Chapter 4 - The Midnight Collision
By 11:30 PM, Hannah had transitioned from her shift at Romano’s to the fluorescent-lit aisles of the 24-hour grocery store downtown, stocking shelves with boxes of cereal and canned goods. Her feet throbbed inside her worn sneakers, and her eyes burned from lack of sleep.
She kept replaying the boy’s face in her mind. The bruise on his arm. The hollow, dead look in his eyes. It reminded her too much of the isolation she had felt after her father died—the terrifying realization that the adult world was crashing down around you and nobody was listening.
When her stocking shift finally ended at 5:00 AM on Saturday morning, Hannah dragged herself back to her small, cramped apartment shared with her ailing mother. After checking her mother’s vitals, administering her medications, and stealing two hours of restless sleep on the living room sofa, Hannah was back on her feet.
Saturday was her double shift day at Romano’s—lunch and dinner.
The afternoon lunch rush blurred past in a haze of clattering silverware, shouted kitchen tickets, and spilled coffee. By 4:30 PM, the restaurant experienced a brief lull between the lunch cleanup and the dinner prep. Hannah was sitting in the cramped employee break room in the back, massaging her aching arches, when Mrs. Romano pushed the door open, holding a pristine white cardboard bakery box tied with a red ribbon.
“Hannah, carissima,” Mrs. Romano said softly, walking over and placing the box on the small laminate table.
“What’s this?” Hannah asked, looking up.
“It’s the leftover raspberry-chocolate torte from the private midday party,” Mrs. Romano smiled warmly. “The client paid for the whole cake and left it behind. Take it home to your mother. It will sweeten her afternoon.”
Hannah’s eyes welled with unexpected tears. She reached out and squeezed the older woman's wrinkled hand. “Thank you, Mrs. Romano. Truly. You have no idea how much my mom loves chocolate.”
“Go put it in the walk-in cooler so it stays fresh until your shift ends,” Mrs. Romano instructed affectionately.
Hannah picked up the cake box and walked back toward the kitchen. As she neared the swinging doors, she heard raised voices coming from the main dining room—unusually sharp for a quiet Saturday afternoon before dinner service.
Peering through the small glass window of the kitchen door, Hannah froze.
Table twelve was occupied again. But this time, there were no bodyguards standing watch. There was only Victor Davis, sitting alone in the booth, his head bowed in his hands, staring down at an empty glass of scotch. Across from him stood a man in a rumpled grey trench coat—someone who clearly didn't belong to Victor’s inner circle.
Even through the heavy doors, snippets of their tense argument drifted across the room.
“...if the delivery doesn't clear customs by midnight, Victor, the commission will tear us apart,” the man in the trench coat hissed, slamming his fist lightly against the table. “Your boy... keeping him out in the open like this, dragging him to public restaurants... it’s making you soft. You’re exposed.”
Victor’s head snapped up, his eyes flashing with lethal fury. “My son stays where I can see him, Moretti. End of discussion. Now get out of my sight before I forget we share blood.”
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The man in the trench coat scoffed, turned on his heel, and stormed out of the restaurant, pushing past the host stand without a backward glance.
Hannah stood frozen in the kitchen doorway, the white cake box clutched tightly in her hands. She had accidentally stumbled into a lion's den.
