Chapter 2 - The Second Bowl
By two in the morning, the bowl was completely empty.
Gabriel pushed it away, leaning back against the cracked red vinyl of the booth. The color had returned slightly to his cheeks, though the exhaustion etched deep into the corners of his eyes hadn't vanished. He looked around the shabby diner, taking in the peeling wallpaper, the flickering neon sign outside, and the cheap laminated menus stuck to the tables.
“Benny,” Gabriel called out without turning around.
Benny scurried out from the kitchen like a frightened rabbit. “Y-yes, Mr. Hayes? Is something wrong? Was the food—?”
“Bring me a cup of black coffee. And another bowl of the stew.”
Benny blinked, glancing sideways at me. “Uh... sure. Right away, Mr. Hayes.”
As Benny hurried back to the kitchen, Gabriel shifted his gaze back to me. He studied me the way a prosecutor studies a witness on the stand—looking for tells, looking for lies, looking for the hidden angle.
“You’re a waitress in a dive diner in the South End,” Gabriel said softly, resting his forearms on the table. “Working the night shift while nursing school tuition hangs over your head. Am I close?”
I didn't flinch. “You had my background checked before you came in here?”
“My men check everything,” he replied simply. “It’s how I’m still breathing. But the reports don't mention Rosa. They don't mention why a girl with your grades is scrubbing grease off tables in a neighborhood where the police take twenty minutes to answer a call.”
“My grades are fine,” I said, crossing my arms. “And I work here because tuition doesn't pay itself, Mr. Hayes. Not everyone inherits an empire.”
Leo let out a low warning growl from near the door, but Gabriel raised a single hand, silencing his enforcer. A faint, humorless shadow of a smile touched the corner of Gabriel’s mouth.
“You’ve got a sharp tongue for someone standing twenty feet away from five killers,” Gabriel noted.
“If you wanted to kill me, you would have done it before I brought the food out,” I answered, holding my ground. “You’re too paranoid to eat anything you haven't tested, but you’re also too smart not to recognize when someone is just trying to feed you.”
Gabriel tapped his finger against the wood. “You think you understand me, Norah?”
“I think you’re a man who hasn't slept in a week because you think everyone around you is holding a knife behind their back,” I said, my voice dropping lower, cutting through the ambient noise of the diner. “And you know what? You’re probably right. But starving to death in a penthouse isn't going to save you. It’s just going to make it easier for them to bury you.”
The words hung in the air, raw and unfiltered.
Leo took a half-step forward, his face dark with fury. “Boss, say the word and we’ll clear out. This little waitress doesn't know a damn thing about your business.”
Gabriel didn't look at Leo. He kept his dark eyes locked on mine. He saw the nursing textbooks stacked in the back room by my locker. He saw the tired lines under my eyes. And he saw something else—something he hadn't encountered in years among the sharks and killers of his inner circle.
Absolute, unscripted honesty.
“She knows enough,” Gabriel said quietly.
Benny hurried out of the kitchen, placing a steaming mug of coffee and a second bowl of stew on the table as if he were handling live explosives. He backed away immediately, disappearing behind the swinging doors.
Gabriel didn't touch the coffee. He picked up the spoon again.
“Sit down, Norah,” Gabriel commanded softly.
I looked at the empty space across from him. “I’m working.”
“I just bought this diner for the next four hours,” Gabriel said, sliding a thick stack of hundred-dollar bills out of his coat pocket and dropping it onto the table. It was more money than Benny’s made in a month. “Sit down. Tell me about Rosa.”
May you like
It wasn't a request. It was an arrangement. And as I pulled out the vinyl seat and sat across from the most dangerous man in the city, I realized that the diner door behind us had just locked us both into something neither of us could escape.
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