Chapter 3 - Blood on the Linens
Chloe froze, the silver tray balanced on her palms, the heat radiating through the heavy ceramic plates.
Her eyes flicked instinctively toward the service door behind her—the narrow swing door that connected the VIP room directly to the dish pit and the alleyway. Standing beside it was a busboy she had never seen before. He wore the black polo shirt of Il Canto, but the cuffs were too clean, the shoulders too broad, and his right hand was buried deep inside the pouch of his canvas utility apron.
Don't look at him, Beatrice signed frantically, keeping her hands low beneath the edge of the tablecloth. He watched Gabriel unbutton his jacket. He has a piece. I saw the steel when he bent for the water pitcher.
Chloe didn't think. Two years of surviving on tips had given her the instincts of a stray alley cat, and seven years of dodging her former foster brothers had taught her how to move before fear caught up with her brain.
Instead of turning to look at the fake busboy, she deliberately leaned her body toward Gabriel, who was still muttering into his phone: "—tell Frankie to hold the warehouse until I get there, if the manifest is—"
Chloe stumbled.
She let her right knee buckle, dragging the twenty-pound tray downward with theatrical clumsiness. Two bowls of steaming saffron risotto and a sixty-dollar bottle of Barolo cascaded directly toward Gabriel’s chest.
"What the—" Gabriel snarled, dropping his phone to shove the scalding ceramic away.
The hot broth splashed across his crisp white shirt, forcing him to twist violently to his left.
Crack.
The sound wasn't like a movie gunshot. It was a sharp, dry snap, like a dry pine branch breaking under a boot.
The wood paneling right where Gabriel’s head had been six inches prior exploded into jagged splinters. A neat, black hole appeared in the mahogany, smoking faintly.
Sal didn’t hesitate. He cleared leather with terrifying speed, his heavy revolver roaring twice in the enclosed space. The muzzle flash lit up the room in sickening strobes of white.
The man in the busboy apron took one step backward, his shoulder jerking as lead punched through him, then crashed hard through the swing door into the back alley.
"Down! Down!" Sal screamed, his voice cracking as he slammed his massive body across the table, knocking over wine glasses and silver candelabras to cover Gabriel.
Panic erupted in the main dining room beyond the door—screams, shattering glass, scraping chair legs.
Gabriel hit the floor, grabbing Chloe by the collar of her white shirt and dragging her down behind the heavy mahogany table just as a third bullet ripped through the frosted glass of the VIP partition, showering them in glittering debris.
Chloe hit the hardwood on her hands and knees, glass slicing into her palms. Her breath came in ragged, burning gasps.
"Ma!" Gabriel roared, crawling on his belly toward the banquette. "Ma!"
Beatrice was wedged into the corner between the bench and the wall, curled into a ball, her hands locked over her ears. Even without hearing the thunder of the gunshots, the concussive pressure of the rounds firing in a twelve-by-twelve room had rattled her bones.
Gabriel reached her, his hands checking her arms, her neck, her chest with frantic, desperate roughness. "You hit? Ma! Look at me! Are you hit?"
Beatrice looked at his moving lips, her face pale as parchment, tears spilling into the wrinkles around her eyes. She couldn't read his lips. He was speaking too fast, his beard shadow obscuring his mouth, his face twisted in panic.
Chloe crawled across the floor, ignoring the shards of wine bottle biting through her slacks. She grabbed Beatrice’s trembling right hand, pulled it gently away from her ear, and signed with two steady, deliberate motions:
You are safe. He is safe. Look at me.
Beatrice’s breathing hitched. She focused on Chloe’s hands. The terror in her eyes receded by a fraction of an inch, anchored by the language.
Gabriel watched them, his hands suspended in the air, his chest heaving under his ruined, broth-stained shirt. For the first time in his life, Gabriel Costello looked utterly helpless.
Sal kicked the swing door shut, his gun trained on the darkness of the alley. "He’s gone! Hit the back fence! I got two boys sweeping the perimeter right now!"
"Who was it?" Gabriel’s voice was venomous, stripped of all humanity. "Who sent him?"
"Don't know, boss," Sal panted, wiping sweat from his forehead. "Wasn't one of ours. Kid had a clean face. Looked like a mercenary out of Philly."
Gabriel turned his dark eyes to Chloe. He didn't ask if she was okay. He didn't thank her for the ruined shirt that had saved his life. He grabbed her wrist, his grip cold and demanding.
"How did you know?" he hissed. "You dumped that tray before the prick even pulled the trigger. How did you know he had a gun?"
Chloe jerked her arm, trying to break his hold, her blood smearing against his cuff. "I didn't know."
Gabriel’s fingers tightened until her bones ground together. "Don't lie to me, girl. People don't trip with three hundred dollars of food unless they got a reason."
"Let go of me!" Chloe snapped, the adrenaline finally burning away her subservience.
Beatrice leaned forward from the banquette. Without hesitation, she grabbed a heavy silver pepper mill from the floor and cracked it across Gabriel’s knuckles.
The boss flinched, pulling his hand back with a hiss.
Beatrice signed furiously, her hands slicing through the smoke-filled air:
Tell him I saw it! Tell him while he was staring at his phone like a blind dog, the boy behind him reached for his waistband! Tell him if you hadn't thrown that food, he’d be bleeding out on this floor like a stuck pig!
Chloe rubbed her bruised wrist, glaring at Gabriel. "She told me. She saw him draw. She tried to warn you, but you were too busy running your empire to look at your mother’s hands."
Gabriel stared at his mother. Beatrice stared back, her chin trembling, her eyes full of fury and unshed tears.
Footsteps pounded down the hallway. Marco, the restaurant manager, appeared in the doorway, pale as a corpse, his hands raised. "Mr. Costello... please... the police are on their way. Somebody called 911 from the street—"
"Cancel the cops," Gabriel said, rising to his feet and smoothing his stained jacket with terrifying calm. "Tell them it was an espresso machine boiler blowing up. Give them ten grand to write a false report."
He looked down at Chloe, who was still kneeling in the broken glass.
"You," Gabriel said, pointing a single, ringed finger at her. "Get on your feet."
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"I have to clean this up," Chloe muttered, reaching for a napkin.
"You're done cleaning," Gabriel said coldly. "Sal, get the girl’s coat from the back. She’s coming with us."
