Chapter 5 - "You Were the One"
The diner fell into a suffocating, absolute silence, broken only by the hum of the neon lights and the rain pounding against the roof.
Enzo moved. He didn't walk; he glided across the linoleum floor like a dark spirit, his eyes never leaving Nora's face for a single fraction of a second.
Nora tried to stand up, her hands scrambling against the edge of the Formica table, terror flooding every cell of her body. "No... please..."
"Don't move," Enzo commanded. His voice wasn't cold or angry—it was trembling, shattered, and thick with a raw, terrifying desperation she had never heard from him before. "Please... Nora... don't move."
He reached the booth and dropped straight to his knees on the dirty linoleum floor beside her table.
The Don of Chicago, the man who made police chiefs and rival bosses tremble, was kneeling in the grease of a midnight diner, his hands shaking violently as he reached toward her.
Nora pulled back against the vinyl seat, her arms crossing protectively over her stomach. "Get away from me! Don't touch them!"
Enzo froze, his hands hovering six inches from her body, his eyes wide and bloodshot as he looked from her tear-stained face down to her rounded stomach.
"It was you..." Enzo whispered, a tear breaking free from his eye and cutting a path down his cheek. "The gold mask... the library... the swallow locket... it was you all along."
Nora swallowed hard, her chest heaving as she gripped her warm milk mug like a weapon. "I don't know what you're talking about. I'm just a cleaning girl. You fired me, remember? You said I was a liability!"
The words hit Enzo like physical blows. He flinched, bowing his head until his forehead almost touched the edge of her table.
"I didn't know," he choked out, his voice breaking completely. "God forgive me, Nora... I didn't know it was you. I searched for four months... I spent every night dying because I couldn't find the woman from the library..."
"You didn't have to search for four months!" Nora cried out, tears finally spilling over her lashes. "I was in your study every single morning! I was vacuuming your floors! I was cleaning your desk! You looked right at my face every day and you never even saw me!"
"Because I'm a fool!" Enzo shouted, striking his own chest with a clenched fist. "Because I was blind! I was trapped in my own dark, miserable world, and I didn't see the light standing right in front of me!"
He looked up at her, his hands trembling as he slowly reached into his breast pocket. He pulled out two items and laid them gently on the table beside her mug.
The first was the tarnished silver swallow locket.
The second was a glossy black-and-white photograph printed from the security camera—the shot of her stepping out of the basement elevator, wearing her gray uniform, with the red scratch visible on her neck.
"You dropped the locket on the sofa," Enzo whispered softly. "I kept it in my pocket every day. I didn't know... until tonight when Rocco found the backup elevator drive. Nora... why didn't you tell me when I fired you? Why didn't you say something?"
Nora looked down at the locket, then into his tormented gray eyes, her voice turning into a quiet, cutting blade of pure truth.
"Because you were standing beside a woman who hated me," Nora said. "Because you dropped money on the carpet beside broken glass and told me your men would throw me out if I didn't leave in thirty minutes. How could I tell a man like that that I was carrying his baby?"
Enzo went entirely still.
"Baby?" he whispered, his eyes dropping back to her stomach.
Nora wiped a tear from her cheek, her chin trembling. "Babies. It's twins, Enzo. A boy and a girl."
Enzo stared at her. The air in his lungs vanished completely.
Twins.
Two tiny lives, born of that magical, desperate night in the library, growing inside the gentle, brave woman he had cast out into the winter cold.
Slowly, hesitating as if he were touching something made of fragile glass, Enzo extended his right hand and laid his palm gently over the high curve of her belly.
The moment his broad, warm palm made contact with the fabric of her apron, a sharp, powerful kick struck from the inside, pressing directly against his hand.
May you like
Enzo gasped, his eyes widening in pure, unadulterated shock.
The ruthless mafia boss fell forward, resting his forehead directly against her lap, and began to weep softly into the navy-blue fabric of her diner apron.
