Chapter Two
EBONY
It was day two of my terrible job, and I was contemplating throwing myself in front of the bus coming my way. Allegra was okay. I’d gotten used to her miserable comments. But having to deal with Darla again, add on top of that Giordy’s comments about my looks every time he passed me, I just couldn’t give a crap about family or my life anymore. Life on the street would be preferable to putting myself through this every day.
I’d give it one more day and if things got worse—or stayed the same—I’d leave and maybe start up a side business on the corner. At least I’d have money even if it was selling my body for it. Giordy knew I was struggling which meant he had to make my life worse by discounting the fact that he had to have an experienced waitress and opted for an inexperienced one due to a favor to my mother.
I dodged a bullet and safely moved across the street after the bus had come and gone. My opportunity had passed.
Allegra was already setting up when I walked in, but no one else was around. I quickly dropped my bag off and tied my hair up before joining her.
Darla had come out of the back office with a grim look on her face as she spoke to Giordy. Something was happening, and for some unknown reason, I knew it wasn’t going to lead to a good day.
“What’s up?” Allegra asked. I’d halted setting up to get a read on the situation. She followed my gaze and shrugged her shoulders. “I wouldn’t let it get to you. They’re always arguing about something.”
Deciding Allegra knew better than anyone whether to be worried or not, I finished setting up while Allegra went back to setting the other side of the restaurant.
“Allegra!” Darla called out from the office. I watched as Allegra turned and marched over to her mother. Giordy was coming over to me with a grim expression matching Darla’s on his face.
“Ebony… can we talk?”
My heart sped up. Was he going to fire me already?
“Yeah?”
“I need you to cover today. We need a table set up in the back room with the finest of everything. I’m sending Allegra home, and the restaurant will be almost empty save for a few people that are regulars.”
“Oh,” I responded. “What kind of setup would you like?”
“Just standard, but make sure you have a bottle of the cheapest whiskey placed in the middle of the table with glasses from behind the bar and a bucket of ice.”
I nodded and set about the task of getting the drinks sorted while Giordy disappeared in the back office. Allegra and Darla must have left while Giordy was talking to me because I didn’t see them again. It made me wonder what was going down that Giordy would send them home, leaving me, the most inexperienced of them, here to manage on my own.
As I set up the back room, I noticed it had shades that allowed you to see out but no one could see in. Shady as fuck! I knew Giordy was into bad shit—hell, the whole family was—but this just freaked me out.
I prayed the police didn’t rock up and see me, assume I was doing something wrong and arrest me just because I was related to him and the fact I had a record. I had spent enough time behind bars, there was no way I was going back.
Giordy came out as the customers were starting to arrive. He looked at me and winked before greeting some of his regulars. He hadn’t been wrong about it being quiet. I only saw some of the people I knew from the family barbecues back when I was a child sitting in the room. They all seemed to recognize me, yet I couldn’t place a name to one single face if my life depended on it. I tried to play nice, allowing them to smack me on the behind without retaliating, even though I wanted to slap them hard across the face. One patron even had the audacity to feel between my legs, under the apron, for “tightness” as he called it. I’d thrown up in the staff bathroom afterward. The guy had to be pushing sixty. I mean I knew they didn’t lose their sex drive or whatever, but that was the type of disgusting behavior I expected of teenage boys or even men in their early twenties, not grandfathers.
I could sense Giordy was feeling a bit off about whoever it was he was meeting with in the back room. As it approached eleven a.m., I could see he was sweating, wiping his palms on his suit jacket and pacing.
Who the hell could elicit such a response from Giordano Torelli?
My question was answered when I turned to see who was making their way through the door. Two muscled men had opened the door and let through an attractive man with slicked-back black hair and the most piercing green eyes I’d ever seen. He glanced my way briefly before moving past me toward Giordy.
The entire room was mumbling, watching the interaction between Giordy and this mystery man. The only person who could do that to an entire room of gangsters was the one man I hoped never to see in person.
Jesus Christ, Jett Black had just walked right past me.