A Chubby Waitress Whispered That It Hurt When She Sat Down, and the Mafia Boss Was the Only Man Who Asked Why
Part 2: “Boxes of employee records. Two sets of payroll books. Envelopes with cash.”
Gordon interrupted.
“She’s feverish. She doesn’t know what she’s saying.”
Nora grabbed Adrian’s sleeve.
It was a desperate, frightened movement.
“My daughter lives in an apartment owned by the Hales,” she whispered. “They said we would be on the street if I talked. Please don’t tell them I told you.”
Adrian looked down at her hand.
Twenty-six years earlier, another injured woman had once gripped his sleeve that way.
His mother had worked twelve-hour shifts in an industrial laundry owned by Victor Hale’s father. When a chemical spill damaged her lungs, the company doctor had called it seasonal asthma. She was fired two weeks later and died before Adrian turned fourteen.
No one had believed her either.
Adrian removed his coat and placed it over Nora.
Then he looked at Gordon.
“Call an ambulance.”
“No ambulance,” Gordon said quickly. “Mr. Hale has private medical staff.”
“That wasn’t a suggestion.”
Victor Hale finally approached.
He was sixty-three, silver-haired, and known throughout Chicago for donating to hospitals, food banks, and children’s charities. His face appeared on magazine covers whenever the city needed an example of respectable wealth.
“Adrian,” Victor said, smiling as though they were old friends. “Surely we can handle this without upsetting my guests.”
“Your employee may have a spinal injury.”
“She has a bruised tailbone and an unfortunate imagination.”
Nora closed her eyes.
Victor leaned closer to Adrian.
“Women like her learn quickly that public embarrassment can be turned into money. You should be careful whom you believe.”
Adrian’s expression did not change.
“Pain doesn’t become imaginary because the person feeling it is bigger than you think she should be.”
Victor’s smile disappeared.
Adrian took out his phone and called the private physician who had treated members of his family for years.
“I need an ambulance at Marrow & Vine,” he said. “Possible sacral injury, fever, neurological symptoms.”
Preston rose from his table.
“You have no right to interfere.”
Adrian looked at him for the first time.
“Then stop me.”
Preston did not move.
The ambulance arrived eight minutes later.
As paramedics lifted Nora onto a stretcher, Gordon tried to follow them.
Adrian blocked the door.
“She asked me to come,” Gordon said.
“No. She asked everyone in this building to leave her alone. You simply never listened.”
Adrian rode in the ambulance while his longtime driver, Marcus Reed, followed in the car.
Nora drifted in and out of awareness.
May you like
“My daughter,” she murmured.
“Where is she?”
