“May it give every man exactly what he deserves,” Alessandro repeated.
“May it give every man exactly what he deserves,” Alessandro repeated.
The glass didn’t shake in his hand. He took a single, deliberate sip of the unpoisoned whiskey, his dark eyes never leaving my face.
Across the small table, Dominic Russo raised his own glass—the one containing Felix’s clear, lethal drops—and drained half of it in a single swallow. He wiped his mouth with the back of a gold-ringed hand, grinning like a shark that smelled blood in the water.
“Good stuff,” Russo laughed, slamming the glass back down. “A new structure. New blood. Exactly what Chicago needs.”
My fingernails dug into the fabric of my apron. A drop of sweat traced a cold line down my spine. Russo had maybe sixty seconds before the compound took effect. In a room full of armed men, once he choked, absolute chaos would erupt. The rule of no violence inside would shatter into a thousand pieces, and the first person they would look at to blame—or to silence—would be the waitress who served the glass.
I braced myself to step back, to vanish into the kitchen shadows.
“Hazel,” Alessandro said quietly.
His voice carried across the table, soft as velvet, cutting through the din of the surrounding conversations.
I froze. “Yes, Mr. Vitiello?”
“Stay.”
It wasn’t a request.
Russo blinked, his smile faltering for a fraction of a second. He reached for his collar, pulling at his silk tie as if the knot had suddenly tightened. “What… what is this? It’s hot in here.”
“Is it?” Alessandro tilted his head, his expression completely blank. “I find the temperature quite comfortable.”
Russo’s chest hitched. He tried to draw a breath, but his throat seized. His eyes widened with sudden, animal panic as he clawed at his collar, his chair scraping violently against the floor.
At the edge of the table, Frankie—Russo’s enforcer—stood up so fast his chair fell backward, slamming onto the wood. “Boss? What’s wrong?” Frankie’s hand dove instantly into his jacket, his fingers wrapping around the grip of a concealed pistol.
Before Frankie could clear leather, every single man sitting at the surrounding tables shifted.
The low hum of Il Crepuscolo died instantly.
From the shadows near the bar, two of Alessandro’s personal guards stepped forward, their movements synchronized and lethal, heavy coats parting to reveal shoulder holsters. Across the room, three union reps who had been drinking quietly suddenly slid their chairs back, hands resting near pocket knives and pieces.
The neutrality of the room didn’t just break; it evaporated.
“Don’t,” Alessandro said. It was just one word, spoken barely above a whisper, but it froze Frankie dead in his tracks.
Russo slumped forward, his forehead hitting the mahogany tabletop with a hollow thud. His fingers twitched once, twice, and then went still.
Silence descended on the underground club so absolute you could hear the ice melting in the crystal glasses.
Frankie stared at Russo’s motionless body, his face draining of all color. He looked up at Alessandro, his voice trembling. “You… you poisoned him. You broke the rule. You killed him at the table!”
“I didn’t touch his glass,” Alessandro replied evenly. He leaned back in his seat, steepling his long fingers together. He didn’t look at Russo. He looked at me.
“She did!” Frankie shouted, pointing a shaking finger directly at my chest. “The waitress switched them! I saw her hands move! She’s working for a rival crew—kill her!”
Frankie whipped his gun out of his jacket.
He never got the barrel past his chest.
A sharp, deafening crack echoed through the low-ceilinged vault. A puff of smoke rose from the shoulder holster of the man standing to Alessandro’s left. Frankie’s eyes went wide, a neat, dark hole appearing center-mass in his white dress shirt. He stumbled backward into a display of vintage wine bottles, shattering glass before collapsing into a motionless heap on the floor.
The smell of gunpowder filled the air, thick and metallic.
No one screamed. Down here, people knew how to die quietly.
Alessandro finally stood up. He adjusted his jacket cuffs, smoothing the fabric with immaculate care. He walked slowly around the table, stepping past Russo’s corpse, until he was standing less than two feet away from me.
Up close, his presence was overwhelming—clean cedarwood, expensive wool, and an aura of absolute, terrifying control.
“You dropped a tray,” Alessandro said softly, his dark eyes searching my face, looking for any trace of panic, any sign of a break.
“My hip struck the chair, sir,” I answered, keeping my voice level, though my heart was hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.
“A clumsy mistake for a girl who has spent four years being the most observant person in this room,” Alessandro murmured. He reached out.
For a second, I thought he was going to draw a weapon, or grab me by the throat for interfering with his politics. Instead, his fingers brushed lightly against my left wrist, right over the worn silver watch I had worn since my mother died.
“You watched Felix pour the drink,” Alessandro said, his tone shifting from casual observation to a quiet interrogation. “You saw the vial. You had fifteen steps to walk away, to let Russo drink it, and no one would have ever questioned a dead capo’s heart giving out. Why didn’t you?”
I swallowed hard, forcing my chin up. I looked past his shoulder at the empty bar where Felix was currently trying to crawl through the back service door, only to be pinned to the floor by two of Alessandro’s men.
“Because Dominic Russo was a liar who didn’t keep his word,” I said quietly, letting the mask of invisibility slip just enough for him to see the iron beneath. “And because I prefer a boss who honors a structure over a man who plots behind a toast.”
A slow, dangerous smile finally touched Alessandro’s lips. It didn’t reach his eyes, but it changed his entire face, turning him from a statue into something alive.
“A structure,” he repeated, tasting the word.
He turned his head toward his head of security. “Take Felix out back. Find out who else supplied him with the compound. And clean this table.”
“Yes, boss,” the man replied.
Alessandro turned back to me, sliding a heavy, gold-engraved business card from his inner vest pocket and pressing it gently into my palm. My fingers closed around it automatically.
“The club is closed for the rest of the evening, Hazel,” Alessandro said, his voice dropping into a low, confidential murmur. “Upstairs, they need someone to manage the floor—someone smart enough to see everything, and loyal enough to choose the right side when the tray tilts.”
He stepped past me, pausing just long enough for his shoulder to brush mine.
“Clean up your station. Then come see me in the back office. We need to talk about a promotion.”
