Chapter 3 - The Threat of the Steaming Pot
Dora didn't blink. Instead, she turned her back on the syndicate boss with deliberate slowness, reaching past the espresso machine to the industrial stainless-steel drip coffee maker. She gripped the handle of the heavy, steaming glass decanter filled to the brim with boiling-hot black coffee. The liquid hissed slightly as it sloshed against the hot glass element.
She turned back around, carrying the heavy pot in her right hand like a weapon, and walked directly toward Leonardo at the center of the counter. She didn't stop at a respectful distance; she closed the gap until she was standing barely a foot away from him, close enough to smell the metallic, coppery reek of fresh blood and expensive Italian cologne.
Leonardo stood his ground, though his dark eyes flickered down to the steaming glass pot in her hand.
"Move faster," Leonardo muttered, testing her limits.
Dora stopped dead in her tracks. She raised the heavy coffee pot, tilting it slightly so a wisp of scalding steam curled upward, passing inches from Leonardo’s face. Then, she slowly lowered the lip of the pot until it was hovering directly over the torn, bloody rent in his white shirt, right above his bleeding bicep.
"Shout at me again," Dora whispered, her voice dropping into an icy, unreadable register, "and this goes right in the wound."
The entire diner seemed to hold its breath. The ceiling fan overhead gave a lonely, metallic squeak.
Leonardo stared at her. For a fraction of a second, the formidable cartel boss looked genuinely stunned. He looked from the boiling-hot glass decanter down to the fierce, dark-rimmed bags under Dora’s eyes, and then back to her unyielding gaze. There was no bluff in her posture. She was a woman pushed so far past the edge of human patience that burning a mobster with coffee seemed entirely reasonable.
Dante went rigid. His hand flashed under his leather jacket, and in one fluid, terrifying motion, he drew a heavy-caliber semiautomatic handgun, leveling the barrel squarely at Dora’s chest.
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"Boss," Dante snarled, the safety clicking off with a crisp, lethal snap. "Say the word."
Dora didn't flinch. She didn't look at the gun. Her eyes remained locked on Leonardo’s, the heavy glass pot steady as a rock in her hand.
