Chapter 1 - The Broken Cup
Dana reached Emily first, practically screaming to ask if she had completely lost her mind.
Emily calmly bent down, picked up a damp rag, and began wiping the dark coffee off the counter.
Dana grabbed her arm tightly, demanding to know if Emily understood exactly what that man could do to her.
Emily did not look up from the cracked tile floor as she scrubbed the stubborn stain.
She knew perfectly well what Vincent Moretti was capable of doing to people who defied him.
She had heard the horrific stories of bodies found in the Chicago River and businesses burned to the ground overnight.
But terror was a luxury that a broke, desperate waitress could no longer afford to feel.
Reuben, the old cook, walked out from behind the grill and stared at her with deep, terrifying sorrow.
He told Emily that she needed to pack her bags and disappear from the city tonight.
Emily looked at him tiredly and explained that she could not move a dying woman on a crowded Greyhound bus.
Reuben reached into his greasy apron, pulled out a wad of crumpled tip money, and pressed it into her trembling hand.
She tried to refuse the charity, but he insisted, warning her that Vincent Moretti never forgave a public humiliation.
She finished her shift in complete silence, deliberately ignoring the frightened, lingering stares of the remaining customers.
The bus ride home was freezing, the brutal autumn wind biting harshly through her thin, worn coat.
She walked up three flights of stairs in her crumbling building and unlocked the door to her tiny apartment.
The rhythmic, mechanical wheeze of the medical oxygen concentrator instantly filled the dark, quiet room.
Her mother, Ruth, was deeply asleep on the faded sofa, her frail chest rising in shallow, painful increments.
Emily walked into the cramped kitchen and reluctantly opened the infamous drawer where she hid her past-due bills.
Sitting right on top of the terrifying pile was a bright pink final notice from her ruthless landlord.
She had exactly three days to pay four thousand dollars or face immediate, forceful eviction into the freezing streets.
She leaned against the counter and buried her face in her hands, letting the sheer exhaustion temporarily crush her spirit.
Suddenly, a sharp, rhythmic knock echoed aggressively from the other side of her thin front door.
It was far too late for the landlord to be visiting, and the knocking was entirely too polite for the local police.
Emily reached back into the drawer, grabbed a heavy, serrated kitchen knife, and slowly approached the wooden door.
May you like
She held her breath, peered through the dirty glass peephole, and felt her entire body freeze in absolute terror.
Standing alone in the dim hallway was a young, striking man who possessed Vincent Moretti’s exact cold, calculating eyes.
