Chapter 3: The Fatal Call From Home

Later, as Arya returned to the private room with the heavy drink tray balanced carefully in her hands, she felt a distinct, familiar buzzing in her pocket.

Her phone vibrated insistently against her hip. It was the specific pattern of three short, sharp buzzes. It indicated the special, emergency ringtone she had set specifically for international calls.

She never, ever took personal calls during her shifts. Paulo would fire her on the spot if he caught her.

But with her beloved grandmother currently lingering in a hospice care facility back in Sicily, she broke the rules. She kept the phone tucked deep in her apron pocket constantly. It was her only remaining lifeline, her singular connection to the only family she had left in the entire world.

She approached the table carefully, distributing the expensive wine and the complex cocktails with practiced precision.

After placing the very last drink—the Macallan 25-year-old scotch that probably cost more than her monthly rent—in front of the blue-eyed man, she stepped back against the mahogany wall. The men immediately resumed their hushed, intense discussion in rapid Italian.

Arya discreetly slipped her hand into her apron and checked the glowing screen. Her heart dropped into her stomach.

It was her grandmother’s night nurse calling directly from the small, rural village just outside Palermo. It was the exact call she had been violently dreading for three excruciating weeks.

She couldn’t ignore it. She turned her body slightly toward the corner of the room, engaging in a futile attempt at privacy.

“Pronto,” Arya whispered desperately into the receiver, pressing the phone tightly against her ear.

The Sicilian dialect slipped out of her mouth entirely automatically. It always did when she was speaking to anyone from back home. It was a deeply ingrained, emotional reflex.

The nurse’s voice came through the terrible connection, sounding incredibly soft and profoundly regretful.

“Arya, mi dispiace,” the nurse said gently, speaking rapidly about Francesca’s rapidly deteriorating conditions. “She is asking for you. We are making the final arrangements. You need to come home.”

Tears instantly sprang to Arya’s eyes, blurring the expensive, ornate wallpaper in front of her.

“I am trying,” Arya whispered frantically in her native dialect, trying to keep her voice down. “I have been saving every single dollar. Tell her I love her. Please, just tell her to wait for me.”

“I will tell her,” the nurse promised softly. “Be safe, Arya.”

When the call abruptly ended, Arya stood facing the wall for a long second. She blinked rapidly, desperately fighting back the hot tears that violently threatened to spill over her eyelashes and ruin her shift.

She took a deep breath, composing her face into a blank, professional mask.

But when she turned back around to face the table, the entire room had fallen completely, terrifyingly silent.

It was as if someone had pressed a massive mute button on the universe. Six pairs of highly dangerous eyes watched her intensely. Their expressions ranged from mild annoyance to deep, calculating curiosity.

But only the head man’s gaze had fundamentally changed. His blue eyes were vastly sharper, much more intensely focused.

His head was tilted slightly to the side. He was looking at her as if he were truly seeing her for the very first time, rather than just looking at another invisible server dressed in black and white.

“Mi dispiace, Signor Castellini,” Arya murmured unconsciously, apologizing for the interruption.

She used perfect, flawless Sicilian dialect. She used his specific family name, a name she had overheard earlier in hushed, deeply reverent tones from the kitchen staff. She didn’t realize the massive, fatal error she had just made.

If you received devastating news about a loved one while working in a highly dangerous environment, could you maintain your composure, or would you break down?

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