Laurent demanded, “What now?”
“He says you can bring the record here.”
“I am not bringing confidential files into the dining room.”
The boss shrugged.
Then he said a single sentence.
Maya translated.
“He says you can also continue denying a document with your signature on it in front of a room full of witnesses.”
Laurent looked around.
For the first time, he seemed to notice the witnesses as people rather than furniture.
The senator had stopped pretending entirely.
The woman with the champagne glass was openly staring now.
At the service station, Rick had his arms folded tightly against his chest.
Laurent disappeared down the office corridor.
No one moved while he was gone.
Maya remained beside the table.
The Sicilian looked at her and asked how she had understood him.
She gave him the simplest answer available: she knew the language well enough to hear what Laurent could not.
He considered that.
Then he asked whether Laurent always spoke to her the way he had tonight.
Maya glanced toward the corridor.
She could have complained.
She could have poured every bad shift, every public correction, every humiliating remark into the answer.
Instead she said, “Tonight is enough.”
The boss’s expression changed by a fraction.
Approval, perhaps.
Laurent returned carrying a black folder.
He set it on the table harder than necessary.
“There.
Records.”
Maya opened it.
The requested reference number appeared on the second page.
Next to it was a handwritten notation.
She read it twice.
The agreement had not vanished.
It had been redirected.
Laurent had known about the arrangement and had changed its handling before the Sicilian arrived.
Maya looked up.
Laurent saw that she understood.
“Maya,” he said softly, “be very careful.”
The softness was worse than shouting.
The Sicilian asked for the notation.
Maya translated it exactly.
One of the five men swore under his breath.
Another leaned toward the folder.
The boss did neither.
He simply asked Laurent why.
Maya repeated the question in English.
Laurent’s shoulders rose.
“I made a management decision.”
The boss replied.
“He says it wasn’t yours to make.”
“You don’t run this restaurant.”
Maya translated.
The Sicilian answered with four calm words.
Maya felt the room shift before she even repeated them.
“He says, ‘Neither do you.’”
