I accidentally threw boiling water at a cartel hitman — now the city’s deadliest mob boss won’t let me go.
Part 1
The grease in the air at Lombardi’s didn’t just sit on your skin.
It moved in.
It found the pores on the back of your neck and made a permanent home in the cheap polyester of my uniform.
My feet throbbed.
A low, rhythmic ache pulsed from my arches straight up my calves.
It was the painful result of a double shift I hadn’t wanted but desperately needed to keep the lights on.
Rent was due in four days.
The math in my head ran like an exhausting ticker tape.
Fifty dollars tonight meant I could cover electricity.
I still needed another eighty for groceries.
If I skipped lunch tomorrow, I might just scrape by.
Dan snapped his fingers directly in front of my face.
His forehead was slick with a thin layer of sweat that had absolutely nothing to do with the heat of the ovens.
Our floor manager lived in a perpetual state of nervous digestion.
Tonight his anxiety radiated off him in frantic, chaotic waves.
I pushed off the stainless steel counter and grabbed my heavy black serving tray.
He hissed my name and grabbed my elbow.
His fingers dug painfully into the thin fabric of my sleeve.
He asked if I had any idea who was sitting at table four.
I pulled my arm away and wiped down the edges of the tray with a damp rag.
Three steaks, one branzino, and sparkling water with no ice.
It was Greg Rossi.
Dan breathed the name like it was a bomb about to go off right in the middle of our dining room.
You didn’t live in this city without knowing exactly who Greg Rossi was.
He wasn’t the kind of mobster who made headlines with flashy cars or ridiculous club shootouts.
He operated in the quiet, brutal spaces between legitimate business and violent extortion.
I kept my voice flat and told Dan I was on it.
Terror burned calories I simply didn’t have to spare.
Dan wiped his forehead with a napkin and warned me that Greg’s men were on edge.
I picked up the tray.
It was incredibly heavy with three thick cuts of prime rib, a whole fish, and cast iron side dishes.
The weight settled onto my forearm with a familiar, bruising pressure.
I pushed through the swinging double doors into the dining room.
Lombardi’s was usually a noisy place filled with the clatter of silverware and the boastful chatter of businessmen.
Tonight the noise was completely muffled.
Other patrons leaned in over their tables and spoke in hushed tones.
Their eyes constantly darted toward the back corner booth.
Four men sat in the booth.
Three of them were built like cinder blocks with broad shoulders stretching the seams of expensive wool suits.
Their eyes scanned the room with the mechanical sweeping motion of security cameras.
Then there was Greg Rossi.
He didn’t look like a monster.
He just looked deeply, profoundly exhausted.
He wore a charcoal suit that draped perfectly across his frame.
His tie was loosened and the top button of his shirt was undone.
He stared down at the pristine white tablecloth and traced the edge of his water glass with a calloused finger.
Dark circles bruised the skin under his eyes.
He smelled strongly of black coffee, expensive vetiver cologne, and the sharp metallic tang of cold rain.
I approached the table and kept my eyes glued to the heavy porcelain plates.
I wasn’t trying to be deferential or polite.
I just really didn’t want to drop the fish.
My voice sounded tight and mechanical as I announced the prime rib.
I slid the plate in front of one of the bodyguards.
He didn’t even look at me.
I moved over to Greg to serve his bone-in ribeye.
As I leaned over, the heavy cast iron skillet of garlic potatoes on my tray suddenly shifted.
The grease on the bottom of the skillet met the smooth plastic of the tray.
It slid fast.
Pure, unadulterated adrenaline spiked violently through my chest.
I jerked my left arm up and caught the edge of the sizzling skillet with my bare fingers.
The heat blistered my skin instantly.
A sharp, involuntary hiss escaped my teeth.
I clamped my jaw shut and shoved the skillet back into place.
My hand trembled as I quickly set the rest of the plates down.
My fingertips burned with a bright, hot agony.
Greg stopped tracing his glass and looked up at me.
His eyes were a flat, muddy brown.
There was no warmth in them, but there wasn’t any cruelty either.
It was just a heavy, suffocating emptiness.
He looked at my hand where the skin was already turning a violent shade of red.
Then he looked directly at my face.
I swallowed hard and hid my injured hand behind my back.
I asked if I could get them anything else.
Greg asked for ice in a quiet, gravelly voice that carried strange acoustic weight in the hushed room.
He specified the ice was for my hand.
I blinked, completely unsure of how to respond to that.
I gave a tight nod, told him to enjoy his meal, and backed away from the table.
I retreated to the kitchen as the swinging doors flapped shut behind me.
I rushed to the prep sink and shoved my hand under the frigid cold tap.
The cold water hit the fresh burn.
I squeezed my eyes shut and let out a long, shaky breath.
Two hours left.
The dinner rush faded into the steady hum of the industrial dishwashing machine.
I stood near the front entrance wiping down the wait station with a bleach-soaked rag.
My burned hand throbbed painfully under a makeshift bandage of napkins and a rubber band.
The smell of bleach and old espresso grounds filled my nose.
The rain outside had turned into a massive, violent downpour.
Lombardi’s heavy double doors were supposed to keep the city out.
They didn’t just open.
They were shoved inward with a force that made the brass hinges scream in protest.
The cold air hit me first.
It rushed into the warm garlic-scented dining room carrying the smell of wet asphalt and rusted iron.
A man stepped into the foyer.
He was simply too big.
That was the first thought that registered in my tired brain.
He stood at least seven feet tall with shoulders so wide he had to turn sideways to clear the heavy doorframe.
He wore a dark green military surplus trench coat that dripped black water onto the polished hardwood floor.
His face was a slab of scarred meat hidden beneath the brim of a sodden wool cap.
The silence in the restaurant deepened into a hard vacuum.
At table four, the atmosphere snapped.
One of Greg’s bodyguards dropped his fork and reached inside his suit jacket.
He was entirely too slow.
The giant reached into the deep pocket of his trench coat with a jerky, brutal motion.
He pulled out a heavy matte black pistol equipped with a massive suppressor.
It didn’t sound like a gunshot.
It sounded like an industrial staple gun misfiring.
The bodyguard’s head snapped back as if he’d been punched by an invisible fist.
A fine red mist sprayed across the white tablecloth and his half-eaten prime rib.
He slumped forward and knocked his water glass over.
The other two bodyguards surged upward with their chairs kicking back.
The giant fired twice more.
One guard went down hard clutching a shattered collarbone.
The other fired blindly and shattered a mirror behind the bar.
Glass rained down like hail and clinked against the liquor bottles.
I stood completely frozen at the wait station.
I was ten feet away from the giant, but I couldn’t move.
My feet felt like they were set in concrete.
My heart beat so fast it created a continuous painful vibration in my chest.
The giant dropped the suppressed pistol onto the floor with a heavy thud.
He drew a rusted, heavy steel pipe from his coat.
It was three feet long with a jagged fitting on one end.
He locked eyes with Greg Rossi.
Greg hadn’t run or ducked under the table.
He pushed himself back into the corner of the booth and fired a compact silver revolver.
The bullet caught the giant in the shoulder.
The giant didn’t even flinch.
He let out a low, wet growl that vibrated in my teeth and charged.
He was a freight train made of meat and wet wool.
His massive boots slammed against the hardwood floor.
He closed the distance to table four with terrifying speed.
He was going to crush Greg’s skull with that pipe.
I was still standing at the wait station clutching the edge of the counter.
Next to me sat a towering stainless steel coffee urn.
I had just filled it with three gallons of boiling water to steep chamomile tea.
The metal radiated a vicious, blistering heat.
The giant ran right past me.
He was an arm’s length away.
My brain short-circuited into pure animal panic.
I needed a barrier between myself and the violent thing rushing past me.
I ignored my screaming burned hand and grabbed the heavy black plastic handles of the boiling coffee urn.
The urn weighed close to thirty pounds.
It was a clumsy, sloshing cylinder of pure heat.
As the giant barreled past, his heavy shoulder clipped my arm.
The force spun me around and threw me off balance.
My cheap rubber-soled shoes slid on a spot of grease.
I was falling backward, and the urn was tipping directly toward my face.
Survival instinct took the wheel.
I didn’t think about saving a mob boss; I just pushed the thirty-pound urn of boiling water away from my face and watched the giant slip.
