Chapter 3 - The Shadow Over the Table
It was 11:30 PM by the time Amelia finished wiping down the counters at Russo's Kitchen.
Connie was in the back room counting the cash register drawer, while Sophie was fast asleep on a improvised bed of folded tablecloths inside a clean booth, her pink backpack serving as a pillow.
"Amelia, sweetie," Connie called out from the office, stepping out with an envelope. "You did great tonight. Here’s your tips from the shift, plus an extra fifty. Take tomorrow off. You look like you're going to faint."
Amelia managed a weak smile, tucking her hair behind her ear. "Thanks, Connie. But I need the hours. Really. I can work the lunch shift."
"Amelia..." Connie sighed softly, her elderly face full of deep, helpless pity. "Is he... is Gary still coming around your place?"
Amelia’s hands froze on the counter. The air left her lungs in a quiet, painful hiss. "I have it under control, Connie."
"He's a monster, Amelia," Connie whispered, coming closer and taking Amelia’s trembling hands. "He's using that rent debt your late husband left behind to keep his claws in you. You should go to the police—"
"The police won't do anything!" Amelia snapped, her voice cracking with suppressed desperation before she caught herself and lowered it, looking over at sleeping Sophie. "Gary owns half the officers in this precinct. The last time I threatened to call them, he... he held my arm against the kitchen counter until I passed out. If I make him mad, he'll take Sophie. He told me he'd call Child Protective Services and tell them I'm an unfit mother living in a dangerous home."
Tears finally overflowed Amelia’s eyelashes, tracking through the flour dust on her cheeks. "I just need two more months, Connie. I've saved eight hundred dollars. Once I reach two thousand, I can pay off the back rent, take Sophie, and buy two bus tickets to Chicago where my cousin lives. We just have to survive two more months."
Connie pulled Amelia into a tight, maternal hug. "Oh, my poor girl. I wish I had the money to give you, I really do. But this old restaurant is barely breaking even..."
"You give us a roof over our heads during the day and food for my daughter," Amelia whispered, hugging Connie back tightly. "That's more than enough."
Twenty minutes later, Amelia was walking down the dimly lit sidewalk of 84th Street, carrying sleeping Sophie in her arms. The autumn wind was picking up, swirling dry leaves across the pavement. Every shadow between the brick buildings looked like a threat. Every pair of headlights felt like a predator stalking her.
She reached her apartment building—a run-down, three-story brownstone with peeling paint and a broken front door lock. She carried Sophie up the narrow, squeaking wooden stairs to the second floor, her knees aching with every step.
As she reached door 2B, she stopped dead in her tracks.
The heavy wooden door was slightly ajar. The lock had been forced open with a crowbar, wood splinters lying scattered across the welcome mat.
Amelia’s heart dropped into her stomach.
She turned instinctively to run back down the stairs, but a large, thick hand reached out from the darkness of the hallway behind her, grabbing her by her ponytail and yanking her back with brutal force.
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"Where do you think you're going, little girl?" a greasy, coarse voice rasped in her ear.
Amelia gasped in pain, clutching Sophie tightly against her chest as she was shoved hard through the open doorway of her own apartment, stumbling over her own feet and falling onto the small living room rug.
