Chapter 1 - The Six WordsThe diner was dead quiet. The air smelled of burnt grease and ozone, thick with the kind of tension that makes your skin prickle. Patty had stopped wiping the counter. The two men in the tailored suits at the front stools didn't reach for their guns—men like them didn't need to draw steel on a waitress—but their bodies turned, focused, locking onto table six like radar dish arrays tracking an incoming strike.
Scarlett leaned down. Six inches. Her face was so close to his she could see the faint silver threads in the dark hair at his temples and the small, jagged scar running through his left eyebrow. She could smell his cologne—sandalwood, rain, and something metallic that made her stomach tighten.
She looked him dead in the eye.
"You're not mad. You're just lonely."
Six words. Quiet. Spoken without a tremor, without anger, and without a single shred of the terror that usually paved the road six feet ahead of Anthony "The Ghost" Vance wherever he walked in the state of New Jersey.
The silence that followed was a physical weight.
For three long seconds, Anthony Vance didn't blink. The black-eyed stare that had made federal judges sweat during depositions went entirely still. The coldness behind his gaze didn't flare into rage; it fractured. A tiny, almost imperceptible twitch moved near the corner of his jaw.
Nobody had spoken to him like that in twenty-two years. Not since he took over the Vance Syndicate after his father’s murder. Not since he buried his younger brother. People didn't analyze Anthony Vance; they obeyed him, bribed him, or ran from him.
"What did you say to me?" Anthony’s voice came out lower than before, a soft, gravelly raspy whisper that felt like a razor dragging across silk.
"You heard me," Scarlett said softly, standing up straight and picking up her tray. Her feet were throbbing, her back was aching, and the adrenaline that had fueled her burst of courage was already beginning to recede, leaving behind a cold, hollow dread. "You've been sitting here for forty-five minutes. You haven't looked at your phone once since you sat down. You aren't checking business. You're waiting for someone who isn't coming, and you're taking it out on my coffee."
She turned her back on him.
She walked away.
Behind her, she heard the rustle of expensive wool as the two bodyguards stood up from their counter stools, their leather shoes squeaking against the cracked linoleum.
"Boss?" one of them asked, his voice flat, devoid of emotion. "Do we handle this?"
Scarlett kept walking toward the kitchen doors. Her heart was hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. This is it, she thought, her fingers tightening around the edge of her plastic tray. I just got myself killed over a twenty-cent cup of diner drip.
"Sit down, Leo," Anthony commanded.
The bodyguards paused. "Boss—"
"I said sit down," Anthony repeated. His voice wasn't raised, but the tone made both men freeze, step backward, and drop back onto their stools without another word.
Scarlett pushed through the swinging doors into the kitchen. The moment the double doors closed behind her, her knees buckled. She caught herself on the stainless-steel prep table, gasping for air.
Patty burst in through the back entrance ten seconds later, her face pale as a sheet. "Scarlett! Are you out of your mind? Do you have any idea who that man is?"
"He's a customer who complains about hot coffee," Scarlett panted, wiping cold sweat from her forehead.
"That's Anthony Vance!" Patty hissed, leaning in close and keeping her voice down to a fierce whisper. "He owns half the docks in Newark! He owns the building this diner is in! He owns the judges in the precinct! The last guy who spoke to him like that ended up at the bottom of the Passaic River in a steel drum!"
Scarlett swallowed hard. "He... he owns this building?"
"Yes! And if he decides to shut us down, I'm bankrupt and you're out of a job!" Patty looked like she was on the verge of tears. "Go back out there. Apologize. Tell him you were exhausted. Tell him your dog died—tell him anything!"
Scarlett looked down at her hands. They were trembling. She thought about her mother sitting in her dark living room in the small, damp house three blocks away, dividing blood pressure pills with a razor blade because they couldn't afford the full prescription this month. She thought about her bank account—four hundred and twelve dollars.
If she lost this job tonight, they would be on the street by the end of the month.
She took a deep breath, straightened her stained apron, smoothed back her dark hair, and pushed back through the kitchen doors.
Table six was empty.
A hundred-dollar bill was sitting on the laminate table beside the cold mug of coffee.
Scarlett stood there for a moment, staring at the bill. The diner felt strangely empty, the remaining three customers whispering nervously in their booths. She walked over, picked up the cash, and saw a small scrap of paper tucked beneath the saucer.
It was a business card. Heavy black cardstock with raised gold lettering. No company name. No address. Just a name and a single phone number:
Anthony Vance
201-555-0199
May you like
On the back, written in sharp, precise cursive handwriting with a fountain pen, were three words:
Bring better coffee.
