Chapter 3 - Shattered Porcelain
The lunch rush was worse. A local high school had let out early, flooding the diner with loud teenagers. Sadi was running on fumes and adrenaline, the three ibuprofen long worn off.
“Sadi, three burgers, two fries. Heavy on the ketchup,” Frankie yelled.
Sadi hoisted the large tray, balancing the entire load on her right palm and forearm. For one second, she had it. Then a teenager in a varsity jacket, walking backward while laughing, bumped squarely into her left shoulder.
The impact struck directly against the fracture.
A ragged, choked gasp tore from her throat. The pain exploded behind her eyes in blinding white light. Her knees simply ceased to function.
The tray fell.
Ceramic shattered violently against the linoleum. French fries scattered like shrapnel, and ketchup pooled across the floor like a fresh crime scene.
Frankie stormed out, his face purple. “Are you kidding me, Sadi? Look at this mess! That’s twenty dollars worth of food!”
Sadi was on her knees, hyperventilating, clawing at her throat. “I’ll clean it,” she whispered frantically. “I’ll pay for it. I’m sorry.”
“You bet your ass you’ll pay for it! What is wrong with you today? You drunk? You high?”
“Frankie.”
The voice was not loud, but it cut through the room like a razor through silk.
Frankie stopped mid-rant. Leo stood just inside the diner doors, his dark overcoat dusted with a fine layer of afternoon snow.
He walked forward as the crowd parted. He ignored Frankie completely and knelt in the ketchup and broken ceramic in front of Sadi, placing himself between her and the rest of the room.
“Look at me,” Leo said gently, hooking one finger under the thick canvas strap near her right shoulder. “Can you stand?”
“I have to clean this,” she whispered through tears. “I have to.”
“You aren’t cleaning anything.”
Leo lifted her effortlessly by her right arm, taking her weight against his side. When Frankie attempted to object, Leo turned his pale blue eyes on him with absolute finality: “She’s done for the day. And if you ever yell at her again, Frankie, I will buy this building, evict you, and turn it into a parking lot. Do we understand each other?”
Frankie swallowed hard. “Yes, sir.”
Leo guided Sadi out to his idling town car, settling her into the warm leather interior without ever touching her injured left side.
As the car pulled into traffic, Sadi panicked. “Where are we going?”
“My private clinic,” Leo said. “You need an X-ray.”
“No, I don’t! Stop the car, please—”
Leo turned toward her, his voice dropping into a dangerous, quiet hum. “Donnie pulled your file. I know about Rey. I know he’s a low-level enforcer for the Moretti crew, and I know about his vanished domestic calls.”
He looked directly at her heavy canvas apron.
May you like
“I am going to ask you one question, and your answer dictates what happens to him tonight: Did he break your bone, Sadi?”
Her trembling silence was all the answer he needed.
