Chapter 1: Six Words Before the Glass Reached His Lips
"Don't drink that.
Please.
Just run." The waitress expected to be fired, but the mafia boss did something nobody saw coming.
Three seconds before Gabriel Moretti lifted the glass to his lips, a waitress he had never seen before leaned close enough for her hair to brush his shoulder and whispered six words that changed both their lives.
"Don't drink that.
Please.
Just run."
She expected him to freeze.
She expected him to call security.
She expected, perhaps, to d*e before she reached the kitchen.
Instead, Gabriel Moretti slowly lowered the crystal glass, looked straight into the face of the terrified young woman beside him, and said loudly enough for every man at his table to hear:
"Sit down."
The jazz trio kept playing.
The silverware kept moving.
Around them, Chicago's Northstar Room glittered beneath three hundred pieces of hand-cut glass suspended from the ceiling like frozen rain.
But at Gabriel's table, silence fell so completely that Nora Bell could hear her own pulse.
"I'm working," she whispered.
"Not anymore."
Gabriel pulled out the empty chair at his right.
Across from him, his oldest friend, Anthony Caruso, gave a short laugh.
"What is this, Gabe?"
Gabriel didn't look at him.
His gray eyes remained on Nora.
"Sit."
There were many things Nora had imagined happening when she came to work that Friday night.
Being fired.
Dropping a tray.
Getting another call from the landlord.
Going home after midnight to find her father asleep in the recliner with the television flickering blue across his tired face.
She had not imagined sitting beside the most feared man in Chicago while half a dozen men in tailored suits watched her as though deciding where to bury her.
Her knees nearly failed.
Still, she sat.
Gabriel pushed the untouched glass toward the center of the table.
"Tell me why."
Nora glanced toward the bar.
That was enough.
Gabriel noticed.
So did Anthony.
"Why what?" Anthony asked.
Gabriel finally turned his head.
"Why she thinks I shouldn't drink this."
Anthony's smile stayed in place, but something behind it tightened.
Nora felt it.
She had learned to notice small changes because small changes were how poor people survived.
A landlord who stopped saying hello usually meant rent was going up.
A supervisor who suddenly became kind usually meant someone was about to lose hours.
A father who claimed he had already eaten often meant there had been only enough food for one person.
And a bartender whose hands had been steady for six months but suddenly trembled while pouring one particular man's drink meant something was wrong.
Nora swallowed.
"I saw Rick open a fresh bottle."
The bartender stopped polishing the glass in his hand.
Every face at Gabriel's table turned toward him.
Nora kept talking because stopping felt more dangerous.
"He poured from it for Mr.
Caruso first."
Anthony frowned.
"I've been drinking bourbon all night."
"Yes."
"What's your point?"
"My point is the bottle stayed on the counter.
Then a man came through the service hallway."
Rick dropped the glass.
It struck the rubber mat without breaking.
Gabriel did not move.
"What man?"
Nora's mouth had gone dry.
"I don't know."
"That isn't good enough."
"He had a gray coat.
White shirt.
No tie.
He wasn't staff.
He spoke to Rick for maybe five seconds."
"And?"
"And Rick went to the storage room."
Gabriel's hand rested flat on the table.
Nora could see the tattoos beneath the cuff of his black shirt — sharp geometric lines climbing his wrist and disappearing beneath expensive fabric.
"When Rick came back," she continued, "he poured your drink from a different bottle."
Anthony leaned back.
"So the bartender opened another bottle.
You nearly caused a scene over that?"
"No."
Nora turned to him.
"For thirty-seven minutes, Mr.
Moretti's private bottle had been sitting on the second shelf behind the bar.
I know because I've been told four times never to touch it."
Gabriel's expression shifted almost imperceptibly.
Nora pointed toward the glass.
"That drink didn't come from it."
Anthony stopped smiling.
Gabriel looked at Rick.
The bartender ran.
He made it three steps.
One of Gabriel's men rose from a nearby table and intercepted him before he reached the kitchen.
There was no dramatic struggle.
No gunshot.
Just a hand on Rick's shoulder, a quiet sentence Nora couldn't hear, and a young man suddenly realizing that every exit had disappeared.
Gabriel turned back to Nora.
"Anything else?"
She wished the answer were no.
Instead she whispered, "Yes."
Anthony muttered something under his breath.
Gabriel waited.
Nora looked at the glass.
"There was lipstick on it."
For the first time, confusion crossed Gabriel's face.
"I'm not wearing lipstick," he said.
Nora might have laughed if she hadn't been so frightened.
"No.
On the bottom edge.
Very faint.
Dark red."
She had noticed it when the chandelier caught the crystal.
A crescent.
Almost invisible.
The kind of stain left when someone wearing lipstick touched the rim, then wiped it badly.
Gabriel took a folded white napkin, lifted the glass by its base and examined it beneath the light.
There it was.
A shadow of red.
Anthony stared.
"That makes no sense."
Nora looked at him.
"That's why I told him not to drink it."
Gabriel studied the mark for several seconds.
Then something happened that frightened Nora more than anger would have.
He smiled.
It was not a happy smile.
It was the expression of a man who had just discovered that the floor beneath him was hollow.
"Anthony," he said softly.
His oldest friend stiffened.
Gabriel rotated the glass until the lipstick stain faced him.
"Do you recognize the color?"
Anthony stared at him.
"What the hell kind of question is that?"
"A simple one."
"No."
Gabriel's smile disappeared.
"My sister wears this shade."
Nobody moved.
Nora knew almost nothing about Gabriel Moretti's family.
People like her did not read about people like him in newspapers.
They heard fragments whispered over restaurant sinks and behind delivery doors.
Enough to know that Gabriel owned clubs, warehouses, construction companies and favors.
Enough to know that men twice his age lowered their voices when saying his name.
She did know one thing.
Gabriel Moretti had a younger sister named Sofia.
Sofia was twenty-nine, recently married, and — according to the restaurant manager — was supposed to join Gabriel for dinner that night.
Her chair was the empty one Nora had just been ordered to occupy.
Gabriel reached into his pocket.
He called someone.
No one answered.
He called again.
Nothing.
The third call went directly to voicemail.
Gabriel rose.
The temperature of the entire room seemed to drop with him.
"Where is my sister?"
Anthony stood too.
"Gabe—"
"Where is she?"
"I have no idea."
"You arranged tonight."
"For business."
"You told me Sofia wanted to come."
"She did."
Gabriel's eyes went to the glass.
Then to Anthony.
Then, strangely, back to Nora.
"Get your coat."
Nora blinked.
"What?"
"You're leaving."
"With you?"
"Yes."
"No."
Every man at the table looked at her.
Gabriel did not appear offended.
He simply seemed surprised, as though the word no had become extinct around him.
Nora stood.
"My shift ends at one.
I need this job."
"If what you just told me is true, you no longer have this job."
"That's not exactly comforting."
A flicker crossed his face.
Almost amusement.
Then Rick screamed from across the room.
Not from pain.
From panic.
"I didn't do anything!"
Everyone turned.
The bartender was crying now.
"I swear to God, I didn't know what was in it!
She told me it was a joke.
She said it would make him sick, that's all."
Gabriel walked toward him.
Nora's stomach twisted.
Rick's face had turned gray.
"Who?" Gabriel asked.
---
May you like
Who told Rick to do it — and where is Sofia right now?
Comment **"NEXT"** if you want Part 2.
