Chapter 23
TWENTY-THREE
WILDER
“You look like you seen a ghost, boy, sit down.” The capo gestures to the couch next to him, a soldier I don’t recognize standing by his side, a bodyguard of sorts.
Wonder if that will be my job a couple months from now, or if I’ll have to work my way up there.
Lot of guys would feel safer with me at their backs.
“What, did you forget how to speak, boy?” The capo laughs, a husky almost-cackle that rakes goosebumps along my arms.
“No,” I say, clearing my throat, letting my accent thicken in the presence of a man who was like an uncle to me when I was growing up. “You just surprised me, that’s all.”
Pointing to the back room, I come up with an excuse on the fly.
“Had to wrap up a couple things here before I came back to the city to see you. Was on my way out of town actually.”
“Convenient that I got to you first then, isn’t it?” His accent masks the s in that word, sounded more like itn’t it.
Lowering myself onto the nearest chair, I try to look welcoming. Not in the way the locals do here, but more like the faces I grew up around. Deferent, subservient, and willing to die on command.
“You didn’t have to come all the way out here for li’l ole’ me,” I try to keep it light.
He waves his wrinkled hand, the gold rings on it glinting in the lamplight. “Nice vacation for the old lady. Gorgeous mountains.” There’s no r in the way he says gorgeous.
I smile at him, while the ice drips in the cavity of my chest, chilling my gut.
“Besides, I wanted to see this restaurant you got yourself set up at.”
This is it, I tell myself. We bluff and bullshit our way out of this.
“It’s nothin’.” I shake my head. “Just a glorified line cook.”
“Head chef, Amante, that’s somethin’.”
“It’s just work,” I insist, desperate for him to not think anything of it.
“I had Marco go check it out while I meet with you,” he says, a smile on his face that could be either terrifying or heartwarming, depending on the scenario.
Right now, it feels like a warning.
Say the wrong thing and the restaurant will feel it.
“He says the manager is a riot,” the capo says, picking up his phone and glancing at the screen, where he must be getting updates.
I force my eyelids to stay open and not fall shut the way they want to. Not let on that Lexi means anything to me. That she’s someone to target if they want me to cooperate.
“Pain in my ass mostly,” I try to joke, like we’re just talking among old friends.
“You still happy cooking?” he asks, eyes too intent on mine.
“Yeah,” I answer honestly. “Favorite thing I’ve ever done.”
He nods his head, bobbing it slowly. “That’s what I wanted to hear.”
My brows pop up at that. “Is it?”
Placing his elbows on his knees, he leans forward and I follow his lead and do the same, bringing our faces closer.
No part of me isn’t tracking every breath his bodyguard takes though.
“We’re looking for a chef,” he says, eyebrows dancing, like the offer is enticing.
“Like a personal chef?” I clarify.
Gotta admit, I’d rather cook food for these men than do the dirty work of them.
Could be worse, I guess, all things considered.
“Nah.” He sits back, waving his stumpy hand again. “Opening a restaurant in Cobble Hill. Someplace classy. The kinda place that needs a real visionary at the helm.”
A restaurant?
Reeling backward, I try to absorb what he’s telling me.
“I don’t follow.”
“We want you to run the restaurant, Amante. It’s all yours. The menu, the aesthetic, whatever you want. We fund it,” he gestures to himself, then to me. “You bring it to life.”
My jaw, the chiseled traitor, drops.
“Five stars,” he goes on. “The whole shebang. We’re diversifying our portfolio.” The capo winks at me.
“Going clean?” I ask him, because that’s just too good to be true.
“For your purposes, yeah.” He chuckles, and it’s enough to tell me that behind the scenes, it wouldn’t all be above board.
But what I would be involved with, that would be. Mostly.
“So you’re not trying to get me back?” I clarify.
“Back? Kid, I let you walk. You think I’m gonna go back on my word? That hurts.”
“Your note wasn’t very…informative.”
He shrugs. “Old habits die hard. Don’t need no one knowin’ our business ’til we want ’em to.”
“And the business is a restaurant,” I add on, deadpan.
Not running drugs, or worse.
“Exactly,” he says, clasping his hands together and resting them overtop his stomach.
“Executive chef of a five-star restaurant,” I roll the words around on my tongue.
Taste the way that feels.
“It could be called,” he uses his hands to wipe the air in front of him, like a sign’s appearing. “Amante.”
Well shit, that got me half hard.
“Salt + Spice,” I say, clearing my throat.
“Huh?” He cups his ear.
“Salt + Spice,” I repeat, a bit louder. “That’s what I always dreamed of calling my own restaurant.”
“I like the sound of that,” he says, grinning.
“So what d’ya say, kid? You in?”
“You need an answer right now?”
He shrugs. “The sooner the better. We’ve been tryin’ to ask ya for months. Construction’s supposed to break ground end of the summer, and we want to start working on the menu plans by then too. Get everything lined up to open next year.”
He looks down at his phone again and chuckles. “Marco says the food’s great. I knew you was the one for this. You got it in ya to make somethin’ a little fancier than diner food?”
Mouth gaping, I have no clue how to respond.
I came here expecting I was leaving town, never coming back.
To find out they aren’t trying to rope me back into the life, it opens up all my options again. But the chance at my own restaurant? Fully funded, free rein to make it all Amante? No one to shoot down my dishes?
“Tell ya what,” he says, standing up off the couch, and I rise with him. “Take the information.”
He gestures at his guard, who hasn’t moved yet, but does so now to hand me an envelope just like all the others I got.
“Take a look at all the details, the salary, all o’ that, and get back to us by the end of summer.”
Nodding, I grip the envelope in my fist and wonder if this is the chance at my dream I’ve always wanted, or the block of cheese to lure me in before my head gets snapped in a trap?