Chapter 8 - THE WEIGHT OF AN ESPRESSO CUP
The heat from the nearby grill washed over them, carrying the scent of seared beef and charred wood. Gabriel stepped closer, his physical presence blotting out the light, trapping Tessa between his broad frame and the cold steel counter.
"We're alone now," Gabriel said, his voice a low, gravelly rasp. "No old men with bad hearts to protect you. No managers. Just you and me."
Tessa did not retreat. She tilted her chin up, meeting his terrifying dark eyes.
"You're wasting your time, Mr. Rossi," she said, her voice steady despite the hammer of her pulse against her ribs. "Your father's steak is on the fire. If I don't bring it out, he’ll think you killed me."
"He wouldn't care if I killed you," Gabriel lied, though the memory of his father’s desperate command still burned in his mind. "Tell me what you said to him. Word for word. In English."
Tessa let out a small, humorless breath. "Why? Does it bother you that there are things in his life you don't control, Gabriel?"
Hearing her use his first name was like an electric shock. His jaw clenched so hard the muscles jumped beneath the skin. He raised his right hand, his fingers spreading, the dark ink of a serpent coiling down his thumb visible against his pale skin. He planted his palm flat against the stainless steel right beside her head, leaning in until his lips were inches from her ear.
"My father hasn't dropped his cane in twenty years," Gabriel whispered, the dangerous edge of his voice vibrating against her hair. "He hasn't looked afraid since the commission trials in eighty-five. You spoke three words into his ear, and you turned him into a corpse. You're going to tell me what you know, or I swear to God, I will tear this restaurant down to its foundations with you inside it."
Tessa turned her head slowly, looking directly into his eyes, their faces separated by barely a hand’s breadth. She didn't flinch from the violence in him.
"I told him," Tessa whispered, her voice colder than the ice in his scotch, "that the girl he left in the burning house in Cinisi had a daughter. And that daughter had me."
Gabriel’s pupils contracted.
He didn't know the name Cinisi. He was thirty-two; his wars had been fought in Brooklyn warehouses, Queens trucking depots, and Manhattan high-rises. Cinisi was the Old World. Cinisi was the black-and-white photographs his father kept locked in the bottom drawer of his mahogany desk—photographs he was never allowed to touch.
Before Gabriel could speak, the timer on the expeditor’s counter began to beep with shrill, persistent urgency.
Tessa broke the gaze. She reached out, grabbed a thick dry towel, and walked past him as if he were nothing more than an inconvenient pillar. She approached the grill, used a pair of long steel tongs to pull the thick, bone-in ribeye from the searing grates, and placed it onto an oval platter of white porcelain. The steak was blackened on the outside, weeping ruby-red juices, releasing a cloud of fragrant, intoxicating smoke laced with charred garlic and bitter olive oil.
Beside the platter, she set a heavy ceramic espresso cup, pulling a double shot of dark, thick espresso from the commercial machine near the door. The crema on top was golden-brown, dense and perfect.
She arranged the platter, the steak knife with the dark wooden handle, and the small espresso cup on a heavy service tray.
She lifted the tray with both hands, balancing the weight with practiced ease, and turned back to Gabriel. He was still standing by the prep counter, his dark eyes wide, his chest rising and falling, his mind struggling to assemble a puzzle whose edges he couldn't even see.
"Excuse me, Mr. Rossi," Tessa said, her voice once again the polite, impassive tool of a Manhattan waitress. "Your father is waiting for his dinner."
May you like
She pushed through the kitchen doors, leaving him alone in the heat and the smoke.
***
