Chapter 2 - THE SILVER CLIP
The diner went dead silent.
The truck driver at the counter slowly lowered himself back onto his stool, his hands flat on the Formica. Jimmy the cook didn't move. Old Mrs. Patterson stopped chewing her pie.
Everyone was staring at Matteo.
The leader of the thugs let out a short, breathy laugh. He didn't let go of Lena’s uniform. He just tilted his head, looking Matteo up and down.
“Your wife?” the leader mocked, his voice dripping with loud, theatrical disbelief. He glanced at his two friends. “Did you guys know the waitress was married to an accountant?”
The youngest thug snickered nervously. The heavy one just stared.
“I asked you a question,” Matteo said.
His voice didn't rise. It didn't need to. It was the kind of voice that made the air in the room feel heavy. It was the voice of a man who didn't make threats, only promises.
“Yeah, I touched her,” the leader sneered, finally releasing the torn fabric of Lena’s shirt and standing up. He was three inches taller than Matteo and sixty pounds heavier. “What are you gonna do about it, tough guy? You gonna crunch some numbers at me?”
Matteo didn't blink.
He didn't take a fighting stance. He just took one half-step forward.
The leader threw a heavy, looping right hook aimed straight at Matteo’s jaw.
It never landed.
Matteo’s left hand snapped up, deflecting the punch with a sharp crack of bone against bone. In the same fluid motion, his right hand shot forward, the heel of his palm striking the leader’s throat with terrifying precision.
The man’s eyes bulged. He choked, stumbling backward into the table.
The heavy thug roared and lunged, pulling a switchblade from his pocket.
Lena screamed, “Matteo!”
Matteo didn't even look at the blade. As the heavy man thrust the knife forward, Matteo pivoted smoothly, catching the man’s wrist. He twisted violently. A sickening snap echoed through the diner.
The heavy man dropped the knife and fell to his knees, screaming in agony.
The youngest thug didn't move. He stood frozen by the booth, his face completely pale, his hands raised in surrender.
Matteo stepped over the groaning heavy man and walked up to the leader, who was gasping for air on the floor, clutching his crushed windpipe.
Matteo knelt beside him.
He didn't yell. He didn't show an ounce of anger. His face was entirely blank. That was the most terrifying part.
“You came a long way for a cup of coffee,” Matteo whispered.
He reached into the leader’s leather jacket.
“Matteo, what are you doing?” Lena asked, her voice trembling as she clutched her torn shirt. “Let’s just call the cops.”
“No cops,” Matteo said softly.
He pulled a silver money clip from the man’s inner pocket.
He held it up to the diner’s neon light.
Engraved on the silver was a crest. A wolf holding a sword.
Lena’s breath hitched. She had seen that crest before. Three years ago, stitched into the headrests of the black cars that used to idle outside Matteo’s old apartment.
The Romano family.
Matteo’s family.
“They aren't just drunks, Lena,” Matteo said, his voice tightening. “They didn't stop here by accident.”
Matteo tossed the money clip aside and reached deeper into the man’s pocket. He pulled out a folded, glossy piece of paper.
He stood up and unfolded it.
Lena took a step closer, her heart hammering against her ribs.
It was a photograph.
Matteo stared at it, the muscles in his jaw feathering. Then he slowly turned it around so Lena could see.
It was a picture of Lena.
But it wasn't a picture of her at the diner. It was a picture of her asleep. In their bed. In the apartment they thought was a secret.
“They were in our home,” Lena whispered, a cold wave of nausea washing over her.
Matteo turned the photograph over.
Written on the back in sharp, elegant black ink were five words.
Bring her to me alive.
Underneath the words was a signature. A single, sweeping letter V.
Vincent.
Matteo’s older brother. The man who was supposed to be in a federal penitentiary in Florence, Colorado.
Matteo looked at the youngest thug, who was backing away toward the door.
“When did he get out?” Matteo asked, his voice deadly quiet.
The kid swallowed hard. “Yesterday. On appeal. He... he wants what you took from him, Mr. Romano. And he said if you don't bring it to the shipyard by midnight, he’s going to start mailing pieces of your wife to your front door.”
The kid turned and bolted out the glass doors into the rain.
Lena stared at Matteo. Her hands were shaking so hard she could barely hold her torn shirt closed.
“What did you take from him, Matteo?” she asked, her voice cracking. “When we left that life behind... what did you take?”
Matteo looked at the photograph in his hand, his dark eyes filled with a terrifying sorrow.
“Something he would burn the city down to get back,” Matteo whispered. He grabbed Lena’s hand. “We have to go. Right now.”
They rushed to the door, but before they could step out into the rain, a heavy, metallic clunk echoed from the diner’s parking lot.
Matteo stopped dead.
He pushed Lena behind him.
May you like
Sitting in the middle of the wet asphalt, twenty feet from the glass doors, was a small, green metal cylinder.
Smoke was already hissing from the top of it.
