THE NIGHT MANHATTAN’S MOST FEARED MAFIA BOSS WALKED INTO MY RESTAURANT, I WAS CROUCHED BESIDE HIS ELDERLY MOTHER WITH A GLASS OF ORANGE JUICE IN ONE HAND AND HER TREMBLING FINGERS WRAPPED AROUND THE OTHER. I didn’t know who she was. That was probably the only reason I treated her normally.

Vincent DeLuca’s words hung in the air long after he and his mother walked out of the restaurant.

The heavy glass doors swung shut, cutting off the freezing January wind, but the atmosphere inside Romano’s remained entirely changed. The wealthy patrons who had spent the evening complaining about trivial things were suddenly speaking in hushed, nervous tones. The bartender was wiping down the same spotless counter for the third time.

And my manager, David, was staring at me with a mixture of raw panic and deep resentment.

I didn't wait for him to speak. I picked up my serving tray, turned away from the empty table, and walked straight toward the kitchen.

My heart was still hammering against my ribs. I had just reprimanded the mother of a man who could supposedly make people disappear with a single phone call. But as I pushed through the swinging kitchen doors, I didn't feel afraid. I just felt an overwhelming, bone-deep exhaustion.

I had three hours left on my shift. I spent them carrying heavy plates of veal and pouring expensive wine, trying to ignore the way David watched my every move from the corner of the dining room. He didn't yell at me. He didn't criticize my table service. He simply watched me with a cold, calculating glare.

At midnight, the last customer finally left.

I was in the back alley, dragging a heavy trash bag into the dumpster, when the back door opened. David stood under the flickering yellow security light, holding my thin winter jacket.

"Don't bother coming in tomorrow, Emily," he said. His voice was quiet, lacking its usual arrogant bark, but the malice was unmistakable.

I froze, the freezing trash bag slipping from my gloved hands. "What?"

"You're done," David said, tossing my jacket onto a nearby stack of empty crates. "You spent half the night fraternizing with a customer. You made the rest of the dining room uncomfortable. We run a high-end establishment here, not a charity ward."

"I was helping an elderly woman who was ill," I said, stepping toward him. My voice shook, not from the cold, but from the sudden, terrifying realization of what this meant. I had rent due in four days. I had my seven-year-old nephew, Leo, waiting for me at my neighbor's apartment. I couldn't lose this job. "David, please. You saw what happened. Even Mr. DeLuca—"

"Do not say his name to me!" David hissed, stepping forward. His eyes darted nervously toward the alley entrance. "You think because a monster patted you on the head, you're untouchable? You brought heat into my restaurant. You made us a target. Get your things and get out before I call the police for trespassing."

He slammed the heavy metal door, the lock clicking loudly into place.

I stood in the freezing alley, staring at the steel door. My chest tightened so hard I couldn't pull in a breath. Three years of showing up early, taking the worst shifts, smiling through the pain in my back, and it was gone in seconds.

I grabbed my jacket from the crates. As I pulled it on, a sudden gust of wind ripped through the alley. I shoved my hands deep into my pockets to keep them from freezing.

My fingers brushed against something soft. Something that didn't belong to me.

I pulled it out.

It was Eleanor's folded wool coat.

I had been so distracted by Vincent’s arrival that I completely forgot I had moved her coat to a side chair when she spilled her juice. In my exhaustion, I must have grabbed it from the breakroom hook by mistake, thinking it was my own heavy scarf.

I couldn't keep it. It was cashmere, worth more than I made in a month. But I couldn't go back inside Romano’s, either.

I walked out of the alley and onto the empty, snow-dusted sidewalk of the Upper East Side. The street was dead quiet, save for a single black town car idling at the corner under a broken streetlight.

I started walking toward the subway.

"Emily."

The voice came from the shadows near the town car.

I stopped.

Vincent DeLuca stepped out of the darkness. He wasn't wearing his suit jacket anymore, just a dark sweater that made him look broader, more imposing. The two men who had been with him earlier were nowhere in sight.

"Mr. DeLuca," I managed to say, clutching Eleanor's coat to my chest. "I have your mother's coat. I'm sorry, I took it by mistake. I was just—"

"I know," Vincent interrupted smoothly. He didn't look at the coat. He looked at my face, noting the redness in my eyes and the slight tremble in my jaw. "Your manager fired you."

It wasn't a question.

"How do you know that?" I asked, taking a small step back.

"Because David is a coward," Vincent said simply, stepping closer. "He owes money to people he shouldn't owe money to. When I walked into his restaurant tonight, he assumed I was there to collect. When I spoke to you instead of him, he panicked. He fired you because he thinks you're a spy."

I stared at him, my mind struggling to process the information. "A spy? I'm a waitress."

"Not anymore," Vincent said. He finally looked down at his mother's coat in my arms. "Check the left pocket."

I hesitated. The cold wind howled down the avenue, but Vincent stood perfectly still, waiting.

Slowly, I reached my hand into the deep, silk-lined pocket of Eleanor's coat. My fingers brushed against a stiff piece of paper. I pulled it out and held it up to the dim streetlamp.

It was an old, faded Polaroid photograph.

My breath caught in my throat.

It was a picture of my father, Thomas. He looked younger, healthier, wearing his favorite worn-out flannel shirt. He was standing in front of a small brick building, laughing.

Standing right beside him in the photo, his arm thrown casually over my father's shoulder, was a much younger Vincent DeLuca.

"My mother didn't wander into your section by accident tonight, Emily," Vincent said quietly. "She went there specifically to find you."