Chapter 7 - FLEEING SULLIVAN’S DINER
Knowing Sal would verify her story and likely return with more muscle, Dante knew they could no longer stay at Sullivan’s. He contacted a loyal, retired driver named Paulie, who pulled a battered delivery van up to the back loading dock by noon. Ella packed up her nursing textbooks, her meager savings, and a bag of baby supplies, casting one last heartbroken look at the diner she had fought so hard to keep. As they loaded the twins into custom car seats Paulie had scavenged, Dante turned to Ella and gave her a choice: stay behind and risk execution by Sal's men, or vanish with him into the shadows. Without a second thought, she climbed into the passenger seat.
The transition from the diner to the battered delivery van felt like crossing an invisible threshold into a war zone. Paulie, a grizzled old Irishman with a missing tooth and a calm demeanor, barely blinked when he saw Dante bleeding through his apron and the two infants strapped into makeshift carriers in the back.
“ Safe house up north?” Paulie asked, shifting gears as they merged into highway traffic.
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“The Berkshires,” Dante replied grimly, keeping one hand pressed against his bandaged side while the other shielded Leo’s face from the sunlight filtering through the dirty windshield. He turned his head to look at Ella, who sat silently staring out the passenger window as the familiar skyline of Boston receded behind them. “You realize there’s no turning back after this, Ella. Once Sal knows you helped us, your old life is gone.”
Ella turned slowly, meeting his icy blue gaze with a steady, fierce resolve that surprised even herself. “My old life was working eighty hours a week just to watch debt crush my soul, Dante. You didn't ruin my life—you just gave me a front-row seat to an exit strategy.”
