Chapter 5 - The Blood of the Narrows
The silence that followed was heavy enough to bend steel.
Leo lowered his hand from his firearm, his expression shifting from tactical vigilance to utter bewilderment as he looked between his boss and the young diner cook. In all the years Leo had stood at Gabriel’s right hand, he had never seen the syndicate boss look like this—not after a failed hit, not after a federal indictment, not even when the bullets were flying overhead.
Gabriel slowly pushed himself up from the red vinyl booth.
He was taller than Norah remembered—or perhaps she had simply been nine years old the last time she looked up at him across Rosa’s battered laminate kitchen table. He stood over six feet tall, his broad shoulders filling out the soaked wool coat, but the terrifying aura of the underworld kingpin had vanished, replaced by something raw, exposed, and intensely human.
“You’re little Nora,” Gabriel said, his voice rough and uneven. “Rosa used to talk about you every single time I visited her on Sundays. She said you were the only kid in the building smart enough to finish your homework before watching television.”
“And she talked about you,” Norah replied, her voice softening despite herself. “She called you her stubborn boy. She kept every single newspaper clipping whenever your name appeared in the city briefs—even the ones where the reporters called you a criminal.”
Gabriel let out a short, dry, humorless sound that might have been a laugh if it hadn’t been so choked with emotion. “She hated those newspapers. She always told me that whatever I did out in the streets, it didn't change the fact that I was raised on her kitchen floor.”
He took a slow step forward, his Italian leather shoes clicking softly against the linoleum.
“Why are you working in a dump like this, Nora?” Gabriel asked, his tone shifting imperceptibly from personal reminiscence back to the calculating, protective instinct of a man who owned half the city. “A girl with your brain shouldn't be scrubbing grease traps in the South End at midnight.”
“I’m paying for my nursing board exams,” Norah answered, her chin lifting slightly with a flash of the same stubborn pride Rosa had possessed. “I don't need charity, Gabriel. And I certainly don't need favors from a man who runs the North Side docks.”
“It’s not charity,” Gabriel said quietly. He reached inside his heavy wool coat, and for a split second, every enforcer in the room tensed, their hands dropping toward their weapons.
Leo took a sharp half-step forward. “Boss—”
Gabriel ignored him entirely. He withdrew a thick, black leather cardholder from his inner pocket, pulled out a small, heavy gold-embossed card, and placed it gently on the edge of the scratched table, right beside the empty stew bowl.
“That’s my direct private number,” Gabriel said, his eyes locking onto hers with absolute, unyielding intensity. “If anyone gives you trouble—at the hospital, at your school, or in this neighborhood—you call that number. Day or night. My men will clear the street before you even finish the sentence.”
Norah looked down at the card, then back up at his face. “I don’t want your protection, Gabriel.”
“You don't have a choice,” Gabriel replied flatly, though there was no malice in his voice, only the absolute authority of a man accustomed to rearranging the world to suit his needs. “Rosa spent twenty years keeping me alive when I was starving in the gutters. The least I can do is make sure the girl she raised doesn't have to break her back scrubbing floors just to buy a set of textbooks.”
Before Norah could formulate a sharp retort, Gabriel turned on his heel.
“Leo,” he ordered crisply, pulling his coat tighter around his shoulders as he headed toward the front door. “We’re leaving.”
“Boss, what about the district?” Leo asked, casting one last suspicious glance at Benny, who was still clinging to the pie display like a shipwreck survivor.
“Leave the district alone,” Gabriel said over his shoulder, his hand pushing open the heavy glass door as the relentless Chicago rain swept back into the diner. “Nobody touches Benny’s. Nobody touches this block. If a single rival crew sets foot in this zip code, you handle them personally.”
Within seconds, the convoy of black SUVs roared back to life, their tail lights bleeding streaks of crimson into the wet, dark night as they sped away down the desolate South End street, leaving Benny’s wrapped once more in the quiet, damp solitude of the storm.
Norah stood beside the table for a long, motionless minute, staring down at the gold-embossed card resting beside the empty ceramic bowl.
May you like
She picked it up.
The heavy cardstock felt cool and expensive beneath her fingertips.
