Chapter 7 - Midnight at the Restaurant
At 12:30 in the morning, Marchetti’s on Atwells Avenue was once again dark, silent, and empty.
The last kitchen workers had clocked out an hour earlier. The heavy velvet curtains were drawn tight across the front arched windows, blocking out the light from the streetlamps.
Inside the private manager’s office near the kitchen, Frank—a stout, sweaty man in his early fifties with thin gray hair—sat behind his desk, counting two stacks of hundred-dollar bills.
Sitting across from him in a high-backed leather chair was Curtis Hodge.
Hodge looked exactly as his voice sounded over the phone: lean, slick, wearing an expensive gray suit that didn't quite hide the predatory edge in his pale eyes. He was lighting a thin cigar with his antique gold lighter, a small pile of signed debt transfer forms resting near his elbow.
"The new sanitation company you hired is charging twelve hundred a week, Frank," Hodge remarked, blowing a ring of blue smoke toward the ceiling. "That’s double what you were paying that Delaney girl."
Frank snorted, banding one of the cash stacks with a red rubber band. "Who cares? Marchetti pays the overhead bills anyway. The girl disappeared on Monday. Didn't even pick up her last paycheck. Probably ran off to Boston to avoid your collection boys."
"Pity," Hodge chuckled softly, tapping his ash into a silver tray. "I was looking forward to taking her mother’s social security check next week."
Click.
The lock on the manager’s office door turned smoothly.
The door swung wide open.
Frank jumped in his chair, dropping the stack of cash onto the desk. Hodge turned his head sharply, his hand instantly reaching toward the inside pocket of his jacket.
"I wouldn't do that, Curtis," a quiet, heavy voice echoed from the doorway.
Marco stepped into the room first, his hand resting casually inside his coat pocket, his broad shoulders completely blocking the exit.
Behind Marco walked Dante Marchetti.
And standing right beside Dante—wearing a sharp midnight-blue wool coat, her hands clad in fine black leather gloves, her head held high with absolute authority—was Karen Delaney.
Frank’s face turned the color of ash. His mouth opened and closed like a dying fish. "Mr... Mr. Marchetti... what... what are you doing here at this hour?"
Hodge’s hand froze inside his jacket. His pale eyes darted from Dante to Marco, and then finally landed on Karen.
His jaw went slack. The cigar almost slipped from his fingers.
"You..." Hodge whispered, his voice losing every trace of its smooth, arrogant tone. "Miss Delaney?"
Karen stepped forward, taking a position right beside Dante’s shoulder. She looked down at Hodge with an expression of pure, unadulterated contempt.
"Good evening, Mr. Hodge," Karen said softly, her voice cold, steady, and utterly devoid of fear. "I believe you mentioned on Monday night that I survived my problems long enough to reach the next one."
She gestured toward the neat stacks of cash resting on the desk.
"This looks like your next problem."
Dante walked smoothly into the room, pulling up a chair and sitting down directly across from Hodge. He reached out, picked up one of the stacks of cash, and balanced it casually in his hand.
"Pellico Wholesale Marine," Dante said quietly, looking at Frank. "Forty-eight thousand dollars a quarter for bluefin tuna that smells like gasoline and comes out of the back of a van in Boston."
Frank dropped to his knees behind the desk, trembling violently. "Mr. Marchetti! Please! It was Hodge! He forced me into it! He said he’d release my personal gambling debts to the board if I didn't process the invoices!"
"Shut up, Frank," Dante said flatly, not even looking at him.
Dante turned his dark, terrifying gaze entirely onto Curtis Hodge.
"You harassed my chief financial auditor," Dante said softly, his voice dropping into a register that made the windowpanes vibrate. "You threatened her dying mother. You used my business to launder stolen money. And you did it all while sitting in my building."
Hodge swallowed hard, a cold bead of sweat rolling down his temple. "Marchetti... look... we can work this out. It’s just business. I’ll give you seventy percent of the Pellico margins—"
May you like
Dante raised his hand, stopping Hodge mid-sentence.
"You aren't making offers tonight, Curtis," Dante said coldly. "Tonight, you are signing over every single debt contract you hold against family members of my employees. Starting with the Delaney family."
