Chapter 3
Loriana
“Everyone, stay calm!” I shout over the sudden chaos, my voice carrying the authority I’ve spent three years building in this neighborhood.
But even as I say it, I watch Mrs. Foley grab her purse and make for the exit, followed by the young couple who were celebrating their anniversary in the corner booth.
Through the jagged hole where my window used to be, I catch a glimpse of Flavio’s Maserati speeding away, its engine roaring like a battle cry.
This is the third incident this week—broken windows, slashed tires, and yesterday, dead roses scattered across my doorstep with a note that simply said “Soon.”
“That’s it.” Clay appears at my elbow, his weathered face twisted with fury. “I’m calling Detective Ory again.”
“Don’t.” I’m already moving toward the supply closet for the broom and dustpan. “You know what he’ll say. No witnesses, no proof it was Flavio, just circumstantial evidence and a restraining order that’s about as useful as tits on a bull.”
“Language, boss,” Mia calls from behind the bar, but there’s no real reproach in her voice. At twenty-two, she’s tougher than most men twice her age, which is why I hired her. That, and she can handle the college crowd without breaking a sweat.
“Sorry, Mia, but I’m fresh out of polite tonight.” I start sweeping glass, each clink against the dustpan marking another dollar lost, another customer who might not come back. “Sofia, how many people left?”
My other waitress does a quick count of the room. “Twelve. The Browns, the anniversary couple, the group of lawyers from downtown...”
Twelve customers. On a Friday night. That’s nearly three hundred dollars in lost revenue, not counting the window replacement or the fact that half of those people will probably never set foot in Crimson again.
The remaining patrons huddle in their seats like survivors of a bombing, nursing their drinks with shaking hands. I can practically see the Yelp reviews writing themselves: “Dangerous atmosphere. Glass everywhere. Will not return.”
“This can’t continue,” Sofia whispers as she helps me sweep. At nineteen, she’s newer to the job but sharp as a tack. “He’s going to drive us out of business.”
She’s right. In the two weeks since I threw Flavio and Astrid out of my apartment, he’s escalated from pathetic drunk texts to full-scale psychological warfare.
It started small—showing up during my busiest hours just to sit at the bar and glare, nursing one drink for hours while scaring away other customers with his increasingly erratic energy.
But when I banned him from the premises, things got creative.
Monday: My delivery truck’s tires were slashed in the alley.
Tuesday: Someone spray-painted “WHORE” across my front door in blood-red letters that took me three hours to scrub off.
Wednesday: A group of his friends showed up during ladies’ night, drunk and belligerent, starting fights with my regulars until I had to call the police.
Thursday: Dead roses and that note.
The list goes on and on, and now this.
“Maybe we should close early tonight,” Clay suggests, eyeing the remaining customers who look ready to bolt at the first sign of more trouble. “Give everyone a chance to calm down.”
“Absolutely not.” I dump another dustpan full of glass into the trash, the sound like breaking bones. “I won’t let that spoiled piece of shit drive me out of my own bar.”
But even as I say it, I know I’m fighting a losing battle.
Flavio doesn’t have to destroy my business—he just has to make it unprofitable.
Every broken window costs me money I don’t have.
Every scared customer is revenue that doesn’t come back.
Every night I spend looking over my shoulder is a night I’m not focusing on what I built here.
The door chimes, and every head in the place snaps toward the entrance. My hand instinctively moves toward the baseball bat I keep behind the bar, but it’s just Detective Rob Ory, his rumpled suit and tired eyes marking him as one of the few cops who actually gives a damn about this neighborhood.
“Heard that you had another incident,” he says, taking in the broken window with professional resignation. “Same pattern as the others?”
“Brick through the window, speeding car, no witnesses.” I gesture helplessly at the damage. “Just like you said would happen when I filed that restraining order.”
Detective Ory sighs, pulling out his notebook even though we both know this is a pointless exercise. “Any of your customers see the vehicle?”
“Maserati,” Mrs. Cox pipes up from the corner booth where she’s been nursing her gin and tonic. “Dark blue or black, hard to tell under the streetlights. But it was definitely that Codella boy’s car—I’ve seen him around the neighborhood.”
Ory writes it down, but his expression tells me what I already know. “Mrs. Cox, would you be willing to make a formal statement?”
The elderly woman’s face goes pale. “Oh, I... well, I didn’t get a very good look, you understand. And my eyesight isn’t what it used to be...”
And just like that, my witness evaporates. Because everyone in this neighborhood knows exactly who Flavio Codella is, and more importantly, whose nephew he is. Simeone Codella’s reputation casts a shadow long enough to reach into my bar and turn potential witnesses into selective amnesiacs.
“Right.” Ory closes his notebook with a snap. “Miss Parlato, can I speak with you privately?”
We step toward the broken window, glass crunching under our feet. The night air rushes through the opening, carrying with it the sounds of the city and the promise of rain.
“You need to consider other options,” Ory says quietly, his voice pitched low enough that my staff can’t overhear. “This restraining order is just a piece of paper, and we both know it. Young Codella has money, connections, and apparently no intention of backing down.”
“What other options?” I cross my arms over my chest, partly for warmth and partly because I’m tired of everyone telling me how powerless I am. “Sell my bar? Leave town? Let some entitled fuckboy win because I had the audacity to break up with him?”
“Language,” Ory says mildly, but there’s sympathy in his eyes. “I’m not saying give up. I’m saying be smart. Maybe consider reaching out to—”
“No.” I cut him off before he could finish the thought. “I’m not calling his uncle. I’m not begging some mafia don to leash his nephew because the legal system can’t do its job.”
“Pride’s a luxury you might not be able to afford much longer,” Ory says, and the gentleness in his voice makes it worse somehow. “This escalation pattern—it doesn’t usually stop on its own.”
I stare out through the broken window at the street where I’ve built my life, brick by brick, customer by customer, dream by stubborn dream.
Five years ago, this was just another empty storefront in a neighborhood everyone else had written off.
Now it’s mine—the regulars who trust me with their Friday night celebrations, the open mic musicians who got their start on my small stage, the community I’ve helped build around bottles of beer and shared stories.
“What would you do?” I ask finally. “If someone was trying to take everything you’d worked for?”
Detective Ory is quiet for a long moment, studying my face. “I’d probably do exactly what you’re doing. And I’d probably end up in just as much trouble.”
It’s not the answer I wanted, but it’s honest. And right now, honesty feels like the rarest commodity in my world.
“Lori?” Mia approaches hesitantly, carrying a manila envelope. “This was on the floor by the door. Must have come through with the brick.”
My blood turns to ice water as I take the envelope. My name is written across the front in familiar handwriting—Flavio’s careful script, the same one that used to pen love notes and birthday cards.
Inside is a single photograph.
It’s me, taken yesterday morning as I was opening the bar.
I’m fumbling with my keys, coffee cup in one hand, completely unaware that someone was watching.
The angle suggests it was shot from across the street, probably with a telephoto lens.
Professional quality. The kind of surveillance that takes planning.
On the back, in that same careful handwriting: You look so peaceful when you don’t know you’re being watched. It would be a shame if something happened to ruin that peace.
My hands shake as I show the photo to Detective Ory, whose expression darkens considerably.
“This changes things,” he says grimly. “This is stalking, harassment, and implied threats. I can bring him in for questioning.”
“And then what? He’ll post bail and be out in two hours.” I slide the photo back into the envelope, trying to ignore how violated I feel. “Meanwhile, he’ll know I involved the police, and things will get worse.”
But even as I say it, I know Ory is right about one thing—this is escalating. The brick through the window was vandalism. The photo is something else entirely. It’s a promise wrapped in menace, a preview of how close Flavio can get whenever he wants.
“At least let me assign a patrol car to do regular drive-bys,” Ory offers. “And I know you don’t want to hear this, but you really should consider talking to his uncle.”
“Getting him involved may only cause more damage.”
“I understand,” Ory says, his eyes shining with sympathy. “I’m just saying that sometimes family pressure works where legal pressure doesn’t.”
“I don’t even know how to contact him,” I say, which is the truth. “And even if I did, what makes you think he’d care about helping his nephew’s ex-girlfriend?”
“Because bad publicity isn’t good for business.
And from what I hear, he doesn’t tolerate family members who create unnecessary problems.” Ory’s expression is carefully neutral.
“But like I said, I can’t officially suggest anything, and if you do decide to go down that path, I won’t be able to protect you.
You do understand that, right? You’ll be on your own. ”
The implication hangs in the air between us. Even if I wanted to reach out to Simeone—which I don’t—I have no idea how to contact a man who lives in the shadows. It’s not like mafia dons are listed in the phone book.
“Either way, think about it. It might be your only way to fix this,” Ory says, handing me his card even though I already have three of them. “And call me if anything else happens. Anything at all.”
After he leaves, I help my staff finish closing procedures in tense silence. The remaining customers pay their tabs and hurry out into the night, leaving me alone with Clay, Mia, and Sofia in my damaged bar.
“You should go home,” I tell the girls. “Clay can help me board up the window.”
“Are you sure?” Sofia asks. Her eyes shift downward at the broken glass. “We could stay, help you—”
“No.” I force a smile I don’t feel. “You’ve both done enough tonight. Just... be careful walking to your cars, okay?”
They nod and gather their things, but the tension radiates off them like heat from asphalt. Sofia keeps glancing at the boarded window while Mia clutches her purse like a shield. They’re good employees who showed up to work, not to become casualties in someone else’s vendetta.
After they leave, Clay and I work in companionable silence to board up the window with plywood and nails. The sound of our hammering echoes through the empty bar like gunshots, and I can’t help but think that this is what defeat sounds like.
“You know,” Clay says as we finish the last nail, “that detective might have had a point about those… unofficial channels.”
“You mean Simeone Codella.” I don’t make it a question.
“I’ve lived in this neighborhood for forty years, Loriana. I’ve seen what happens when people try to fight the Codellas without backup.” He sets down his hammer and looks at me with serious eyes. “Pride won’t keep you safe.”
“Even if I wanted to reach out to him—which I don’t—I wouldn’t know how. It’s not like he advertises his services in the Yellow Pages.”
Clay is quiet for a moment, considering. “There are ways, if you really needed to find someone like that. But once you go down that road...”
“There’s no coming back,” I finish. “Yeah, I get it.”
I stare at our handiwork—the plywood barrier that turns my welcoming front window into something that looks like a war zone. In the reflection of the remaining glass, I can see my own face, pale and tired and older than my twenty-four years.
“What if reaching out to Simeone just makes things worse?” I ask. “What if Flavio decides that involving his uncle is the ultimate betrayal and really goes off the deep end? And that’s assuming I could even figure out how to contact him.”
“Then at least you’ll have someone on your side who’s scarier than he is.
” Clay’s pragmatism cuts through my emotional fog like a blade.
“And getting in touch with him... well, men like Simeone Codella have eyes and ears everywhere. But keep in mind that they don’t take kindly to people who waste their time. ”
He’s right, of course. I can’t fight this alone, and the legal system has proven useless. Every day I delay is another day for Flavio to escalate, another opportunity for him to hurt me or my business or the people I care about.
But even thinking about trying to contact Simeone Codella feels like stepping off a cliff into darkness. And that’s assuming I could even figure out how to get a meeting with a man who works in the shadows and lives in a mansion that has more guards than Fort Knox.
After Clay leaves, I climb the stairs to my apartment and sit on my couch, staring at Detective Ory’s card. The photo of me unlocking the bar sits on my coffee table, a reminder of how vulnerable I really am.
Even if I wanted to reach out to Simeone—which I don’t—I have no idea how someone like me contacts someone like him.
Ask around the neighborhood? That’s a good way to get myself in more trouble.
Look him up online? Right, because mafia dons definitely have LinkedIn profiles with their contact information.
My phone buzzes with a text from an unknown number:
Sweet dreams, bambina. See you tomorrow.
My blood turns to ice. He’s watching me right now, probably from somewhere across the street. He knows I’m alone, knows I’m scared, knows I’m running out of options.
I pull all my curtains closed and double-check every lock, but I know it won’t matter. If Flavio wants to get to me, some deadbolts and window latches won’t stop him.
The photograph stares up at me from the coffee table, a promise and a threat rolled into one. Tomorrow will bring new harassments, new escalations, new proof that I’m fighting a war I can’t win alone.
But tonight, I’m still too proud to surrender.
Tonight, I’m still telling myself I don’t need help from a world I don’t understand and can’t access even if I wanted to.
Tomorrow might be different.
Tomorrow, I might finally be desperate enough to figure out how to find the one man who could end this nightmare.