Chapter 5 - The Morning After at Lou’s Diner
By sunrise, the city of Chicago had settled into a sullen, gray gloom that matched the heavy exhaustion weighing down Minna’s bones. She was back behind the counter at Lou’s all-night diner, serving breakfast to bleary-eyed morning commuters, though every single muscle in her body screamed in protest. A deep, ugly purple bruise was already blossoming across her shoulder where she had slammed against the car door during the rescue, radiating a dull, throbbing ache every time she lifted a heavy ceramic mug. She moved mechanically between the flat top grill, the coffee pots, and the sticky laminate tables, deliberately keeping her eyes averted from the small television mounted in the corner of the room.
Lou grunted, leaning over the counter and pointing a greasy spatula toward the screen. “Minna. Look at this,” he muttered, flipping a pancake with expert wrist action. Minna froze mid-step, the glass coffee pot suspended precariously above a customer’s ceramic mug. A local news reporter stood shivering on the frigid banks of the Chicago River, live from Wells Street. The bold red headline scrolling beneath him read: Attempted Hit: Reputed Mob Boss Dante Moretti Survives Car Plunge. Minna’s breath hitched in her throat, her chest tightening into a painful knot. Dante. A trucker sitting near the register chewed loudly on a strip of crispy bacon, shaking his head in absolute disbelief. “Cops are saying he kicked his own way out of a sinking vehicle,” the customer remarked to anyone listening. “Guy’s an absolute beast. Two hundred pounds of pure muscle. Supposedly walked away into the night before the first squad cars even made it down the bank.” Minna slowly exhaled a breath she felt like she had been holding for eight hours. Dante had not mentioned her to the police. He had kept her secret, buying her precious, fragile time. For several glorious hours that morning, she allowed herself the dangerous luxury of believing she was completely safe.
