Chapter 10
"No," Maya said, taking another step backward until her spine hit the cold steel of the freezer door. "No, absolutely not. I helped your daughter because she was hurting. But I am not getting in a car with the mafia, surrounded by men trying to kill you."
"Maya," Dante said, his voice terrifyingly calm, devoid of any anger. It was the voice of a man stating an undeniable fact of nature. "Lorenzo Moretti’s men just saw you take my daughter into this room. They saw you protect her. As far as the Moretti family is concerned, you are now a Russo asset. If you walk out the front door of this restaurant and take the subway home, you will be dead before sunrise."
The words hit Maya like a physical blow. The air rushed out of her lungs. She looked at the two dead hitmen lying on the kitchen floor. Dante wasn't threatening her; he was warning her.
"My bakery," Maya whispered, tears of sheer panic welling in her eyes. "My life... my apartment. I can't just disappear."
"Name your price," Dante said instantly, pulling a thick roll of hundred-dollar bills from his pocket, stained slightly with his own blood. "Fifty thousand? A hundred? I will buy you your own bakery tomorrow morning. I will buy you a new life in any city in the world. I don't care about money. I care about keeping my daughter speaking."
"I don't want your blood money!" Maya shouted, her fear finally giving way to desperate anger. "I want to go home!"
Sophia flinched at the shout, burying her face into Dante’s neck and crying harder.
Maya instantly felt a wave of guilt crash over her. She looked at the little girl in the blue velvet dress. Sophia had lost her mother. She was surrounded by violence, blood, and men who solved problems with guns. She was completely, utterly terrified, and for some inexplicable reason, she had tethered her fragile sanity to a waitress who liked the color purple.
Dante took a deep breath, his broad chest expanding. He lowered the money. "I'm not asking you, Maya," Dante said, his voice dropping to a dark, lethal whisper. "I am telling you. You are coming with us tonight. You will stay with Sophia at my secure compound until I get my wife back. When my wife is safe, you walk away with enough money to never work another day in your life. But right now, my daughter needs you. And I do not deny my daughter anything."
The sirens were getting louder. The flashing red and blue lights were beginning to reflect against the wet pavement outside the alley window.
Dante turned toward the heavy steel fire door that led to the back alley. He kicked the push-bar open. The roar of the rain and the idling engines of three heavily armored black SUVs flooded into the kitchen. Heavily armed men in suits stood in the rain, scanning the rooftops with assault rifles.
Dante stopped in the doorway. He looked back at Maya over his shoulder. The rain instantly soaked his dark hair, washing the blood from his jaw.
"Are you coming?" Dante asked.
Maya looked at the restaurant kitchen. She looked at Tony, who gave her a sad, helpless nod. She looked at her black apron, stained with flour and the chaos of the night. Her dream of a quiet bakery, of a simple, exhausting life, was gone. It had died the moment a red crayon rolled across the floor.
She looked at Sophia. The little girl reached out her hand one more time toward Maya, her brown eyes pleading in the dim light.
Maya wiped a stray tear from her cheek. She reached up, untied the knot of her black apron, and let it fall to the kitchen floor.
May you like
Without a word, Maya walked forward, stepping out of the warm, amber light of Bellanote and into the cold, violent rain of Dante Russo’s world. As she reached the doorway, she took Sophia’s tiny, outstretched hand.
Dante closed the heavy steel door behind them, plunging them into the dark, roaring night, racing toward a war that had only just begun.
