🫖 The Waitress Who Shielded His Mother and Became the Mafia Boss’s Wife

Chapter 05 - The Man Who Ran

Dominic said no.

Sadi said worse things.

In the end, she did not go to Union Station because her surgeon threatened to sedate her and Dominic looked too tempted to help. Instead, she remained in the hospital with Rosa beside her and two armed guards outside the door.

This was not freedom.

But it was the first time in years that anyone had fought to keep her breathing.

At eleven that night, Dominic returned.

His coat was wet. His jaw was tight. Gabriel came behind him carrying a brown paper bag sealed in plastic.

Sadi knew before asking.

“You didn’t find him.”

“We found where he had been.”

Dominic placed the bag on the rolling table.

Inside was Sal’s old cash-register key, a stack of receipts, and a small porcelain saucer from the diner. Under the saucer, folded into quarters, was a note.

Sadi recognized Sal’s handwriting immediately.

If Rosa’s son has a conscience, tell him to look beneath Booth Four. If he doesn’t, bury me someplace warm.

“Beneath Booth Four?” Sadi whispered.

“The diner is sealed by police,” Gabriel said.

Dominic looked at him.

Gabriel sighed. “The diner is poorly sealed by police.”

Rosa crossed herself.

Dominic glanced at his mother. “You’re not coming.”

“I was not about to scale a crime scene, Nicolò.”

Sadi turned her head. “Nicolò?”

Dominic’s eyes warned her not to enjoy it.

She enjoyed it anyway.

Rosa lifted her chin. “It was his grandmother’s name for him.”

“It’s lovely.”

“It is buried,” Dominic said.

“For now,” Sadi murmured.

He looked at her then, and for one strange second the murder ledger, the hospital room, and the whole violent city slipped backward. There was only a tired man in a wet coat trying not to smile at his inconvenient wife.

Then his phone rang.

He answered, listened, and all softness vanished.

“What do you mean, two scenes?”

Sadi felt her heartbeat lift.

Dominic turned slightly away, but she could still hear Gabriel’s radio crackle near the door.

When Dominic ended the call, he looked at Gabriel first.

“Moretti men were found near the train yard.”

“Dead?” Gabriel asked.

“Alive. Beaten. Left with Russo cards in their pockets.”

Gabriel swore softly.

Sadi looked between them. “Someone is trying to make it look like you retaliated.”

Dominic’s eyes came back to her.

“Yes.”

Rosa closed her eyes. “War.”

“Not yet,” Dominic said.

But the way he said it made Sadi understand that yet was a dangerous word.

He left again before midnight.

Rosa stayed.

For a while, neither woman spoke.

The hospital lights hummed. Rain tapped against the window. Sadi studied the ring on her finger, too large for her life, too bright for the bruises on her hand.

“Did you know my mother was killed?” Sadi asked.

Rosa folded her hands in her lap.

“I suspected.”

“And you kept leaving tips.”

“I thought money was better than the truth.”

Sadi looked at her.

Rosa did not look away.

“That was cowardly.”

“Yes.”

The admission was not dramatic. It was worse. It was plain.

“I watched you grow tired, and I told myself I was helping because you had rent. You had shoes. You had food. But what I did not give you was the right to know who had taken from you.”

Sadi’s anger wanted something harder to strike. Rosa’s honesty left it nowhere to land.

“Why now?”

Rosa touched the edge of the photograph.

“Because when you threw yourself over me, I saw your mother.”

Sadi swallowed.

“She did that too?”

“Many times. Not with bullets. With life.”

At two in the morning, Sadi woke to the sound of voices in the hallway.

Dominic’s voice was low.

Another voice answered him.

Older. Male. Familiar in a way she could not place.

The door opened.