” Emily sat down across from him. She didn’t have an answer for that, so she just reached across the table and covered his hand with hers, and they sat there in silence while the coffee brewed. And she thought, “This kid is going to be okay. He has to be okay. I don’t have another option.” Her phone buzzed. Unknown number. She almost let it go.

Then she thought about last night and picked up Miss Carter. A voice she didn’t recognize. Not Damian, not Marco. Someone new, professional, clipped. Mr. Russo would like to meet with you this afternoon. 2:00 the restaurant. I work the dinner shift, she said. I can’t. You’re off today. The voice said. Mr. Russo arranged it with the scheduling manager this morning.

Emily stared at her coffee. He arranged my day off. 2:00, the voice repeated. and the call ended. She put the phone down on the table. Ethan was watching her again over the top of his sketchbook. She met his eyes. Change of plans. She said, “Mrs. Alvarez is going to watch you this afternoon.” He wrote something in the margin again.

She leaned over to read it. It said, “Is it the man from the car?” Emily’s chest went tight. “What man from the car?” He gave her a look that was so precisely and devastatingly like Maya that it physically hurt. Then he wrote the big black car. I saw it from the window when they brought you home. She had thought he was asleep.

She had been certain he was asleep. We’ll talk about it later, she said. Eat your cereal. He ate his cereal, but he didn’t close the sketchbook. Russo’s at 2:00 in the afternoon was a different animal from Russos at 8 on a Saturday night. The tables were bare, the lights were low, and the only sounds were the distant clatter of prep work in the kitchen and the quiet hum of a restaurant holding its breath before service.

Emily came through the front door because the back door had a specific set of associations now that she wasn’t ready to revisit in daylight. Damian was already there. He was sitting at a corner table, not the power seat not facing the room, but the chair with its back to the wall in a clear line to both exits, which he recognized as the same calculation, just expressed differently.

He had a cup of coffee in front of him and his phone face down on the table. And when she walked in, he looked up with the same expression he had worn the night before. Attentive, unreadable waiting. “You came,” he said. “You arranged my schedule,” she replied. It felt nonoptional. Something shifted at the corner of his mouth, not quite a smile, an acknowledgement. Sit down, please.

She sat. A server materialized with coffee for her without being asked, which meant Damen had noted how she took it at some point, which was an odd thing to notice about a person you’d technically never met. “How are your ribs?” he asked. “Sore,” she said. “I’ve had worse.” His eyes moved to hers at that.

“Just briefly. You shouldn’t have had worse. She didn’t know what to do with that, so she moved past it. What happened to Ryan last night? He had a conversation. Damen said he understands now that his previous behavior is not something he can continue. That’s not an answer. It’s the answer I’m giving you.

She looked at him steadily. Did you hurt him? Damen picked up his coffee cup, set it down. He’s alive and unharmed and currently reconsidering several of his life choices. Does that satisfy you? It didn’t entirely, but she also thought about the grip of Ryan’s hand on her throat the night before, and she found that her concern for his well-being had certain limits.

I need to know what you want, she said. I don’t accept help for free. Nobody does, especially not men like. She stopped. Men like me, he finished without inflection. I didn’t mean it as an insult. I didn’t take it as one. He looked at her directly. I don’t want anything from you, Miss Carter. What happened in that alley was on my property to a woman who works for me. That makes it my concern.

That’s all. Nobody does something like what you did last night because of property rights, she said. He was quiet for a moment. She had the sense she’d said something that landed differently than she’d intended. Not badly, just accurately in a place he hadn’t offered her. My father, he said finally, was killed when I was 9 years old by men not unlike Ryan Mercer in the sense that they believed violence was a reasonable way to resolve a disagreement.

He said it with no affect whatsoever the way you said something that had been stripped of its rawness by years of controlled distance. I saw it happen. Emily said nothing. I stopped speaking for almost a year afterward, he said. Just stopped. Couldn’t find the point of it. He looked down at his coffee.

When I saw you on the ground in that alley, I didn’t see a liability on my property. I saw he stopped himself, reconsidered. I acted quickly, that’s all. She believed him. She didn’t entirely understand him, but she believed him. Ryan will come back, she said. I need you to know that he always comes back. He won’t this time.

You don’t know him, Miss Carter. His voice was not raised, but it stopped her completely. He won’t. There was a certainty in the way he said it that was beyond confidence. It was the certainty of someone who had already arranged for an outcome, not someone predicting one. She looked at him for a long moment.

What did you do? I made sure he understood. Damen said that his next action in your direction would be his last one. The words sat between them on the table like something with weight. He’ll go to the police, she said. He’ll say you threatened him. He’ll say nothing, Damen said, because doing so would require him to explain certain things about himself that he has a strong interest in keeping private.

👉 [Tap here for Next Part] 👈