Chapter 10 - THE RESTAURANT ENZO LEFT BEHIND
“Thirty days?”
Luca stared at Daniel.
The dining room was almost empty.
Only a few candles remained burning along the long table.
Daniel nodded.
“The bank was expecting the Bellini guarantee to cover the remaining renovation costs. Without it, we need another arrangement.”
“How much?”
“Enough that we can't cover it from the restaurant's operating account.”
Luca looked toward the kitchen.
I could hear dishes being washed.
Someone laughed at something near the stove.
Ordinary sounds.
Sounds made by people who had no idea their jobs might disappear.
“Does the staff know?” Luca asked.
“Not yet.”
“Then we tell them tomorrow.”
Daniel looked surprised.
“All of them?”
“Yes. They deserve to know what's happening.”
I watched him fold the financial report.
For the first time since I'd met him, Luca seemed genuinely uncertain.
He could frighten powerful men with a glance.
He could command a room full of wealthy guests.
But standing inside his family's restaurant, he couldn't make the numbers disappear.
The next morning, he gathered the employees before opening.
I stood beside Mrs. Carter.
Rebecca had brought Lucy to meet the kitchen staff, but Luca arranged for the little girl to stay in the courtyard while the adults discussed business.
Daniel explained the financing problem.
A waitress named Maria raised her hand.
She'd worked at the restaurant for twenty-one years.
“Are we closing?”
Luca didn't pretend he knew the answer.
“I'm trying to make sure we don't.”
Maria folded her arms.
“My husband's been out of work since March.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
The question hung in the room.
Luca nodded.
“Maybe not the way you do. But I know this place matters to you, and I won't ask you to pretend everything's fine.”
A cook spoke from the back.
“Wouldn't it have been easier to marry Vanessa?”
The room went silent.
I felt my face grow hot.
Luca looked directly at the man.
“Easier for whom?”
The cook lowered his eyes.
“For the restaurant.”
“Maybe,” Luca answered. “But then I'd be asking you to work for someone who believed frightening an employee was acceptable.”
He glanced toward me.
“And I'd be telling a mother that her daughter mattered more to us than she did.”
Nobody spoke.
“I'm not going to save this restaurant by making another family pay for it.”
Something shifted in the room.
Maria slowly nodded.
“All right,” she said. “Then what can we do?”
Luca looked toward Daniel.
“Let's start with what we can change.”
They spent the morning reviewing expenses.
The unfinished renovation had included a new private dining area, expensive lighting, and several improvements that could be postponed.
But the kitchen's required safety upgrades couldn't wait.
Without them, the restaurant couldn't continue operating at full capacity.
Luca arranged meetings with the contractors and bank.
He also began considering which personal assets he could sell without disrupting other businesses or their employees.
Meanwhile, I returned to my apartment.
The locks had been changed.
Sarah stood beside me as I tried the new key.
It turned smoothly.
Such a small sound.
But it made my eyes fill.
Inside, everything looked the way I'd left it after the police finished documenting the apartment.
Except my grandmother's quilt.
Sarah had washed and carefully folded it.
She placed it across my bed.
“I thought you might want it here.”
I touched the embroidered red heart.
“I do.”
Sarah sat beside me.
“You don't have to move back immediately.”
“I know.”
“Mark doesn't get to decide when you're ready.”
I looked around the room.
For two years, I'd arranged my life around avoiding him.
Where I parked.
Which grocery store I used.
How long I stood outside my own building.
I was tired of treating ordinary things like risks I deserved.
“I think I want to stay,” I said.
Sarah smiled.
“Then we'll make it yours again.”
That afternoon, Mrs. Carter visited with my permission.
She brought a small basket of groceries and an apology she hadn't rehearsed.
“I've been thinking about the information I gave Vanessa,” she said.
I invited her to sit.
She explained that she'd asked Luca to establish a clear procedure for handling employee records.
No private addresses.
No emergency contacts.
No spare keys.
Not without an employee's permission and a legitimate reason.
“I should have asked more questions,” she admitted.
I nodded.
“Yes.”
She accepted the answer.
Then she looked at the quilt.
“Your grandmother made that?”
“Every stitch.”
Mrs. Carter smiled sadly.
“My mother quilted, too.”
For a while, we talked about fabric and childhood kitchens.
Nothing dramatic.
Nothing that needed forgiveness.
It felt like the beginning of something more honest.
Three days later, Luca asked me to meet him at the restaurant.
He looked exhausted.
Daniel stood beside a man in an expensive gray suit.
The man represented a hospitality company interested in leasing part of the building.
“We have an offer,” Daniel explained.
Luca didn't look pleased.
“The company wants exclusive use of the original dining room for private events.”
I looked toward the walnut-paneled room.
The old photographs.
The long table.
The fireplace beside table seven.
“That room?”
Luca nodded.
“They'd renovate it themselves and pay enough upfront to cover most of what we owe.”
“That sounds helpful,” I said cautiously.
“It could be.”
He looked toward the photograph of Enzo above the fireplace.
“But they'd control the room for ten years.”
I felt uneasy.
“Would the restaurant still use it?”
“Not for our regular customers.”
Daniel handed Luca the proposed layout.
The company's design replaced the old tables with a private lounge.
The family photographs would be removed.
The room where Enzo had cooked Sunday dinners for neighborhood families would become an exclusive space available only to paying members.
Luca stared at the drawings.
May you like
Then he said something I hadn't expected.
“If I sign this, we might save the restaurant. But I'll be selling the last place my brother ever felt at home.”
