Chapter Two
By eight twenty-two, the ticket printer had spit out a white curl of orders that hung off the service well and trembled every time the blender kicked on.
Nella tore the strip free, slapped it onto a spike, and pointed a bar spoon at a tourist trying to wave a twenty over the heads of three people who’d been waiting longer.
“I see you,” she said. “You’ve got three people ahead of you.”
The man lowered the bill.
I took another drink from the plastic tasting cup she’d set in front of me and watched her keep the room from coming apart one problem at a time.
I was supposed to observe, collect, and report.
Instead, I sat at her bar with a watermelon-jalapeno margarita burning sweet and sharp on my tongue, a paper boat of stuffed cherry pepper bites near my elbow, and a woman behind the counter who moved like panic had personally offended her.
Nella worked in cutoffs, a black tank, and an apron tied crooked at her waist. Her dark hair had loosened from its twist, damp curls clinging near her neck. Hoop earrings flashed when she turned. Lime juice shone on her fingers.
She snapped a shaker tin into place, slid two waters toward a sunburned couple, and cut her eyes toward the kitchen pass before Mari rang the bell.
“Garlic knots with whipped ricotta,” Mari called. “Run them while they’re hot.”
Shay lifted a ticket from the service well. “Patio three wants the watermelon one without jalapeno.”
“Then they want watermelon juice and disappointment,” Nella said. “Charge them for both.”
I laughed once into my drink before I could stop it.
She pointed the bar spoon at me without looking. “Don’t encourage me, Torretti. I’m already delightful under pressure.”
Delightful wasn’t the word I’d have used.
She was small, loud, and dangerous, sharp enough to cut a man who forgot where to put his hands.
I looked down at my watch before I looked too long at the curve of her waist.
The number in my head stayed the same: five days.
That was the window Sal had given her on paper, and the window I’d allowed in public. Enough time for her to try. Not enough time for anyone at Torretti Harbor Capital to call me soft.
I didn’t get soft over debtors.
I definitely didn’t get soft over debtors who insulted my shirt, fed me peppers, and ran a beachfront bar like they could bully a balance sheet into mercy.
Dusty appeared at my left with both hands full of napkins. For once, they were stacked in the correct direction.
“You’re improving,” I said.
He blinked down at the napkins. “Do you mean spiritually or logistically?”
“I’ll take either.”
“That’s generous of you, my dude.”
Nella swept past us, grabbed the tray of garlic knots, and slid it toward Shay without losing the drink shaker in her other hand.
“Dusty, patio rail needs menus. Taryn, tell the birthday table we don’t put sparklers in drinks indoors.
Shay, if anyone asks whether the whipped ricotta is vegan, tell them no before Mari hears and starts sharpening something. ”
Mari’s voice shot from the pass. “I heard that.”
“Then I’ve saved us all time,” Nella called back.
A man at the patio rail leaned too far over the counter, trying to catch Nella’s eye while she capped a shaker.
“Hey, sweetheart,” he said. “We’ve been waiting.”
Nella poured, strained, and slid two drinks down the mat to Shay. “Sir, if you call me sweetheart again, your wait time becomes educational.”
His friends laughed. He didn’t.
The shark under my skin went very quiet.
I set my cup down.
Nella’s eyes flicked to me for half a second, sharp enough to pin me to the stool.
I stayed where I was because she’d ordered it without a word.
She planted one hand on the bar and leaned toward the man with the kind of smile that made smarter people reconsider their life choices.
“You ordered six minutes ago,” she said. “Your drinks are behind three tables and one blender that’s doing its best. You can wait, you can switch to bottled beer, or you can take your refund and free up my patio for people who understand clocks.”
The man opened his mouth.
Nella lifted one brow.
He shut it.
“Bottled beer’s fine,” he muttered.
“Great choice,” she said, and pointed at Shay. “Two domestics for patio seven. They’ve discovered patience.”
Shay’s mouth twitched. “Beautiful journey.”
Nella turned back to me as if she hadn’t just talked down a drunk with a bar spoon and a customer-service smile.
I picked up one of the stuffed cherry pepper bites. “Are you always this diplomatic?”
“You still have all your teeth, don’t you?”
I bit into the pepper. Heat, vinegar, breading, sausage, and cheese hit first, followed by enough spice to make a tourist confess secrets.
I chewed slower than I needed to.
Nella watched me over the shaker. “Well?”
“It’s good.”
Her eyes narrowed. They were dark and bright under the string lights, and she looked offended by the answer being too simple.
“That’s it?”
“It’s hot, sharp, salty, and bad for my judgment.”
“Careful, that was almost useful.”
“The filling’s too heavy for the size.”
“Look at that,” she said. “The jewelry comes with a useful comment.”
“Not a comment. A correction.”
“You correct my cherry peppers, and I’ll correct your face.”
I smiled before I could decide not to. “Is that a service you charge for?”
“At your balance? Absolutely.”
The phone in my pocket vibrated.
I didn’t have to check the screen to know who it was. Only one person in my life had the timing to interrupt a crowded bar, a hot woman, and a pepper that wanted me dead.
I stood.
Nella’s attention dropped to the movement. “Going somewhere?”
“Outside.”
“You need permission to leave now?”
“No. I’m giving you the courtesy of missing me.”
She snorted and turned back to the shaker. “Try not to get lost on your way to the boardwalk. It’s the giant wooden thing full of tourists making bad sandal choices.”
I walked out through the open front and into the humid night.
The boardwalk had gone pink and gold under the bar lights. Palm fronds rattled above the rail. Beyond the patio, the Atlantic moved in dark strips between bodies, umbrellas, and late swimmers who didn’t know enough to stay out of the water after sunset.
I put the phone to my ear. “Sal.”
“Nico,” my uncle said. “Tell me you’re not still sitting in that woman’s bar.”
“She has five days.”
“She has a courtesy window.”
“That’s what I said.”
“Don’t get cute with me. Cute makes men slow.”
Behind me, Nella’s voice cut through the music and tourist noise.
“Table nine, nobody dies of thirst in six minutes. I promise the tequila is coming.”
The room responded to her. Chairs shifted. Someone laughed. The pressure eased.
“She’s busy,” I said.
“She’s late.”
“She knows.”
“Does she know you’re not on vacation?”
I looked down at my open linen shirt, swim trunks, and sandals. “My wardrobe may have confused her.”
Sal was silent for one beat.
I’d annoyed him. Good. Annoyance was safer than suspicion.
“You collect,” he said. “You don’t flirt with the debtor.”
“She’s a person.”
“She’s a balance with a deadline.”
My jaw tightened. Across the patio, Nella caught a man trying to move his chair into the service path and pointed him back into place without spilling the drink in her hand.
“She’s running a full house,” I said.
“Good. Then she can pay. Make sure she remembers who gets paid first.”
“She remembers.”
“You sound impressed.”
“I sound informed.”
“You sound slow.”
I turned toward the ocean so the bar wouldn’t hear the breath I let out.
“You gave me five days,” I said.
“I gave her five days. I didn’t give you permission to wrap yourself around them.”
“I’ll report in the morning.”
“You’ll report before sunrise.”
“Fine.”
“And Nico?”
“What?”
“Stay hungry.”
He hung up.
I held the phone a moment longer, fingers tight around the case.
Stay hungry.
Sal had said that my whole life, usually before asking me to do something that left a bad taste. I slid the phone into my pocket and turned back toward the bar before his voice could settle deeper.
Inside Bite Me, Nella slammed both palms on the bar.
“Nobody orders twelve blended drinks and tells me they’re in a hurry,” she said. “That’s not how ice or God works.”
Three women at the counter cheered.
I went back in.
The rush didn’t slow. It changed shape. Families with sandy kids gave way to couples with sunburns and vacation money.
Beach music slid louder. Glasses sweated on the bar.
The air carried jalapeno, sugar, hot dough, garlic, perfume, and Nella every time she moved close enough for the shark in me to notice.
The card reader froze.
The customer pointed at the screen. “It says approved.”
“It says nothing because it has chosen death,” Nella said. “Taryn, backup tablet.”
Taryn already had it in her hand. “I’m on it.”
A delivery driver dropped two crates by the wrong entrance.
Mari leaned through the kitchen pass. “Ay, carajo. Those are for the side door, not the walkway.”
Dusty drifted toward the back hall. “The crates have summoned me.”
Nella looked at me. “You.”
I lifted my brows. “Me?”
“You’re six-four and currently underfoot. Make yourself useful.”
I stood. “Careful. That sounds like trust.”
“It’s labor. Don’t romanticize employment.”
She pointed me toward the back hall.
I moved the crates where Mari wanted them, stacked empties by the service door, and shifted a patio table after Nella pointed at the floor.
“Move it two feet toward the rail,” she said. “Stop there. No, your other left.”
“My other left?”
“The one where you listen.”
I didn’t take over. I didn’t give orders. I followed hers.
No one at Torretti Harbor Capital ordered me around in public.
Nella did it with a crooked apron, a damp curl stuck to her cheek, and a bar spoon in her fist.
I did it anyway.
At ten forty-eight, the line thinned.
At eleven thirty, Taryn locked the takeout window and leaned her forehead against the frame for two seconds before straightening.
At midnight, Shay counted her drawer while Mari wrapped prep.
Dusty tossed a towel toward the wrong bin.