a choking sound.
Frank looked down, concealing what might have been a smile.
Matteo studied her.
“Where did you learn?”
“Florence.”
“You studied there?”
“I washed dishes there.”
It was a lie.
Not completely.
Tessa had washed plenty of dishes in Florence.
She simply neglected to mention that she had also studied medieval Italian literature at the University of Florence before her mother’s diagnosis forced her back to Philadelphia.
Matteo looked at her name tag.
TESSA.
“Last name?”
“That isn’t required for ordering steak.”
This time Frank definitely smiled.
Matteo noticed.
Frank immediately became interested in his water.
Tessa lifted the pitcher.
“One rare dry-aged ribeye. I’ll ask the chef to serve it before your language skills deteriorate further.”
She turned.
“Tessa.”
Matteo’s voice stopped her.
She looked back.
His amusement was gone.
He was staring at the chain around her neck.
The pendant had slipped outside her shirt when she bent over.
“Where did you get that?”
Tessa instinctively touched it.
“My mother.”
“What was her name?”
The question changed something.
She felt it immediately.
“Why?”
Matteo stood.
He was much taller than she had realized.
Several diners looked away.
“Your mother,” he repeated. “What was her name?”
Tessa took one step backward.
“Enjoy your dinner, Mr. Moretti.”
She walked toward the kitchen.
Nobody stopped her.
David Mercer did.
He caught her beside the swinging doors.
“What the hell did you do?”
“Apparently I destroyed the subjunctive mood.”
“This isn’t funny.”
“I agree. His grammar was tragic.”
David grabbed her forearm.
Tessa looked down at his hand.
“Let go.”
“You have no idea who that man is.”
“I know exactly who he is.”
“No, you don’t.”
David’s face had gone gray.
“He asked me for your personnel file.”
Tessa’s stomach tightened.
“What?”
“Your full name. Address. Emergency contact.”
“You didn’t give it to him.”
David said nothing.
“David.”
“He owns twenty percent of this restaurant.”
The kitchen noise suddenly seemed far away.
“You gave a stranger my address?”
“He’s not a stranger.”
“He is to me.”
David leaned closer.
“You’re going back out there, apologizing, and doing whatever he asks.”
Tessa pulled her arm free.
“No.”
“You need this job.”
The words landed exactly where he intended them to.
Tessa thought about the electricity notice.
The rent.
Her empty refrigerator.
Then she thought about her mother spending her final months apologizing to nurses whenever she needed help.
Poverty had forced Tessa to accept many humiliations.
It had not yet taught her obedience.
“Then fire me.”
David blinked.
Tessa untied her apron.
Jenna appeared at the kitchen entrance.
“Tess?”
Tessa handed David the apron.
“I’m done.”
She took her coat and walked through the rear exit.
Cold air struck her face.
Her hands began shaking only after the door closed.
She hated that.
She had wanted to leave with dignity.
Instead she leaned against the brick wall and breathed slowly until her pulse settled.
Then the kitchen door opened.
Frank Delaney stepped outside.
Tessa straightened.
“I’m off the clock.”
“I’m not here about dinner.”
“Wonderful.”
Frank held something out.
A black-and-white photograph.
Tessa did not take it.
“What is that?”
“Mr. Moretti wants you to see it.”
“Tell Mr. Moretti he can learn to use email.”
Frank remained still.
“There’s a woman in this photograph.”
Tessa looked despite herself.
Three men stood beside a warehouse.
Between them was a young woman.
Dark hair.
Slim face.
A familiar silver pendant.
Tessa stopped breathing.
“My mother.”
Frank nodded.
The photograph was dated twenty-eight years earlier.
Before Tessa was born.
“Why was she with Matteo’s family?”
Frank’s expression tightened.
“That’s what Matteo wants to know.”
Tessa reached for the photograph.
On the back, somebody had written a sentence in Italian.
She recognized her mother’s handwriting immediately.
If anything happens to me, find the Moretti boy.
Beneath it was another line.
Matteo will know what his father did.
Tessa looked up.
The restaurant door opened again.
Matteo stood inside.
But he was not looking at Tessa.
He was staring past her toward the alley.
A black sedan had stopped at the curb.
The rear window rolled down.
Matteo’s face changed.
“Tessa,” he said quietly. “Get inside.”
A man in the sedan raised something toward them.
Frank reached beneath his jacket.
May you like
Matteo shouted her name.
And the first shot shattered the restaurant window.
