The word went through me like a current. I kept my face exactly where I'd put it. "What sort of thing, exactly?"
"Oh, I wouldn't know the specifics." Regret, beautifully worn, a woman discussing bad weather she'd had no hand in. "We only hear what everyone hears. I mention it because it's the one part of your situation we can genuinely help with. The right partnership structure would insulate you from that type of exposure entirely."
The right partnership structure. I sat across my own prep table from a woman who hadn't said Daemon's name, hadn't mentioned a record, hadn't made one single statement I could repeat to Patricia Holt without sounding paranoid.
She didn't need to.
There was a file with his three years in it, two of my clients had heard from nobody that morning, and Samantha Morrison was offering to sell me shelter from weather her own people were making. I could see the entire design. I could prove none of it.
"I'll need time to consider the revised terms," I said.
"Of course." She slid a card across the table. "I'll be in town until the end of the week."
After she left, I sat still for a long time.
This was what it had been building toward. The complaints, the rumors, the client poaching. All of it designed to get me here, sitting alone in my kitchen doing math I didn't want to do.
The bitter part was that Daemon's record wasn't even something I'd chosen to be associated with. I knew who he was. I knew what he'd done and why and what it had cost him. None of that changed my thoughts about him as a person.
But I wasn't the one deciding about corporate vendor lists.
I was still sitting there when I heard the knock at the back door.
I knew it was him before I opened it. Something in the unmistakable rhythm, or maybe the timing, which was the type the universe seemed to enjoy.
Daemon stood in the doorway with his hands in his jacket pockets, looking like he hadn't been sleeping well. Which made two of us.
"Heard about the complaints," he said. "Through Malakai. I know you probably don't want to hear from me, but I needed to know you were okay."
"I'm fine."
"Nadia—"
"I said I'm fine." I stepped back to let him in because turning him away felt like a conversation I didn't have the energy for. He came in and looked around the kitchen with that habit he had, cataloging things, checking for problems he could fix.
There were no problems here that he could fix.
"Elevate was here," I said.
He went still. "What did they want?"
"They've revised their offer." I moved back to the prep table, put the counter between us. "It's considerably better than the first one."
"You're not seriously considering it."
"I am seriously considering it." I kept my voice even. "I have legal fees I didn't budget for. I have clients I've lost and more I might lose. I have a family that depends on this business not failing."
I looked at him. "And they're holding your record, Daemon. Nobody said your name today. Nobody had to. Two of my clients got emails this morning from somebody concerned about my stability, and Samantha Morrison sat at this table and offered to insulate me from exposure she somehow couldn't specify. There's a file with your three years in it and not one fingerprint anywhere near it."
Something moved across his face, and it wasn't surprise.
"But you already knew that," I said. "You've known since Friday morning. Malakai showed you the file, and you sent it down the line through Kelly." There was no missing his flinch. "For three weeks I told myself your silence was something that happened to you. Then Kelly stood in my apartment, and I found out you'd built a supply line so the bad news wouldn't have to pass through you. I've run supply lines, Daemon. I know design when I see it."
"That's not what it was."
"Then what was it?"
He didn't answer. Of course, he didn't. The answers were on the list of things he couldn't say.
