Every word.
She stared at the screen until it went dark. Until Mia pretended not to notice her crying into her ice cream. Until the reality show ended and another one began and the night stretched on without her.
The mark above her heart pulsed warm. Steady. Patient.
Forty-eight days now, technically. The clock had struck midnight somewhere between the second episode and the third pint, and she hadn’t even noticed time passing.
Later, when Mia had gone to bed and the apartment had settled into silence, Ava stood in the kitchen doorway. The pot Victor had used sat on the drying rack next to their mismatched plates. Perfectly clean. Nothing out of place.
Like he’d never been there at all.
Except she could still smell cedar and smoke, faint beneath the vanilla candle. Could still feel his eyes on her when he’d saidunexpected challenges. Could still hear the silence where his answer should have been.
Forty-eight days. And she’d just watched a six-thousand-year-old demon wash her dishes like it mattered to him.
She pressed her hand over the mark and let the warmth pull her under.
CHAPTER 7
Three hours of sleep and her third bodega coffee weren’t cutting it.
Ava stood outside Grimm, Malphas & Associates at 8:48 AM, watching her breath fog in the September air while the city churned around her. The coffee had gone cold in her hand. She couldn’t remember when she’d stopped drinking it.
Last night’s dreams clung like cobwebs—demon lawyers in crimson power suits, doors that opened onto nothing, Lilith’s voice echoing through corridors that stretched into infinity. The confrontation from yesterday playing on loop, that poison-sweet smile.
She hadn’t asked about Celeste. Hadn’t found the right moment between the dinner and the confession and the texts that had kept her staring at her phone until two AM.
Every word.
The pendant lay cool against her chest. Not warm, not cold. Waiting.
Morning commuters streamed around her: lawyers with their briefcases, bankers with their Bluetooth earpieces, ordinary professionals living ordinary lives.
Her phone buzzed. Mia: a row of coffee cup emojis andyou got this babe.
She typed backIf I disappear check the basement, stared at it for three seconds, then deleted it. Too real. She sent a heart instead and pushed through the revolving doors.
The lobby swallowed her whole. Marble and brass and that particular hush of old money. The security guard nodded without really seeing her.
Derek met her at reception on sixty-one, vibrating with nervous energy that had nothing to do with caffeine. His coffee sat forgotten on Cassandra’s desk, steam still rising. The dark circles under his eyes suggested he hadn’t slept much better than she had.
“Conference room meeting in five minutes.” His voice was tight. “All hands. Everyone. Even the mail room demons.”
“There are demons in the mail room?”
“Figure of speech.” He glanced at the other employees hurrying toward the elevators, their faces pale and pinched. “Mostly.”
Dread curled through her stomach. “What’s this about?”
“No idea. But last time we had an all-hands, someone got reassigned to Siberia. Actual Siberia. In January.” Derek grabbed his tablet. “Where’s Victor?”
“Already inside. Been here since dawn according to security.”
Had the partners found out she’d told Mia? Was this about Peterson Holdings? About the fake relationship that was becoming less fake by the hour?
“We should go,” Derek said. “Being late to an all-hands is… frowned upon.”
The elevator was packed with nervous employees, the usual morning chatter replaced by tense silence. A woman from accounting kept twisting her wedding ring like a rosary. A junior associate muttered what sounded like a prayer under his breath.
