Chapter 3 - Shadows and Empty Plates
The marble floor felt colder than usual. I didn't move. I watched Tessa’s shaking fingers gather a squashed tupperware container of beef stroganoff, her knuckles bruised and raw from the biting wind.
“Where are your parents?” I demanded, though the rough edges of my mob-boss persona were already beginning to crack under the weight of what I was looking at.
“Mom passed away last year,” she whispered, her voice barely audible over the hum of the HVAC unit. “Heart failure. Dad walked out when Leo was born. It’s... it’s just me now.”
She looked up, her dark eyes flashing with a sudden, desperate flash of pride through her tears. “I’m not stealing your food to sell it, Mr. Rossi. I swear to God, I’m not. I work two jobs—cleaning offices downtown from five to nine, and here from three to eleven. By the time I get home to the apartment, the boys have already eaten whatever frozen noodles were left in the pantry. But... but I wanted them to have something real. Something warm. From a kitchen where people actually care about what they eat.”
The words hung in the suffocating silence of the hallway.
I looked back down at the food, then back to her.
“What do you eat, Tessa?”
She looked away, her gaze fixing stubbornly on the blank wall.
“Tessa. Look at me.”
She swallowed hard, her throat bobbing. “Coffee, mostly.”
I’ve looked men in the eye as I ordered their executions. I’ve watched rivals beg for their lives, offering me millions, screaming for mercy, and I haven't lost a single hour of sleep afterward. That’s what it takes to survive at the top of Chicago’s underworld.
But those two words— Coffee, mostly —followed me all night like a haunting melody.
While my men ate dry-aged ribeye downstairs in the dining hall, while my chefs complained about the quality of imported truffles, this twenty-six-year-old girl walked out into the freezing Chicago sleet with an empty stomach because two little boys were waiting for her in a cold apartment.
She was starving herself so her family could feel human.
That code of mine— If you work for me, you eat well —felt like a sick joke written in neon lights. If my own employees were skipping meals to feed their siblings, my rules weren't working.
By dawn, I had made up my mind.
When the sun finally clawed its way through the gray winter clouds on Saturday morning, I called an emergency meeting with my head chef in the grand kitchen before anyone else arrived.
The chef, a towering Frenchman named Henri who usually looked at everyone with undisguised contempt, stood nervously before my desk as I handed him a revised set of instructions.
“Starting tonight,” I told him, my tone leaving zero room for argument, “the rules of this house change.”
Henri blinked, adjusting his pristine white apron. “Mr. Rossi? In what way? Do you wish to alter the menu for the capos?”
“No,” I said coldly. “Every employee working in this estate—guards, drivers, maids, gardeners—will now be permitted to pack three complete, hot meals to take home to their families every single night. No questions asked. No explanations required.”
Henri’s eyebrows shot up. “Sir, that will triple our kitchen budget for nightly takeaway packaging alone. And the cost of the ingredients—”
I stood up, resting my palms flat on the mahogany surface, leaning forward until Henri could see the ice in my eyes.
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“Did I stutter, Henri? If a man works under my roof, his family eats from my table. If I ever catch you short-changing the staff boxes, you’ll find yourself cooking meals for rats in the drainage tunnels beneath the river. Am I understood?”
“Yes, Mr. Rossi. Perfectly,” the chef stammered, turning on his heel and hurrying back toward the stoves.
