Chapter 3 - Shadows of the Past
The silence that followed was suffocating. Rain continued to drum hard against the glass outside, but inside the diner, time seemed to have stopped.
Leah stared at the formidable man before her. “Unborn child? What are you talking about?”
Viktor straightened his back, pulling his coat around himself, though he could not hide the slight tremble in his hands. He looked around Callahan’s Diner—at the peeling yellow wallpaper, the greasy floor, the faint smell of old fry oil—and a look of deep, bitter shame crossed his face.
“You shouldn't be here,” Viktor said softly. “You shouldn't be wearing a stained dress and sweeping up broken glass for pennies.”
“I work for a living,” Leah said defensively, her fear slowly giving way to anger. “I don't know who you think you are, but you can't just come in here and speak about my mother like—”
“I am Viktor Torrio,” he interrupted quietly. “And your mother was Mariana Rossini. She was my wife.”
Leah felt the air leave her lungs. “What?”
“Twenty-three years ago, our family was at war,” Viktor explained, his eyes fixed on Leah’s ring. “The Moretti family—our rivals in the south—staged a hit on my home estate. I was shot three times. When I woke up in the hospital two weeks later, my uncle, Hector Torrio, told me Mariana was dead. He showed me a burned body. He showed me a grave. He told me the child she was carrying—my child—did not survive.”
Leah’s head spun. Her mother hadn't been an abandoned, single mother who died in obscurity. She had been the wife of a mob boss.
“Why would your uncle lie to you?” Leah whispered.
“Because as long as I had no heir, my position was unstable,” Viktor said, his pale eyes turning into liquid steel. “Because Hector wanted control of the family business. Because if I had known Mariana was alive, hiding under a false name in a county hospital, I would have burned this entire city to the ground to find her. Hector paid the doctors to hide her. He wanted her to disappear. And when she died in childbirth, he ensured you were dumped into the state system—hidden where I would never think to look.”
Leah’s hand flew to her mouth. Memories of St. Catherine’s Orphanage flooded back—the cold porridge, the dark closets Sister Margaret locked her in when she cried, the absolute loneliness of feeling like an accident of the universe.
She wasn't an accident. She had been buried on purpose.
“Sister Margaret…” Leah breathed.
Viktor’s eyebrows pulled together. “Who?”
“The head mistress at St. Catherine’s,” Leah said, her voice shaking with long-suppressed trauma. “The state put me there. She… she knew who left me. She had my file. She kept my mother’s ring in a safe until I turned eighteen and stole it back before I ran away.”
Viktor turned to Lev. The temperature in the room dropped ten degrees.
“Lev.”
“Yes, Don Viktor?”
“Find out if this St. Catherine’s still exists. Find out if this Sister Margaret is still breathing.”
“Right away, Boss.” Lev pulled out a encrypted satellite phone and walked toward the front door.
Leah stepped forward, her hands clenched into fists. “No! I don't need you to execute people for me! I don't even know you! You walk in here with guns and talk about bloodlines and murder—I’m a waitress! I have rent to pay! I have a life!”
Viktor looked at her, and for the first time, a small, sad smile touched his scarred face. “You have your mother’s temper, too.” He reached into his coat pocket. Leah flinched, but Viktor simply pulled out a sleek leather wallet. He extracted a thick stack of hundred-dollar bills and placed it gently on the counter.
“This pays for the coffee pot,” Viktor said. “And for the rest of your shift. You are coming with me, Leah.”
May you like
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” Leah spat back.
“You have to,” Viktor said gravely. “Because if I found you by accident tonight… it means Hector’s men aren't far behind. And if my uncle finds out Mariana’s daughter is alive, he will not rest until you are buried next to her.”
