Alessandro stood in the kitchen, phone in hand, pulse racing. Marina’s concern reached across the room to him; she couldn’t have heard the call, but his fear came through plain as a struck bell.
She appeared in the doorway a moment later, wiping flour from her hands. Her expression was careful. Not pushing. Just… present.
“Alessandro?”
“It’s nothing.”
“That wasn’t nothing. I felt…” She stopped. Took a breath. “You felt terrified.”
He should lie. Should deflect. Should maintain the walls he’d spent a lifetime building. But she’d already felt the truth. That was the problem with this bond: it made hiding impossible.
“There’s a demon,” he said slowly. “Malachar. He’s been… involved with my family for generations. Helping us, supposedly. But I’ve never trusted him, and lately?—”
He broke off. How could he explain the creeping certainty that Malachar wasn’t helping at all? That the demon’s assistance had some purpose Alessandro couldn’t see?
“You think he’s dangerous,” Marina said.
“I think he’s something. I just don’t know what.”
She processed this, weighing his words, measuring his fear. Her deliberation came through clear, the careful way she weighed whether to push or let it go.
“You don’t have to tell me more.” She met his eyes. “But if you want to… I’ll listen.”
She turned and went back to the counter.
Alessandro stood alone in the kitchen, surrounded by the smell of bread and sugar, and felt a crack form in his defenses. Not much. Just a fissure where there’d been solid wall.
At closing time, she brought him coffee.
Black, with two sugars. Exactly how he liked it.
He stared at the cup like it was a foreign artifact. “How did you know?”
“I pay attention.” She shrugged, but a faint blush colored her cheeks. “You make a face when there’s too much milk.”
“I don’t make faces.”
“You make many faces. You just don’t know you’re making them.” She nodded toward the coffee. “Drink it before it gets cold.”
He took the cup. The first sip was perfect: strong and sweet and exactly right.
“Thank you,” he said, and meant it in a way he hadn’t meant anything in a very long time.
They closed the shop together. He stacked chairs while she wiped down tables. She swept while he counted the register; not because she’d asked, but because he’d noticed the receipts piling up and the way her shoulders slumped when she looked at them. Her surprise at the help rolled over him. Then gratitude. Then confusion about why he was suddenly acting like a person instead of a natural disaster in a designer suit.
He couldn’t explain it either.
They worked in silence, but it wasn’t hostile anymore. It was almost comfortable.
When the last light was switched off and the door was locked, Marina turned to look at him. Flour still dusted her hair. Exhaustion lined her face. But she was smiling, small and private, like she didn’t quite mean for him to see it.
“You did better today,” she said. “After the Mrs. Thornberry incident.”
“The bar was low.”
“It was. You still cleared it.”
Warmth reached him from her side of the connection. Appreciation. The beginning of respect.
