Chapter 2 - The Ghost on the Line
The silence in the dry-storage pantry felt heavy enough to choke on. The rain outside seemed to quiet down, reduced to a hollow drip against the metal drainpipe.
"They know who you are," Alessio said, his voice dropping into a low, terrifying pitch. "They saw you pull me off the alley threshold. The man on that phone is Carlo Moretti. He doesn't leave witnesses, and he certainly doesn't leave leverage behind."
Nora’s mind raced. Carlo Moretti was a name spoken in whispers across South Boston—the ruthless enforcer of the Moretti crime syndicate. "I don't belong to your world," she breathed, backing away a inch, her arms tightening around Nico. "I'm just a waitress."
"You became part of this the second you unlocked that door," Alessio replied, leaning his head back against the stacked wooden crates. His face was ghostly pale from blood loss, but his eyes were sharp, calculating every exit, every shadow. "If you stay here, they will come back before dawn. They will burn this diner with you inside it."
Before Nora could process his words, her own personal phone began to vibrate on the stainless steel counter outside the pantry door.
Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.
In the quiet diner, the vibration sounded like a ticking bomb.
Nora looked at Alessio. He nodded once, his hand sliding smoothly toward the matte black handgun resting on his coat. She stepped cautiously out of the pantry, her knees trembling, and picked up her phone. The caller ID displayed a blocked number.
"Don't answer it," Alessio cautioned from the darkness of the pantry.
"What if it's the police? What if someone saw?" Nora's thumb hovered over the screen. Against her better judgment, she swiped to accept the call and pressed the cold glass to her ear. "Hello?"
Static hissed through the speaker, high-pitched and erratic, like a signal crossing an impossible distance. Then, a voice broke through.
"Nora... baby..."
Nora felt the air leave her lungs instantly. The world seemed to stop spinning. The room tilted.
"Mom?" Nora whispered, her voice cracking.
It was impossible. Margaret Callahan had died three years ago in a high-care oncology ward at Massachusetts General Hospital. Nora had held her hand as the heart monitor flattened into a continuous tone. She had picked out the wooden casket, paid for the burial plot with loans that still haunted her dreams, and cried until she had no tears left.
"Nora, listen to me," the voice rasped, weak, breathless, yet unmistakably her mother's tone, her cadence, her quiet desperation. "You can't trust him. You can't trust the man in your pantry."
"Mom... this isn't funny... who is this?!" Tears surged into Nora's eyes, hot and blinding. "My mother is dead!"
May you like
"I had to die, Nora," the voice sobbed through the static. "I had to die to protect you from the Morettis. From his family. The twins... they aren't his children, Nora. They're yours."
The call disconnected with a harsh click, leaving only the dull dial tone in her ear. Nora stood frozen in the middle of the kitchen, the phone slipping from her fingers and clattering onto the linoleum floor.
