Page 94 of Vows of a Mobster

“It’s okay. It’s a restaurant. You are bound to run into people.”

Antonio just came into the room, looking grim and pissed off.

“Everyone good?” he asked, his eyes on both of us.

I nodded but Mateo looked furious. “How did he get in here?”

“He knocked out the two guards at the bottom of the steps. Someone let him through the kitchen backdoor.”

“Find out who,” Mateo gritted. “And why?”

“Already working on it.” I wasn’t sure how Antonio was keeping his cool because this Mateo was terrifying with the cold rage that was seeping through every pore of him. If it was directed towards me, I was sure my knees would buckle.

“He saw Brianna,” Mateo spat out. Antonio cursed in Italian, and then a few Italian words were exchanged between the two but I couldn’t follow any of it. Yes, I spent a year in Italy but my Italian was barely passable, and when they spoke fast, I couldn’t follow at all.

I swallowed a lump in my throat. “Should I be worried that he knows my name? I can’t-” I could hear panic in my voice. “I have a kid, Mateo. I can’t be connected to your world.”

“You are under my protection,” Mateo assured me. “I won’t let anything bad happen to you or your daughter. Ever!”

Would he say the same if he knew what I had done two years ago? If he knew, Giovanni took that beating to protect me. All this was too much, everything crashing down on me in a matter of days.

“Brianna, trust me on this,” Mateo's voice was confident, a hard gleam in his eyes. “Nobody will harm you. Giovanni is on his way to your place and will upgrade the security.”

Maybe Emma would be better off and safer if I brought her to Mateo’s house?

The way this was going, I’d have to leave the damn state after all this was over with Mateo. Not that I could afford starting somewhere new. I had nowhere to go. I chewed on my lip, trying to keep my nerves from getting the best of me. Mateo and Antonio watched me and it felt like they could see down to every single thing I had done. Or maybe it was my guilty conscience?

Luca came through the door at that moment, sparing me any more scrutiny by the two men that saw too much. He had a bump on his head.

“We found who snuck him in,” he told both Mateo and Antonio. “It was the waitress. She had a fling with him.”

“Find out what she knows and then get rid of her,” Mateo’s voice was hard.

“You- you’re not going to kill her. Right?” This all was just too much. I shouldn’t have said anything, I knew it. I should have minded my own business and pretended I didn’t hear the comment. But that wasn’t me.

The silence lingered and my eyes darted between the three men in panic. “Oh my God,” I whispered.

“Calm down, Brianna,” Mateo finally spoke up. “More than likely, she doesn’t know anything and only let him in because she slept with him. She’ll lose her job.”

I swallowed hard. I believed him, although there was an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. The waitress’ only crime was letting a man into a restaurant. My crime was much worse.

My eyes went back to Luca and his forehead. “Are you okay?” I asked him. “We should probably put ice on that so swelling doesn’t get worse.”

His bump was something I could help with. It seemed everything else was getting out of my hands.

He smiled. “I have a hard head,” he retorted assuringly.

I reached for one of the clean cloth napkins from the table and dumped ice into it, then wrapped it up into a ball, handing it to him. “Here, put it on your forehead so swelling doesn’t get worse.”

“You’ve done this before, ha?” Luca asked jokingly.

“No, not really,” I muttered. “I saw it in the movies.”

“C’mon, Brianna, we’re going home,” Mateo took my hand and turned to Antonio. “Let me know what you find out.”

They would question the waitress. Fuck, I never wanted to be in her shoes. Once we were in the car, Mateo ordered his driver to take us back home, then closed the divider between us. I quickly checked my phone for messages. There was already one waiting for me from Marissa, letting me know Giovanni was upgrading my security.

When I raised my eyes, I found Mateo watching me. “Giovanni is already at my place, upgrading the security.”