Chapter 2 - Behind Closed Office Doors
The management office was small, smelling of old paper, floor wax, and the expensive cologne Mateo wore. He closed the heavy mahogany door behind us with a soft click that sounded remarkably like a vault latch. The ambient hum of the upscale restaurant faded into a muffled thrum through the soundproofed walls. I stood near the edge of the mahogany desk, still clutching the silver pitcher until my wrists ached, before finally setting it down on the blotter with a dull thud.
"Sit," Mateo said, gesturing to the leather armchair opposite his desk. He didn't wait for me to comply before he paced toward the window, looking out over the rain-slicked alleyway behind the building.
"I didn't mean to cause trouble," I said, my voice trembling despite my best efforts to keep it steady. "It was just a phrase my grandmother used when the flour wouldn't rise right. I didn't even know what it meant."
Mateo turned slowly, resting his hands in the pockets of his charcoal trousers. The overhead light caught the sharp angles of his jaw and the dark sweep of his slicked-back hair. He studied me with an unsettling stillness—not the hot anger of his grandfather, but something much more calculating.
"My grandfather doesn't react like that to kitchen gossip, Tessa," Mateo said quietly, closing the distance between us until he stopped beside the corner of the desk. "That particular dialect hasn't been spoken openly in this city for forty years. It belongs to a very specific pocket of western Sicily—and an even more specific family that my grandfather’s generation tried very hard to forget."
I looked up at him, my heart hammering against my ribs. "My family is from Chicago. Three generations."
"Paperwork can be adjusted," Mateo replied smoothly, though his eyes softened by a fraction. "People change their names at Ellis Island, or county courthouses, or quiet dinner tables when survival demands it. But the words stay in the blood. Why were you working shifts here, Tessa? In my grandfather's primary establishment?"
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"I needed the wages," I said defensively, my chin lifting as the fear began to curdle into indignation. "I work for a living, Mr. Vitiello. Not everyone has a restaurant empire to inherit."
Mateo’s lips twitched into a faint, humorless smile. He reached into his suit jacket and pulled out a heavy gold pocket watch, clicking the case open and shut. "You're suspended with pay effective immediately, Tessa. Go home. Lock your doors. And don't answer calls from numbers you don't recognize. My grandfather moves fast when he thinks ghosts are walking the dining room."
