My throat goes dry. “I’ll get you a new one.”
I reach for the mug, but he jerks it out of my hands so fast the coffee sloshes over the rim and splatters across the table. A few drops hit my wrist, hot enough to make me flinch.
“Look what you did.” He jiggles the mug toward me like I’m the one who spilled it. “Christ, how incompetent can you be?”
My chest constricts. The room becomes smaller. The scrape of forks, the clatter of plates, Mandy talking somewhere near the counter…it all folds into a single buzzing blur.
I force my voice steady. “Let me clean that and get you a fresh cup.”
“You actually think your small brain can get it right this time?” He shoves the mug aside.
That old echo rises again.
Idiot. Why can’t you doone thingright? What’s wrong with you?
My hands quiver.
Hold it together. People don’t need to see you falling apart. The last thing you need is to lose this job.
But Mom’s cunning voice doesn’t go away.
Stupid. Clumsy. A waste of breath.
The bell over the diner door chimes behind me, but my attention stays on the customer. On the volume of his voice, on the way every second he keeps going raises the chances of my boss hearing or someone pulling out a phone and recording this.
That’s the part that I dread the most. The idea that it could travel farther than this diner and land in the hands of people who can’t ever know where I am.
“Unbelievable,” he mutters loud enough for the whole place to hear. “They hire anyone these days.”
My stomach twists, but I force myself to wipe the spill. “It won’t happen again.”
He snorts like he already knows it will.
My cheeks warm and tears burn in my eyes as I pray he stops drawing more attention to us. As I reach for the mug, it shakes and a few more drops spill.
He laughs. “God, you really are stu?—”
The rest of the sentence dies in his mouth, like he forgot how to speak all of a sudden. His eyes lift over my shoulder, and allthe color drains from his face while his jaw hangs slack and he barely blinks.
For a second, I think he might be having a stroke, and I wonder if his life is even worth saving.
Then a voice behind me, heavy with a Russian accent, burns into the space between us. “Choose your next words carefully, Benjamin, or you may find yourself unable to speak at all.”
Kirill.
I don’t turn around, like I’m incapable of it.
The diner goes still, all eyes on him, that commanding aura of his taking up all the air in the place. Even the clatter from the kitchen halts and the old coffee machine stops its rattling like it knows better than to interrupt.
Now the customer who was yelling won’t even look at me. His wide and nervous gaze stays locked behind my shoulder.
“I…I didn’t mean anything by it, Mr. Marinov,” he stammers.
Kirill doesn’t answer at first, and the silence stretches tight enough that my heart starts pounding in my ears. When he finally speaks, his words are calm and even, but there’s something in it that screams danger.
“Apologize to her.”
The man swallows while I try to hide my tears.
