Prior to meeting Jessica, anyone asked me about my nerves, I’d say, “of steel.”
Without question.
You didn’t become a made man without cultivating an ability to hide your fear until you got so good at it, you hardly recognized it yourself when it arose.
But now I was sitting in an empty restaurant, Mario’s, alone, being asked for the third time by the waitress if I wanted something other than water to drink. The breadbasket sat untouched in front of me, and the glare of the bay outside the windows was bright enough so I wore my sunglasses.
Where was she? She was supposed to meet me here twenty minutes ago.
A warning voice whispered in my head. She’s not coming.
She’s not coming.The spot between my shoulder blades prickled, the back of my neck tingled, and my palms crawled with some i
