Chapter 2 - THE MAÎTRE D’S TERROR
"Sophie! Silence your insolent mouth this instant!" Laurent shrieked, his voice cracking with sheer panic as he rushed toward table four. He practically threw himself between Sophie and the Moretti party, bowing so low his forehead nearly touched the white tablecloth. "Mr. Moretti, please—I beg of you, excuse her! She is... she is an uneducated stray we picked up from the agency. She doesn't know how to speak to guests of your stature! I will fire her right now! Security will drag her out into the alley!"
Laurent turned back to Sophie, his eyes bulging with blind rage, raising his hand to strike her across the face.
Before his palm could even move an inch through the air, a heavy hand clamped around Laurent’s wrist like a vise made of cold steel.
Laurent gasped, freezing mid-motion.
It wasn't one of the hulking bodyguards.
It was Alessandro Moretti.
Alessandro slowly stood up from his chair. At six-foot-two, towering over Laurent, the mafia don radiated an aura of lethal, absolute authority that sucked every remaining ounce of oxygen out of the room. He didn't look at Laurent. His dark, impenetrable eyes remained fixed entirely on Sophie.
"Touch her," Alessandro whispered, his voice dangerously soft, carrying a quiet menace that made the maître d’ tremble like a leaf in a hurricane, "and you won't live long enough to regret the hospital bill, Laurent."
Laurent’s knees buckled. He swallowed hard, his voice trembling violently. "M-Mr. Moretti... I only meant—"
"Shut your mouth," Alessandro interrupted smoothly.
He pulled his hand away, smoothing the lapel of his bespoke charcoal suit. He took a single step closer to Sophie, looking down at her with a mix of profound curiosity and hidden danger.
"You spoke French," Alessandro noted, his tone flat, analytical, and sharp as a scalpel. "Not the street slang they teach tourists in Montreal. Nor the broken Parisian patois common among service workers. That was the dialect of the sixteenth arrondissement. The kind of French spoken by people who summer in Biarritz and study at the Sorbonne."
Sophie’s heart hammered against her ribs, but she refused to step back. She held her ground, looking straight into the eyes of New York’s most feared criminal.
"People's pasts are often full of surprises, Mr. Moretti," Sophie replied, her voice steady. "Just because someone is wearing a cheap apron doesn't mean they don't know how the rest of the world lives."
Camilla, recovering from her initial shock, pushed herself up from the table, her face flushed with furious embarrassment. "Alessandro! Are you seriously listening to this pathetic little fraud?! She’s a waitress! She’s probably a pickpocket or a stalker! Look at her—she’s trembling! Have her arrested immediately!"
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Alessandro didn't even glance at Camilla. He raised a single finger, silencing her instantly.
"Bring me the 1982 Bordeaux," Alessandro instructed Sophie, his eyes locking onto hers. "The one from the reserve vault. Pour it yourself. And then... stay right here. I want a conversation."
