Somewhere public, outside AH.
I show Kai the screen. He reads it, then adds one more line.
This is your LAST chance. Don’t fuck it up.
Chapter 33
Bastian
I’ve made a terrible mistake.
Not by sending that voice note—though that was certainly ill-advised—but by agreeing to this meeting.
The universe is laughing at me. I can practically hear it.
The Railyard is a place I should feel at home in, but tonight it’s the seventh circle of hell.
Exposed red brick walls, steel beams, Edison bulbs casting warm amber light—I should be admiring it. Instead, I’m staring at the door and trying not to have a panic attack.
They’re late. So late that I’ve convinced myself I’ll be dining alone tonight.
Who’s the manipulative cunt now?
“They’ll be here,”Good Wolf says quietly.“You poured your heart out. They’ve got to come.”
I pick up my wineglass, but set it down without drinking. The sommelier presented this bottle ten minutes ago—a 2018 Châteauneuf-du-Pape I’ve been meaning to try—but I haven’t managed a single sip.
My throat is too constricted to swallow.
“You’re surprised?”Bad Wolf asks snidely.“You spent months manipulating them, threatening them, pushing them past every boundary they set. They don’t trust your drunken voice note, and they’ll never trust you.”
I wasn’t drunk.
Worse.
I was fucking honest.
The waiter glides up to my booth near the back of the restaurant. I chose it because it offers additional privacy. Because apparently Haven and Kai wouldn’t be caught dead with me. I’m grinding my teeth so hard, the waiter falters mid-step.
His smile is professionally sympathetic as he refills my water for the third time—an expression reserved for patrons who’ve clearly been stood up.
“Would you like to order an appetizer while you wait, sir?”
“I’m fine. Thank you.”
I’m not fine. I’m the furthest thing from fine I’ve been in years, and that’s saying something, given the last few years.
Ashwood Crossing was a stupid choice. Forty-five minutes from Agony Hollow, on the gentrified edge of a town that used to be nothing but rail yards and textile mills. I picked it because I’d read about this place in some architectural digest, because the chef trained at three different Michelin-star restaurants…and because I wanted to impress a pair of college kids with my sophisticated taste.
Vanity. Fucking vanity.
I should have suggested somewhere closer. Somewhere casual. Somewhere that didn’t require a reservation and a dress code that probably sent Kai into a tailspin.
But I wanted to control the narrative with an iron fist.
I adjust my cufflinks. Then adjust them some more, even though they’re perfectly aligned.
Nearly twenty minutes late.
