"Not what?"
"It's not that I don't want to be there."
I pressed my forehead against the cool glass. Closed my eyes.
"Okay," I mumbled. "Goodnight."
I hung up before either of us could make it worse.
Or better. I wasn't sure anymore which one scared me more.
TWENTY
DAEMON
The therapy hadn't been optional. Flagged for anger, referred, and told to show up. But it helped me understand that being locked away when my mom died wasn't the same as killing her.
Which is why I come here when I need her. Sitting on the bench across from her headstone with my coffee going cold, waiting for her to tell me what she thought of her screw-up of a son. Whether I'd listen wasn't a given.
Margaret Ellen Booth. Beloved Mother.
Five and a half years and I can still hear the corrections officer's voice delivering the news in that flat, bureaucratic tone reserved for informing inmates of things they can't do anything about. She'd passed overnight. I wouldn't be attending the funeral. Arrangements were being handled by her sister in Sacramento.
"Hey, Mom."
Before I knew it, I was telling her about Nadia. How she was sharp and didn't let me get away with anything. How she'd built something real from nothing, same as Mom did. How I was in deeper than I intended, and it was scaring me in ways I didn't have good words for.
How I was sitting with the fear that I'd destroy this the way I couldn't save her. That nothing I did would be enough. That I'd fail Nadia, despite wanting it so badly it kept me up at night.
Mom always knew what to say about that, even when I didn't want to hear it. Today she was strangely quiet.
I finished my coffee, said goodbye the way I always did, and left without making promises I wasn't sure I’d keep.
The Peterson Group corporate dinner was one of the biggest events on Nadia's calendar. Two hundred and fifty guests from all over the region, a full awards ceremony, the type of client that could anchor a catering business for years if everything went right.
It was a big enough deal that when Malakai had suggested we install security cameras, Nadia had told him to go for it.
I'd come straight from the cemetery, arrived at the venue, and gotten changed before joining the Lucky Break setup detail. Tables, staging, lighting rigs. By noon the room was looking solid.
Nadia had been on site since six, a full twelve hours before the event was due to kick off. I found her moving through the kitchen with that focused energy she got close to a big event, checking stations, issuing instructions with a calm that made people want to follow her.
She looked up when I came in, asked if everything was set out front, and when I confirmed it was, she nodded and turned back to her checklist.
That was it. That was all I got.
Around three, I came back to grab a crate I'd left near the kitchen entrance and found her alone for the first time all day. Her team had gone for a break. The kitchen was quiet, just the hum of the walk-in chiller and the low warm smell of prep work.
She had her back to me, working down a clipboard, pen moving fast. She didn't hear me come in. I should've said something. Let her know I was there.
I didn't.
I stood there longer than I had any reason to, watching her. The set of her shoulders. The way she shifted her weight from one foot to the other as she worked. The loose strand of hair that had come free of her braid and hung against the back of her neck.
She turned.
For a second, neither of us moved.
Then she crossed the kitchen, tossed her clipboard on a counter, and grabbed the lapels of my jacket the way she had that first night. It was as if she'd been considering it all day and had simply run out of patience.
