Chapter 1 - The Waitress Who Knew Too Much: A Slip of the Tongue at Table Four
“Who taught you those words?”
The old Sicilian patriarch’s cane struck the marble floor.
Mateo Vitiello rose beside him, all six-foot-three of him, gray eyes fixed on me.
“Answer him, Tessa.”
Every man in Bellori stopped breathing.
I stood frozen beneath the crystal chandelier, clutching a silver water pitcher against my black-and-white maid uniform. White lace edged the modest bodice and the short skirt that ended just above my knees. A traditional maid headpiece rested over my long auburn-red hair.
Seconds earlier, seventy-six-year-old Salvatore Vitiello had been insulting Chicago, the restaurant, the food...
And me.
He simply hadn’t known I understood every word.
“Bona sira, Don Salvatore,” I had answered softly. “Diu vi binidica.”
Good evening, Don Salvatore. May God bless you.
Silence.
A server near the bar almost dropped a wine bottle.
One of Salvatore’s bodyguards slowly withdrew his hand from inside his jacket. My manager had gone completely white.
And Mateo?
He simply stared.
At six-foot-three, with broad shoulders and dark hair swept back from a brutally handsome face, Mateo Vitiello never needed to raise his voice. Tattoos disappeared beneath the cuffs and collar of his charcoal suit, hints of the dangerous man Chicago whispered about.
“Tessa.”
My name sounded like a warning on his lips.
I should have apologized and disappeared.
I was good at disappearing.
For six years, invisibility had paid my nursing-school tuition. I had cleaned hotel rooms, stocked grocery shelves after midnight, and worked endless restaurant shifts serving wealthy people who rarely bothered to remember my face.
Then Mateo Vitiello started coming to Bellori.
Three weeks earlier, he walked in during a rainy Tuesday evening.
He announced nothing.
Yet conversations softened.
Businessmen who normally treated servers like furniture suddenly remembered their manners.
Everyone in Chicago knew the Vitiello name.
I didn’t know exactly what Mateo did.
I preferred it that way.
I only knew black luxury cars waited outside for him, men twice his age called him sir, and my manager practically sweated through his shirt whenever Mateo requested Table Four.
Unfortunately, Table Four was mine.
The first night I served him, his gaze dropped to my hand before he touched his scotch.
“Your right wrist is burned.”
“Kitchen accident.”
“You’re favoring your left foot.”
“Long shift.”
Those cool gray eyes lifted to mine.
“Do you always answer questions with the fewest possible words?”
“When the customer hasn’t ordered yet.”
For one dangerous second, Mateo looked genuinely surprised.
Then the corner of his mouth almost lifted.
“Rare steak.”
After that, he returned twice that week.
Then twice the next.
Always Table Four.
Always requesting me.
I never asked why.
Tonight, Bellori was closed to the public.
At five thirty, my manager gathered the staff beside the bar.
“Mateo Vitiello is hosting a private family dinner.”
Nobody spoke.
Then came the sentence that frightened everyone.
“His father is coming.”
Salvatore Vitiello had spent years moving between Sicily and secluded European estates. Stories about him had crossed the Atlantic long before he did.
Some were probably exaggerated.
Looking at my coworkers, nobody wanted to discover which ones.
Then my manager pointed at me.
“Mateo specifically requested you.”
My stomach tightened.
“Why?”
He never answered.
Now I stood beside their table, painfully aware of Mateo watching me after I had revealed I understood every insult his father had thrown my way.
Salvatore slowly rose.
Mateo immediately stood with him.
The old patriarch stared at my face.
Not my uniform.
Not the pitcher trembling between my fingers.
My face.
Then he spoke again in the nearly forgotten Sicilian dialect my great-grandmother had whispered around our kitchen when I was little.
My breath caught.
Because Salvatore hadn’t asked where I learned his language.
He had asked something else.
“What was your great-grandmother’s name?”
Mateo’s expression changed.
For the first time since I had met him, the feared mafia boss looked unsettled.
I swallowed.
Then whispered her name.
“Caterina. Caterina Rossi.”
Salvatore went completely still.
His fingers opened.
The silver-headed cane slipped from his hand and crashed against the marble floor.
And Mateo stared at his father as if the dead had just walked into the room.
The silence that followed was heavy, suffocating. The air conditioning hummed, but sweat trickled down my spine. Don Salvatore’s eyes, milky with age but sharp as shattered glass, filled with a sudden, terrifying moisture. He stepped forward, reaching a trembling, ring-clad hand toward my cheek. I flinched, stepping back, bumping into Mateo’s solid chest. Mateo's hands immediately went to my waist—not to harm, but to steady me. A jolt of electricity shot through my veins at his touch, warm and impossibly strong through the thin fabric of my apron.
May you like
"Caterina's blood," Salvatore rasped, his voice breaking. "After all these years."
Before I could ask what he meant, Mateo’s voice cut through the tension. "Clear the room. Now." The bodyguards sprang into action. My manager practically sprinted toward the kitchen, dragging the other servers with him. I tried to follow, but Mateo’s grip on my waist tightened. "Not you, Tessa. You stay right here."
Related Stories
