“What loophole?”
“Renunciation. If the cursed party voluntarily surrenders all claim to the family fortune, the curse has nothing to drain. It breaks itself.”
Alessandro stared at him. “You want me to give up my inheritance.”
“I want you to consider options. The fortune is cursed, Alessandro. Every dollar your family earns turns to ash eventually. Wouldn’t it be better to release it willingly than watch it bleed away?”
“And who would it go to? If I renounced it?”
Malachar’s pause lasted a fraction too long. “That’s a matter of contract law. The original binding would determine…”
“Would it go to you?”
The question slipped out before Alessandro could stop it. For one instant, one crystalline moment, he saw it behind Malachar’s charming mask. Cold. Calculating.
Then it was gone.
“What an interesting theory.” Malachar laughed, but the sound was hollow. “I’m trying to help you, Alessandro. I’ve always tried to help.”
“I know.”
But he wasn’t sure he did.
The lunch ended with promises of further research, further discussions. Alessandro drove back to Sweetwater Cove with Malachar’s words circling in his mind.
Renunciation. Surrender. Let go.
That wasn’t breaking the curse. That was giving up. And something in Alessandro’s dragon blood, the territorial, possessive core of his nature, recoiled from the suggestion.
His family’s fortune belonged to the Dravens. It had for generations. And he wasn’t about to hand it over to anyone, no matter how helpful they claimed to be.
When he got back to the bakery, he found the front door locked and a CLOSED sign in the window.
That wasn’t like Marina. The Salty Siren rarely closed early. Not on the day of the summit disaster, not on most of the worst days of their accidental bond.
A spike of fear jolted through him. Not his own. Sharp, urgent, quickly suppressed.
He circled to the back alley and froze.
Malachar was there. Standing by the bakery’s back door, one hand pressed against the wood like he was testing its strength. His rental car was parked at the alley’s end, engine still running.
“Malachar?”
The demon turned smoothly, not a flicker of surprise on his face. “Alessandro. You made good time.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Admiring the architecture.” Malachar gestured at the old building. “These coastal structures have such character. The way they withstand the salt air, the storms. Quite resilient.”
His eyes, Alessandro noticed, were fixed on the window to Marina’s apartment. The one that overlooked her kitchen. The one where she kept her grandmother’s recipe book.
“The meeting ended an hour ago. Why are you still in town?”
“Research.” Malachar smiled. “I told you: I want to help. And sometimes helping requires… observation.”
Marina’s fear pulsed against him again. She was inside. She was watching. And she was terrified.
“I think you should leave,” Alessandro said.
