Chapter 2 - Lucia’s Has Been Paying
Bella returned to Lucia’s four days later.
Marco remained hospitalized.
His blood pressure was stable.
He was on anticoagulation.
The specialist center had accepted his records for expedited evaluation.
No surgery date yet.
No guarantee.
Bella went back to work because the rent did not pause for diagnostic clarity.
Lucia called her into the office before shift.
The owner was sixty-one, with silver hair cut blunt at her jaw and a habit of wearing reading glasses on a chain.
On the desk:
security footage screenshots,
a ledger,
and an envelope of bank receipts.
Bella sat.
“You said Bianchi has been coming here.”
Lucia nodded.
“How long?”
“Fourteen months.”
Bella stared.
“What does he want?”
“Three thousand dollars on the first Monday.”
“For what?”
Lucia laughed without humor.
“Security.”
“From who?”
“He never says.”
Bella understood.
From people like him.
Then:
“Why didn’t you call police?”
Lucia looked at her.
“Because the first time he came, he said Mr. Moretti had ‘approved neighborhood arrangements.’”
“Did you ask Alessandro?”
“No.”
“Why?”
Lucia’s face hardened.
“You grabbed his wrist once. Do not become an expert on living around men like that.”
Fair.
Then she exhaled.
“I’ve owned this restaurant twenty-eight years. In the old days, you did not call men like Moretti to ask whether the threat using their name was officially authorized.”
That sentence mattered.
Alessandro might not have ordered Bianchi’s collections.
His reputation had still made them work.
Then Lucia showed receipts.
Cash withdrawals.
Dates.
Notes she had kept privately.
Why notes?
“In case I ever got brave.”
Bella looked toward dining room.
“Does Alessandro know?”
“He does now.”
“How?”
“His lawyer called me yesterday.”
Bella’s stomach tightened.
“What lawyer?”
“Outside counsel. Asked if I was willing to speak to an investigator.”
“And?”
“I said yes.”
That surprised Bella.
Lucia smiled bitterly.
“You think I enjoy paying a grown man to leave my cooks alone?”
No.
Then:
“Did Bianchi ever hurt anyone?”
“He shoved my nephew once.”
Specific.
“Threatened to break windows. Said health inspectors could get interested. Nothing cinematic.”
Nothing cinematic.
Extortion often does not need broken bones.
A reputation fills the gap.
Then Lucia said:
“You’re part of it now.”
Bella sat back.
“How?”
“You were at the table. You heard Bianchi. You saw the envelope.”
“I did not see what was inside.”
“Exactly. Say only what you saw.”
Good.
Then:
“And he may decide you caused trouble.”
Bella’s throat tightened.
“I didn’t even know.”
“Doesn’t matter what’s true to a scared man.”
Then the office door opened.
The floor manager, Jason Lee, leaned in.
“Lucia. Table twelve.”
Bella’s body tightened before she could stop it.
Lucia frowned.
“What?”
“Moretti.”
Of course.
Bella stood.
“I’m not serving him.”
Lucia looked at her.
“You don’t have to.”
That was the correct answer.
Then Jason said:
“He asked for you.”
Bella laughed.
“No.”
Lucia picked up the phone.
“I’ll tell him.”
Bella stared.
“You will?”
“You are an employee. Not a summons.”
There.
Lucia went out.
Five minutes later she returned.
“He said okay.”
Bella almost felt offended by how easy that was.
Then she went to work.
Table twelve was not in her section.
She still saw Alessandro.
Dark suit.
No Vinnie in dining room.
One older man in glasses beside him.
Lawyer perhaps.
Alessandro did not stare.
Good.
Then he paid.
Normal tip.
No stack of hundreds.
Better.
When he left, Bella found no card.
No note.
No threat disguised as promise.
That should have relieved her.
It did.
Mostly.
Then Bianchi appeared at 10:20.
Not inside.
Across the street.
Bella saw him through the front window.
He stood under an awning.
Hands in coat pockets.
Lucia called police.
Not Alessandro.
Good.
By the time officers arrived, Bianchi was gone.
No crime to arrest based on standing on sidewalk.
But report made.
Then the restaurant adjusted closing procedures.
Two staff left together.
Exterior camera checked.
Manager walked employees to transit when needed.
Bella hated.
“I don’t want an escort.”
Jason said:
“It’s not for you specifically.”
Good.
General safety after threat.
Then outside, Bella’s bus arrived.
A black sedan sat half a block away.
She stopped.
Window lowered.
Vinnie.
Bella raised both hands.
“Absolutely not.”
He laughed.
“I’m parked.”
“Why?”
“Because Bianchi was here.”
“How do you know?”
Vinnie’s smile disappeared.
Bella immediately understood.
“Are you watching the restaurant?”
“Not you.”
“That isn’t better.”
Then Alessandro’s voice came through the open rear window.
He was in back seat.
“Bella.”
She stared.
“Do you have a hobby?”
“No.”
“Find one.”
Vinnie coughed to hide laughter.
Alessandro ignored him.
“We have a security concern involving Bianchi.”
“We?”
“Lucia and several other restaurants.”
“So call police.”
“We did.”
That surprised her.
Then:
“Outside counsel is coordinating statements. If Bianchi approaches you, do not engage.”
Bella folded her arms.
“You mean the man you were about to hit with a glass?”
Alessandro’s jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
“That is very convincing de-escalation advice.”
He looked away for half a second.
Point landed.
Then:
“I was angry.”
“You were armed men at a restaurant angry.”
Vinnie looked at the dashboard.
Alessandro said:
“No one drew a weapon.”
“Because you stopped him.”
She looked at Vinnie.
“And because he listened.”
Then back to Alessandro.
“Other people don’t know whether he’ll listen.”
Silence.
The rain had stopped.
Traffic hissed across wet pavement.
Then Alessandro said:
“You’re right.”
Bella blinked.
He continued:
“Vinnie will not carry inside Lucia’s going forward.”
Vinnie turned.
“Alex—”
“You heard me.”
Bella held up one hand.
“No.”
Both men looked.
“I did not ask you to rewrite your security policy because I complained.”
Alessandro’s eyebrow lifted.
“Then what did you ask?”
“Nothing.”
That was the point.
She did not want her voice converted into executive order every time she spoke.
Then Alessandro leaned back.
“Fair.”
He told Vinnie:
“We review with security counsel. Not now.”
Better.
Then Bella’s bus came again? It had passed. She swore.
Alessandro said:
“We can take you to the hospital.”
“No.”
“How do you know I know you’re going to a hospital?”
Bella froze.
He saw it immediately.
Then:
“I don’t.”
She stared.
Vinnie winced.
Alessandro added:
“You still have the bracelet on your bag.”
Bella looked.
The old paper bracelet from Marco’s first admission was tied around a zipper because she had forgotten to throw it out.
Not surveillance.
Good.
Then he said:
“I won’t ask.”
She believed him slightly more.
Then her phone rang.
Marco.
“Bella?”
“You okay?”
“Yeah. They’re transferring me tomorrow.”
“To Northwestern?”
“Yes.”
Relief.
Then Marco said:
“They approved the network exception.”
Bella nearly sat on sidewalk.
“What?”
“Denise came by. Insurance approved surgery evaluation as in-network because there’s no equivalent center in the plan.”
Not surgery yet.
Evaluation.
Still.
Bella closed her eyes.
“Okay.”
Then Marco:
“Also financial assistance says we might qualify for forty percent reduction on the hospital balance.”
Bella laughed.
A real laugh.
“What?”
“I know.”
Then:
“Did you call the mafia guy?”
Bella opened her eyes.
Alessandro was ten feet away.
She turned her back.
“No.”
“Good.”
Then Marco:
“Was that too judgmental?”
“Yes.”
“Sorry.”
Then he hung up.
Bella turned back.
Alessandro was smiling.
“You heard nothing.”
“Nothing.”
Then:
“My bus left.”
“Yes.”
She hated him.
Vinnie said:
“We can call a cab.”
Bella looked at Alessandro.
“Will you pay?”
“No.”
Good.
She almost smiled.
“I’ll call my own.”
She did.
Before getting in, Alessandro said:
“Bianchi may contact you.”
“If he does, I call police.”
“Yes.”
Then:
“And if the police aren’t enough?”
Bella looked at the black card in her wallet through layers of fabric she could not see.
“That number is still not getting called.”
Alessandro nodded.
“I know.”
For the first time, she believed he might actually respect that.
Before Bella left the office, Lucia showed her one more thing.
A photocopy of an old business card.
MORETTI NEIGHBORHOOD SERVICES.
No address.
One phone number.
No license number.
“Bianchi gave me that the first month.”
Bella turned it over.
On the back:
Three first Monday. Keep things quiet.
“Three means three thousand?”
“Yes.”
“Did you sign anything?”
“No.”
“Invoice?”
“No.”
“Then why pay?”
Lucia stared at her.
“Because men who ask for cash without invoices are not usually offering bookkeeping.”
Fair.
Then Lucia told her why she had kept the receipts anyway.
Her husband, Antonio, had died five years earlier.
He used to handle:
insurance,
vendor disputes,
city inspections,
anything involving men who wanted to be taken seriously.
After he died, Lucia inherited not only restaurant ownership but every unwritten relationship around it.
The first time Bianchi appeared, he knew Antonio’s name.
He said:
“Your husband understood how the neighborhood works.”
That was enough.
Bella said:
“So he used your grief.”
Lucia shrugged.
“He used information.”
Then:
“Same result.”
Bella thought of Alessandro’s warning to Vinnie not to investigate her.
Information as leverage.
There it was again.
Then Lucia said:
“If Moretti truly stopped this years ago, I want it in writing.”
She got it.
Two days later, outside counsel sent a formal notice:
No Moretti entity authorizes protection-fee collections from unaffiliated restaurants.
No agent is authorized to threaten regulatory consequences, property damage, or violence to obtain payment.
Any person invoking the Moretti name for such payments should be reported to law enforcement and the listed compliance office.
Lucia read it twice.
Then laughed.
“What?”
Bella asked.
“For fourteen months I paid because nobody had ever put one clean sentence on paper.”
That was how ambiguity becomes expensive.
Then the restaurant held a staff meeting.
Not dramatic.
Jason reviewed:
what to do if Bianchi returned,
who calls police,
where panic buttons were,
no employee should confront alone,
no one should give interviews while working.
Bella raised hand.
“Can staff refuse to walk a guest out if we think they’re dangerous?”
“Yes.”
“Can management tell us to keep serving them?”
Jason paused.
Lucia answered:
“Not if there is a credible safety issue. Escalate.”
Written policy followed.
Bella noticed something uncomfortable.
She had grabbed Alessandro because no one else moved quickly enough.
That had worked once.
It was not a system.
A restaurant should not need one exhausted waitress willing to touch the most feared man in Chicago.
Then Marco texted:
CALL ME WHEN YOU’RE DONE BEING A CRIME WITNESS.
Bella replied:
I AM WORKING.
Marco:
SAME THING APPARENTLY.
She laughed.
The room relaxed.
May you like
Fear had occupied enough tables.
Lucia’s intended to take some back.
