Chương 2 - THE SECOND TARGET
The fake bartender lowered the burner phone.
Then he smiled at Emma.
It was not a friendly smile.
It was the expression of a man who had just solved a problem.
Emma forced herself to pick up an empty wineglass from the service station.
Her hand wanted to shake.
She refused to let it.
“Table Seven needs another cabernet,” she said, as if nothing had happened.
The bartender stepped closer.
“You’re Emma, right?”
Her stomach dropped.
Bellanova had twenty-three servers.
Her name tag was covered by her apron.
“Yes.”
“Emma Parker?”
That was worse.
Before she could answer, the heavyset man returned from the entrance.
His coat was wet.
His right hand remained inside it.
“The gentleman at Twelve leave anything behind?” he asked.
Emma glanced toward the table.
Several hundred-dollar bills sat beneath the leather presenter.
“No.”
The bartender’s eyes moved to her.
“You sure?”
Emma made herself shrug.
“He left money.”
“Receipt?”
“In the presenter.”
The bartender started toward Table Twelve.
Emma’s heartbeat slammed.
The warning was still inside.
If he opened the presenter, he would see exactly what she had done.
She stepped around him.
“I need to close the check.”
His arm moved.
Not fast.
Just enough to block her.
For one second, neither of them spoke.
Then the restaurant manager appeared.
“Emma.”
Lucia Bell had managed Bellanova for nine years and could silence a dining room with one raised eyebrow.
She looked at the stranger behind the bar.
“Where is Tony?”
The fake bartender answered smoothly.
“Food poisoning.”
Lucia’s expression did not change.
“Interesting.”
The young man stiffened.
“Why?”
“Because Tony called me ten minutes ago from his apartment.”
The heavyset man moved.
Lucia moved faster.
Not toward him.
Toward the fire alarm.
Her hand came down.
The restaurant exploded with sound.
Guests screamed.
Chairs scraped.
Emergency lights flashed.
In the confusion, the bartender vaulted the service gate.
The heavyset man shoved through two diners and headed for the kitchen exit.
Emma saw his coat open.
The gun was there.
But he never drew it.
That was important.
Whatever they had planned, firing into a crowded Manhattan restaurant was apparently not part of it.
Then someone grabbed Emma’s wrist.
She spun.
The fake bartender.
His voice was almost lost beneath the alarm.
“Where’s the paper?”
Emma stared at him.
“What paper?”
“The receipt.”
He tightened his grip.
Pain shot through her arm.
Then another hand appeared.
Larger.
Calmer.
It closed around the man’s forearm.
The gray-eyed stranger stood beside them.
Rain darkened the shoulders of his charcoal suit.
He had come back.
“Let her go,” he said.
The bartender’s face changed.
Not fear.
Calculation.
He released Emma immediately.
Then he disappeared into the crowd before anyone could stop him.
The stranger watched him go.
“You came back,” Emma said.
His eyes stayed on the kitchen exit.
“I never left the block.”
“You told me you had an urgent appointment.”
“I lied.”
“At least you admit it.”
That earned the smallest shift at the corner of his mouth.
Lucia reached them.
“Police are coming.”
The stranger looked at Emma.
“You should not be here when they start asking questions.”
Emma almost laughed.
“I’m a law student.”
“That doesn’t make police questions less complicated.”
“It makes running from them a terrible idea.”
His gaze sharpened.
“Good.”
“What?”
“You’re thinking.”
“I was doing that before you came back.”
“I noticed.”
Lucia interrupted.
“Who are you?”
The man reached into his jacket slowly.
This time Emma saw the shoulder holster beneath it.
He removed a business card instead.
GABRIEL MORETTI.
MORETTI GLOBAL LOGISTICS.
Lucia read it.
Her face lost color.
Emma noticed.
Gabriel noticed Emma noticing.
No one said the other thing.
The name Moretti carried its own history in New York.
Newspapers called the family businessmen.
Prosecutors had used less flattering words.
Gabriel looked at Emma.
“Where is the receipt?”
“In the presenter.”
They turned.
Table Twelve had been cleared during the panic.
The leather presenter was gone.
“So is my warning,” Emma said.
Gabriel’s expression hardened.
“Who clears tables during a fire alarm?”
“Bus staff.”
Lucia shook her head.
“Not that quickly.”
Emma looked across the dining room.
The fake bartender had not been trying to kill Gabriel when he grabbed her.
He had asked for the paper.
That meant proof mattered.
Maybe more than blood.
Police entered through the front doors.
Gabriel stepped back.
“Tell them everything you saw.”
Emma frowned.
“A minute ago you told me not to be here.”
“A minute ago I didn’t know they wanted the receipt.”
“You think that changes something?”
“It changes who I think they came for.”
Emma’s mouth went dry.
Lucia looked between them.
“What does that mean?”
Gabriel did not answer.
He turned toward the bar mirror.
One thing remained on the counter.
A folded cocktail napkin.
Emma remembered the heavyset man sitting beside it.
She walked over.
There was handwriting on the underside.
Two letters.
E.P.
Then a time.
11:30.
Tomorrow.
Gabriel took the napkin from her.
His jaw tightened.
“Emma Parker.”
She looked at him.
“You knew my last name before that bartender said it.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
For the first time all night, Gabriel looked uncomfortable.
That frightened her more than the gun.
He reached inside his coat again.
From an inner pocket, he removed an old photograph.
The edges were cracked.
Three men stood outside Bellanova.
The restaurant looked different.
Older awning.
Different windows.
But the brass number beside the door was the same.
Emma recognized the man on the left immediately.
Her father.
Michael Parker had been dead for eleven years.
In the photograph he was smiling slightly, wearing the navy overcoat Emma remembered from childhood.
Beside him stood an older man with Gabriel’s eyes.
The third man had been scratched out with black ink.
Emma could barely speak.
“Where did you get this?”
“My father’s files.”
“Why was my father in them?”
Gabriel turned the photograph over.
A date was written on the back.
November 18.
Thirteen years earlier.
Under it were five words.
PARKER KNOWS WHERE IT WENT.
Emma stared.
Her father had been an accountant.
Quiet.
Careful.
The kind of man who alphabetized tax documents and considered driving five miles over the speed limit an act of rebellion.
“What went where?”
Gabriel’s eyes met hers.
“Twenty-seven million dollars.”
Emma laughed once.
Not because it was funny.
Because the alternative was fear.
“My father did not know anything about your family’s money.”
“He did.”
“You didn’t know him.”
“My father did.”
Emma looked at the older Moretti in the photograph.
“What happened to him?”
Gabriel’s expression went cold.
“He was killed three nights after this picture was taken.”
The fire alarm suddenly stopped.
Silence rushed into the restaurant.
Gabriel’s next words seemed louder because of it.
“And your father died eleven months later.”
Emma looked down at the photograph again.
“No.”
Gabriel’s voice stayed quiet.
“Emma, the men tonight did not come to Bellanova for one target.”
She raised her eyes.
May you like
He handed the photograph back.
“They came for both of us.”
