Chapter 3 - The Phone Call
The line rang twice. Every second felt like an eternity that stretched Tessa’s frayed nerves to the absolute breaking point. She clutched her hands tightly in her apron, her knuckles turning white, her eyes fixed on Leo Rossi as he stood beside his mahogany desk, completely relaxed.
On the third ring, the line connected with a harsh click.
"You got the money, bitch?" a rough, gravelly voice barked through the phone's speaker, loud enough for Tessa to hear every word in the quiet room. "Because if you're calling to whine, I'm taking bolt cutters to your brother's toes right now."
Leo didn't flinch. He didn't raise his voice. He simply took a slow, deep breath and spoke into the microphone with a tone of cold, lethal arrogance.
"This is Leo Rossi."
Silence hit the line like a physical blow.
The heavy breathing on the other end of the phone stopped instantly. The background noise—a faint, rhythmic metallic clinking—vanished completely.
"I'm going to say this exactly once," Leo continued softly, leaning his elbow casually against the edge of his desk. "You are holding a boy named Connor Vance in the basement of the old meatpacking facility at Fourth and Elm. The facility my family abandoned in 2018 because of black mold."
Tessa gasped quietly, her hand flying to her mouth. He had identified the exact location just from looking at a single, blurry photograph for five seconds.
On the phone, the man’s gravelly voice lost all of its violent bravado, replaced instantly by an anxious, stammering panic. "Mr.—Mr. Rossi? Sir? We... we didn't know, sir! We swear to God we didn't know!"
"Who do you work for?" Leo asked smoothly.
"Ricky the Hat!" the man stuttered out frantically, his words tumbling over each other. "Ricky 'The Hat' Spataro! The boy owes fifty grand on the West Side college football games, Mr. Rossi! He's three months behind! Ricky sent us to collect! We had no idea the kid was connected to you, sir! We swear on our mothers' lives!"
Leo turned his cold, dark gaze onto Tessa, who was standing frozen near the door, barely daring to breathe.
"He isn't connected to me," Leo said flatly into the phone.
Tessa’s heart sank like a heavy stone. A cold wave of despair washed over her. Of course he wasn't going to help. Why would a syndicate boss care about a maid's reckless, gambling brother? He was just asserting his dominance, reminding local thugs who owned the city.
"He's a nobody," Leo continued into the phone, his voice dropping into a register that made the room feel twenty degrees colder. "But his sister cleans my floors. And right now, she is crying outside my office door, making an insufferable noise that is ruining my evening."
A heavy pause hung over the line.
"Send Ricky the Hat to my estate," Leo commanded smoothly. "Tell him he has twenty minutes to bring the boy here, unharmed, or I will personally buy Ricky's paper from his bosses in Detroit and spend the rest of the night skinning him alive in my garage."
"Yes, sir! Immediately, Mr. Rossi! Right away!" the man practically wept into the speaker.
Leo ended the call without another word. He tossed Tessa’s cracked phone onto his desk, where it slid across the polished wood and came to a rest beside his crystal glass of rye.
Tessa stared at him, her mind completely unable to process what had just occurred. "You... you told them to bring him here?"
Leo picked up his glass, took a small sip, and walked slowly toward his heavy leather chair, sitting down gracefully. He adjusted the cuffs of his white shirt, his movement entirely fluid and unhurried.
"Fifty thousand dollars is a rounding error, Tessa," Leo said quietly, looking up at her. "What bothers me is that bottom-feeding West Side scavengers think they can throw their weight around in my territory, disturbing my household."
"I don't know how to thank you, Mr. Rossi," Tessa whispered, fresh tears of pure relief flooding her eyes. "I'll pay you back. I'll work for free. I'll clean this house every day for the next ten years—"
"You won't work for free," Leo cut her off, raising a hand. "I don't employ slaves. It’s bad for morale, and it looks terrible on the ledgers."
He gestured toward a plush leather armchair set opposite his desk. "Sit down."
Tessa blinked. "Sir?"
"Sit down, Tessa," Leo repeated, his tone soft but unyielding. "You look like you're about to faint on my Persian rug, and I just had it professionally cleaned yesterday."
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Tessa walked forward on legs that felt like jelly and lowered herself nervously onto the edge of the expensive leather chair. She sat stiffly, her hands clasped tightly in her lap, her eyes wide as she watched the most feared man in Chicago calmly open a leather-bound folder on his desk and begin reading through a stack of shipping manifests as if nothing unusual had happened.
"We wait," Leo murmured without looking up from his papers. "Ricky will be here in fifteen minutes."
