Chapter 2 - The Translation
The temperature in the private room dropped to zero. Across the table, Sal’s right hand drifted beneath his jacket lapel. The other capos stopped chewing.
Chloe didn't flinch. If you grow up in the New York foster system with an angry older boy and a deaf brother to protect, you learn that showing teeth is safer than showing tears.
She twisted her neck slightly to look up at the mob boss. "She doesn't want the veal."
Gabriel’s brow furrowed. His grip didn’t loosen by a fraction of a millimeter. "Excuse me?"
"She doesn't want the veal," Chloe repeated, her voice ringing clear against the mahogany walls. "She wants the seafood risotto. And she asked you for red wine twenty-five minutes ago, but you kept ordering her sourdough because you weren't looking at her."
One of the men down the table smothered a cough into his napkin.
Gabriel’s jaw worked. His eyes darted from Chloe’s face down to his mother’s hands, which were now resting upright against the table edge, poised like caged birds. "You understood that?"
"Every word." Chloe glanced down at the fingers digging into her collarbone. "And if you’re planning on snapping my shoulder, can you do it after I drop the ticket? Chef gets moody when orders go in after nine, and your mother has waited long enough for a decent meal."
Sal made a strangled sound that was half-gasp, half-laugh.
Gabriel didn't look at Sal. He stared down at Chloe, his pupils blown wide, the anger in his face warring with a sudden, destabilizing shock.
Smack.
Beatrice reached across the linen and slapped her son’s forearm with surprising power. The ring on her knuckle clipped his gold watch.
Gabriel let go of Chloe instantly, rubbing his wrist, looking down at his mother with genuine bewilderment. "Ma!"
Beatrice didn't look at him. She looked at Chloe and signed with furious, whipping motions:
Tell this thick-headed brute that his father had ten times his manners and half his paranoia. Tell him if he squeezes an innocent girl again, I’ll take my slipper to the back of his expensive head right in front of his hired murderers.
Chloe’s lips twitched. She kept her face straight.
"Translate," Gabriel ordered, his voice dangerously low. "Right now."
"She says your manners are atrocious," Chloe said smoothly. "And that your father had significantly more class."
Down the table, Sal buried his entire face in a water glass. The younger capo next to him suddenly found the grain of the wood paneling utterly fascinating.
Beatrice signed again, her movements slowing, her gaze drifting toward the floor:
And tell him... tell him I am deaf, not dead. Stop locking me in empty rooms.
Chloe’s voice softened, the waitress polish falling away. "She says she wants you to stop treating her like she’s stupid just because she can't hear you."
The silence that followed was different. It wasn’t the tense, violent silence of gangsters preparing for a bloodbath; it was the suffocating quiet of a private wound torn open under industrial fluorescent lights.
Gabriel’s chest rose and fell once. His eyes softened around the edges, an almost imperceptible fracture in his armor. He looked at Beatrice. She refused to meet his eyes, turning her profile to him, her chin held high and trembling.
"Risotto," Gabriel said quietly, not looking away from his mother.
Chloe blinked. "Pardon?"
"The seafood risotto. Tell the chef to use the arborio from the back pantry, not the prep line. And bring a bottle of the '08 Barolo. The reserve cellar. Tell Marco I said to unlock it."
Chloe gave a slight, formal nod. She turned to Beatrice, raising her hands into the warm light:
Seafood risotto and Barolo. Coming right up.
Beatrice’s face broke into a radiant, wrinkled smile that took twenty years off her age. She reached out, caught Chloe’s wrist, and squeezed gently. Then, her fingers danced:
My son is an idiot with bad eyes, but he leaves a heavy envelope. Take care of yourself, little bird.
Chloe let out a breathy laugh.
Gabriel caught the sound instantly. "What was that? What did she say?"
"Kitchen policy, Mr. Costello," Chloe said, snatching the empty bread basket off the table. "Confidential customer-waitstaff communication."
She spun on her non-slip heel and pushed through the heavy doors before he could call her back.
Outside in the hall, she leaned her back against the cool drywall and pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. Her pulse was hammering in her teeth.
You survived, she told herself. Now get the damn risotto before Marco fires you.
Ten minutes later, carrying the heavy tray loaded with the steaming saffron risotto and the opened bottle of Barolo, Chloe pushed back into the VIP dining room.
The air had shifted. The laughter was gone.
Gabriel was standing near the curtained window, his phone pressed to his ear, his face pale and tight as stretched canvas.
Sal was on his feet, his hand inside his jacket, staring at the side emergency exit.
May you like
And Beatrice was staring at Chloe, her eyes wide with unmasked terror, her hands trembling violently as she raised them into the air:
Don't set the tray down. The man by the kitchen door has a gun under his apron.
