Chapter 2 - THE DEAL
Warm air hit Sophia’s face.
It should have made her feel safe.
It didn’t.
Dante sat across from her while Manhattan slid past behind tinted glass.
“You investigated me.”
“Yes.”
Sophia waited for an apology.
None came.
“You’re unbelievable.”
“I’ve been called worse.”
“By people who are still alive?”
One of the men in front glanced into the mirror.
Dante didn’t react.
“My mother smiled tonight.”
Sophia frowned.
“So?”
“She hasn’t done that in months.”
“That doesn’t give you permission to dig through my life.”
“No.”
The answer surprised her.
“No?”
“No. I had no right.”
She stared.
Dante continued calmly.
“I did it anyway.”
Sophia almost opened the door while the SUV was moving.
“What do you want?”
“My mother needs someone she trusts.”
“I served her soup.”
“You reminded her of home.”
“I’m a waitress.”
“You speak Sicilian.”
“Half Sicilian.”
“You cook.”
“Barely.”
“You made her laugh.”
“That may have been temporary insanity.”
Dante smiled.
A real one this time.
It changed his face completely.
Sophia hated that.
A terrifying man was easier to deal with when he looked terrifying.
Then he placed a check between them.
Sophia looked down.
$40,000.
She looked up.
“What is that?”
“Your father’s debt.”
Her stomach tightened.
“What did you do?”
“I bought it.”
“You bought my father’s debt?”
“Yes.”
“From the Romano brothers?”
“Yes.”
Sophia’s relief lasted one second.
Then she understood.
“So now he owes you.”
“No.”
“I owe you?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
Dante leaned back.
“You work for my mother for three months. I pay you ten thousand dollars a month. Your father’s debt disappears.”
Sophia laughed once.
Not because it was funny.
“That sounds exactly like the beginning of a terrible decision.”
“It probably is.”
“No interest?”
“No.”
“No hidden fees?”
“No.”
“No creepy contract saying you own me?”
His expression turned cold.
“No contract can make one human being own another.”
Sophia studied him.
“That’s surprisingly modern for a mobster.”
“Alleged mobster.”
“You have armed men in the front seat.”
“New York is unpredictable.”
One bodyguard coughed.
Sophia looked at the check again.
Forty thousand dollars.
Her father had been beaten twice already.
Last week, he had shown up at her apartment with blood on his collar and promised it was over.
She had believed him for exactly eleven minutes.
“What happens after three months?”
“You leave.”
“And my father?”
“He gets no more gambling credit from anyone connected to my family.”
“That’s a lot of people.”
“Yes.”
Sophia rubbed her forehead.
“My father lives in Queens.”
“Yes.”
“I’m not babysitting him.”
“Agreed.”
“I get Sundays off.”
Dante tilted his head.
“My mother believes Sunday lunch is a sacred event.”
“So do I. Mine just happens without her.”
That smile again.
“Fine.”
Sophia held out her hand.
“Three months.”
Dante looked at it.
Then shook it.
His hand was warm.
Strong.
Tattooed across the knuckles.
The contact lasted two seconds.
Sophia noticed every one.
“Three months,” he said.
She pulled away first.
The SUV stopped outside her building.
Before Sophia got out, Dante said, “One more thing.”
She turned.
“If the Romano brothers contact you, call me.”
“I thought you bought the debt.”
“I did.”
“Then why would they contact me?”
Dante’s expression changed.
The humor disappeared.
“Because men like the Romanos don’t like losing something they thought belonged to them.”
Sophia opened the door.
“I don’t belong to anybody.”
Dante’s eyes stayed on hers.
“I know.”
She stepped out.
The SUV pulled away.
Sophia stood under the broken light outside her apartment building, clutching a forty-thousand-dollar check.
Her phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
A picture appeared.
Her father.
Sitting at a poker table.
Behind him stood two men.
May you like
The message underneath contained five words.
MORETTI CAN’T PROTECT YOU FOREVER.
