Chapter One
Maria
The moment I pulled up to work, I noticed something was seriously wrong. The restaurant’s window had a giant “Temporarily Closed” sign, but the front door was open. I could see a large puddle on the sidewalk coming from the building.
It wasn’t pooled water from cleaning the windows. The amount could only mean one thing and that broke my heart. Tears quickly formed in my eyes as I walked through the open doorway. “Oh my God, Mr. Andretti. What happened?”
“A busted pipe.” He ran his hand through his hair, frowning as he stared at me. Working your entire life for one thing only to watch it fall apart must be brutal.
“You’re not going to close forever, are you?” I questioned. For both his and my sake, I hoped the answer would be an emphatic no. I’d worked hard to save money, but my car broke down and I had to use the cash to get it fixed. If I didn’t find another job soon, I’d be living in my car.
“No. No,” he offered, pressing his hand to my shoulder. We had built a father-daughter bond over the years.
“How long is the business going to be down?” It was selfish because I was thinking about myself and how the flood would fuck up my life.
“At least two weeks. It’s going to kill me to do it, but everyone is unemployed at the moment. I’m sorry, Maria.” He grabbed my hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. I tried to hold back the disappointment on my face, but it was too heartbreaking. I needed this job to pay my rent. I didn’t have a fallback option since everything I learned had been through hands-on experience.
“Well, I better get looking for work,” I said, trying to smile, but my emotions were all over the place.
“I’m sorry. You can always file for unemployment.” He knew that I had no one to turn to. My parents had died in an accident two years ago. Because they never thought about saving a single dollar, they died poor, causing me to foot the bill for their burials.
Pursing my lips, I asked, “Do you know if anyone is hiring?”
“No.” He didn’t have to say it, but I knew that I wasn’t qualified for another restaurant. I barely finished high school.
I nodded, looking back at the restaurant and then back to Mr. Andretti. “Well, I better get going? Do you need me to do anything for you?”
“No, Bella.”
Just then, a black SUV pulled up in front of the building in a rush, parking on an angle. A man I’d seen several times before and despised stepped out with a scowl on his face. If there was any customer who set me on edge, it was this dude. He was the muscle for a Russian mob boss and made it know that he was a ruthless asshole with wandering eyes.
I was going to cut out, but Mr. Andretti tensed up and asked, “Igor? What brings you here?”
“The boss would like a special dinner tonight. What is going on, Andretti?” He looked around as if it weren’t apparent that Andretti’s wasn’t open for business.
“There was a flood. I can’t open the restaurant.” Mr. Andretti looked terrified, all because some fat mobster couldn’t get his big Italian meal. Seriously, this boss of Igor’s had problems.
“Mr. Kazakov expected a feast for his guests tonight,” he bristled with violent intent.
“Well, I’m sorry; there’s nothing I can do,” he begged as if he’d get whacked for not giving the goon what he wanted.
“The boss will be very disappointed to hear that.” He stepped away from us and got on his phone. I rolled my eyes behind his back.
“His boss is a very picky man,” I muttered so Igor the goon couldn’t hear me. I hated the way he’d lurk in the kitchen while we made his boss’s dinner as if we planned to poison it or something. None of us even knew what Mr. Kazakov looked like, and we preferred to keep it that way. The less we knew, the better for all of us.
“Mr. Kazakov has been very good to me and my business. You know you make all of his meals.” I gasped because I thought maybe the pasta king also ordered when I wasn’t working.
Igor, the fucking brute, came back over with a scowl on his face and handed the phone to Mr. Andretti.
Igor stared at me while they spoke with his eyes roaming over me. I wasn’t in my typical chef uniform, so he stared at my bared legs and then lingered on my breasts. I wanted to punch him in his dick. “Yes, I know it was very important, but there’s nothing I can do.” I couldn’t hear the voice on the other end, but from the nervousness in Mr. Andretti’s voice, I took a guess that the Tony Soprano wannabe didn’t like being told no.
“Yes, well, there is one thing. I can send over one of my chefs to cook tonight, but they would need a stocked kitchen to cook.” I hoped he was talking about Diego, who was the master chef.
“Yes, Mr. Kazakov. I’ll send Maria over today. The best I have. Okay.” He handed the phone back to Igor.
“What the hell? I’m supposed to go cook for a mobster,” I exclaimed out in the street, not giving a shit if he could hear me. That pissed Igor off, and he grunted his disapproval as he walked off to talk to his boss.
Remembering I was in public, I lowered my voice and said to my boss, “I can’t cook for him.”
“Why not? You need the money, and it’s not like he hasn’t had your food before.”
I supposed he had a valid point. “This is only temporary, right?”
“Yes, just until I reopen. Please. We both need this.” His pleading look weakened my defenses, and I reluctantly agreed.
“I thought he only wanted it for the night?”
“No, he wants the full two weeks since the restaurant isn’t going to be open.”
“Da.” Igor ended his call, tucked the phone away, and then stalked back over to us.
“Come with me.” He grabbed my wrist and led me to the SUV a little too roughly for my taste. He looked at me more than he did the food I prepped. It was as if he wanted to sample me as well.
“Damn, calm down, beast boy. I have to use these babies to cook with, you know.” He let go and grumbled something shitty in Russian. “Besides, I have my car right here.” I pointed to my twenty-year old Hyundai Sonata.
“No, you will come with me. The boss will not let that rubbish on his property.” Damn, well that was mean. Not all of us could afford the latest models or same colored doors and shit.
“Um. Are you going to drive me home as well?” I didn’t want to be confined with this man for any amount of time, but I had to know what they had in mind when it came to my duties for their boss.
“When your two weeks are up, yes.”
He opened the passenger door, but I froze in my spot. “What? Are you telling me I have to stay there?” I exclaimed, glaring at him.
“Yes. I’m not going to make daily trips to pick you up so you can spend the night whoring around.” I ignored his bullshit because I didn’t want to let him in my private life. Not that I had one, but that wasn’t his business.
“I thought I’d only be serving dinner with the occasional lunch. I didn’t realize I had to make all Mr. Kazakov’s meals. I do have a life outside of work, you know.”
“I don’t care what you have to do. For the next two weeks, you’ll work and stay at Mr. Kazakov’s estate, so deal with it.”