"They're bluffing," he said instead. "And I can prove it. I've spent the last two weeks on the phone with people in three towns who?—"
"Stop." It came out with more force than I'd intended. I brought my voice back down and said it again. "Stop. I believe you. That's the worst part, Daemon. I believe you've been out there in the dark, working some angle for me. The same way you sent Kelly to my door, the same way you do everything. But I am not taking one more delivery. Not from Malakai, not from Kelly, and not from you, at my back door, at nine o'clock at night. If what you have is real, it will still be real in daylight, through somebody I can stand to receive it from."
He stood there holding whatever it was, undelivered, and I watched him understand me.
"So that's it? They threaten you with my past and you fold?"
"Don't." The evenness slipped. I pulled it back. "Don't stand in my kitchen and make this about courage. I've been fighting this for months, helped organize a collective, and got legal advice. I documented everything." My voice was steady. I was proud of that. "I am not folding. I am making a business decision based on what's actually in front of me."
"Nadia, please?—"
"You made your choice," I said. "You decided this was a mistake. You decided you didn't know how to be what I needed." I straightened the folder on the prep table, a useless gesture that kept my hands occupied. "So now I'm making mine. I'm going to call Elevate and tell them I want to negotiate the terms of the contract. And then I'm going to take care of my family the way I always have."
The silence in the kitchen was complete.
"You can't let them win," he said. His voice had dropped to something quieter. Rougher.
"They already did." I looked at him one last time. At the man I'd been so certain about, standing in my kitchen looking like I'd knocked the ground out from under him. "I think you should go, Daemon."
He didn't move. He looked at me with an expression I wasn't willing to spend time on anymore.
Then he nodded once and walked to the door.
Stopped with his hand on the frame.
"I'm sorry," he said. "For all of it. I'm sorry."
"I know," I said. "It changes nothing."
He closed the door behind him.
For a long time I stood frozen in the middle of my kitchen, but my thoughts weren't on Daemon. They were on the business I'd built from nothing.
The company I'd bled for.
I looked around my little kingdom. The security monitor caught my eye. Daemon was still out there, as if he'd changed his mind about something. As if he was waiting to have the last word.
Facing him wasn't something I could do right now, so I slammed my hand down on the light switches and left myself more in the dark than I already was. Let him think I'd used the front door. His truck started in the parking lot a few minutes later, then faded down the street.
I picked up my phone and found Samantha Morrison's number.
My finger hovered over the call button for a long time.
And then I saw the number below that. Angie. I hated calling in favors, but what option did I have? If nothing else, she'd let me pay the legal fees in installments. It was something Patricia Holt hadn't offered.
The only thing I didn't know was whether it was something Angie could help with. Hadn't her background been in corporate law?
TWENTY-FIVE
DAEMON
After Nadia kicked me out, I sat in my truck outside for longer than I should have, the parking lot empty but for her van.
I was still sitting there when the lights inside were turned off, which meant she'd locked up and left through the front and taken an Uber home. That or she was spending the night on the couch in her office.
Whichever was true, it meant she didn't want to talk to me, and I couldn't blame her for that.
I'm sorry. For all of it.
