Chapter 2 - The Shadow over Ridgewood
The rain poured down in heavy sheets, blurring the glowing neon sign of the Cornerstone Diner against the dark asphalt of Ridgewood Avenue. Inside, the silence lingered like heavy fog long after the engine roar of the three black SUVs faded into the midnight gloom.
Patty came bustling out from behind the counter, her face pale, her hands shaking so violently she dropped her ledger onto the floor.
"Scarlett! Sweet Jesus, Scarlett, are you insane?" Patty cried out, grabbing the girl’s arms and checking her over as if she expected to find hidden bullet holes. "Do you have any idea who that was?"
"Some rich jerk who doesn't know how to treat people," Scarlett replied, though her knees were finally starting to give out under the immense crash of adrenaline. She leaned heavily against the edge of table six, her breathing ragged.
"That was Victor Vance!" Patty hissed, dropping her voice to an urgent whisper as she glanced nervously at the remaining two patrons at the far end of the diner. "The Vance family! They own the docks, the warehouses, the construction unions—half the city council is in his pocket! The police don't even drive down this street if his cars are parked here!"
Scarlett blinked, looking down at the stack of hundred-dollar bills resting quietly on the Formica table. Five thousand dollars. It was more than she made in four months of slaving over grease traps and dirty dishes. It was enough to cover her mother's heart medication for almost a year. It was enough to fix the brakes on her falling-apart sedan.
Her fingers reached toward the money, then stopped. "He was testing me."
"He was deciding whether to kill you or buy you!" Patty retorted sharply, pulling a fresh kitchen towel from her apron and wiping down the already clean counter just to give her hands something to do. "Scarlett, men like Victor Vance don't get talked to like that. People who speak to him like that end up in the river or locked out of their apartments by sunrise. You take that money, you quit tomorrow, and you take your mother to stay with your aunt in Pennsylvania."
Scarlett looked at the paper money, then turned her head to look out the wet window into the dark street.
"No," Scarlett said quietly, her voice hardening with that same stubborn steel that had carried her through her father's death, her mother's illness, and two years of poverty. "If I run, I spend the rest of my life running from every powerful man who raises his voice. I didn't do anything wrong. I served him fresh coffee. If he comes back tomorrow, I'll serve him fresh coffee again."
"You're crazy," Patty breathed, shaking her head in terror and awe. "You're absolute, stubborn crazy."
Across town, high above the neon-lit grid of the city in a penthouse office made of dark steel, glass, and polished marble, Victor Vance sat behind a massive desk. He wasn't looking at the financial reports sitting on his computer screen. He wasn't listening to his chief lieutenant, Marcus, who was standing across from him, reading out the weekly protection figures from the shipping yards.
Victor held a small white paper napkin between his long fingers. It was the napkin from the Cornerstone Diner, bearing a small, faint grease smudge in the corner.
"...and the union reps in District Four are asking for another two percent," Marcus was saying, his tone brisk and efficient. "I told them we'd break two collarbones if they brought it up again. Boss? Are you listening?"
Victor slowly laid the napkin flat on his desk. "Marcus."
"Yeah, Boss?"
"Run a check on the girl at the diner on Ridgewood Avenue. Scarlett Monroe."
Marcus paused, his brow furrowing in confusion. "The waitress? Boss, she disrespected you in front of Tommy and Paulie. Do you want me to have the landlord kick her out? Or do we shut down the diner's health permit?"
Victor’s head snapped up, his dark eyes locking onto Marcus with a glare so sudden and lethal that the lieutenant took an involuntary step back.
"If anyone lays a single finger on her, or her job, or her family," Victor said, his voice dropping into a register that made the room’s ambient temperature seem to drop ten degrees, "I will personally feed them to the machinery at the crushing yard. Do you understand me, Marcus?"
May you like
Marcus swallowed hard, his face turning pale. "Understood, Boss. Just... background information?"
"Everything," Victor ordered, turning his chair toward the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the rain-soaked skyline. "Her family, her debts, her medical bills, her schedule. I want to know why a girl earning nine fifty an hour carries enough fire in her gut to look me in the eye and tell me to go to hell."
