[Devil's Ledger — Week 2]
Quota: 0 / 1 (Due: Sunday 11:59 p.m.)
Warning: Palate Dulling if quota missed by midnight Saturday
Attention: Critic rumored in line
The lunch crowd hit like a storm.
By eleven-thirty the line wrapped around the corner, umbrellas opening and closing in the rain.
Elara worked the door, clipboard in hand, voice steady as traffic.
Jax Romano stood behind the pass, trying to breathe evenly through the heat.
His hands were sure, but his thoughts weren't.
The Ledger sat half-hidden under the counter, pages pulsing faintly red.
He hadn't touched it since Rullo's extraction.
He didn't want to.
But each morning it pulsed a little brighter.
He knew what it wanted.
He had until Sunday to deliver.
It was Saturday afternoon.
He hadn't even picked a name.
He diced, plated, wiped, called orders, nodded to Elara's signals.
She had coded gestures now—a lift of the pen for VIP, a circle for repeat customer, a quick draw of the line when someone's patience cracked.
The restaurant ran on those gestures.
The line cooks moved like a single creature with many arms.
Every table filled before the previous one cleared.
The critic rumor passed between servers like a superstition.
No one knew who he was, only that he was coming.
Jax didn't have time to care.
Or maybe he cared too much.
At 1:46 p.m., a delivery truck clipped a power pole two blocks over.
The lights flickered once, twice.
When they steadied again, Jax blinked.
Everything looked the same—but the flavors felt wrong.
He tasted the sauce.
Flat.
No brightness, no edge, like someone had replaced the garlic with air.
He tried again.
Nothing.
The panic arrived fast and quiet.
He checked another pan, another dish.
All color, no flavor.
The Ledger on the counter exhaled a puff of warm air.
He knew the penalty had landed.
Palate Dulling.
Seven days if he failed, but temporary if he fixed it fast.
He didn't have seven days.
He had minutes.
The ticket machine spat orders like laughter.
Elara appeared at the pass.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing."
"Lie better."
He swallowed. "Taste this."
She did. Her brow creased. "It's fine. Good."
He stared at her, hollow. "I can't taste anything."
Her voice softened. "You losing your palate or your nerve?"
"Both."
She glanced toward the dining room. "Then let me be your tongue."
They didn't have time to talk about what that meant.
She took a tasting spoon, moved beside him at the pass, and they started again.
He cooked. She tasted.
He read her face for salt, for heat, for balance.
A raised eyebrow meant too rich.
A closed eye meant perfect.
A half-smile meant plate it now.
They fell into rhythm—his knife, her spoon, the kitchen like percussion.
The servers picked up the beat.
The restaurant pulsed with something alive.
It wasn't the same as the magic, but it worked.
Halfway through the rush, a man in an old tweed jacket sat at the counter.
He ordered the Redemption Ragù without looking at the menu.
He watched Jax the way one watches a chess clock.
When the bowl arrived, he didn't eat right away.
He sniffed it once, closed his eyes, and finally took a bite.
He didn't smile.
He didn't frown.
He simply kept eating, one measured spoon at a time, as if confirming something only he could see.
Elara leaned toward Jax. "Critic."
"Definitely," Jax said.
"Want to know what he thinks?"
"No. Just want him to finish."
By three-thirty the line thinned.
The last few tables lingered over coffee and stories.
The critic left without a word, folding his napkin with surgical precision.
He placed a card under the plate.
Elara picked it up and flipped it over.
"'A meal with conscience,'" she read. "No signature."
"Could be worse," Jax said.
She smiled tiredly. "Could be better."
"Story of my life."
When the door finally closed, the silence felt foreign.
The Ledger on the counter fluttered open by itself.
Red script unfurled across the page:
Penalty enacted. Palate Dulling, partial. Quota remains unpaid.
Jax stared until the letters faded.
He washed his hands twice, as if that could clean the taste from absence.
Elara watched him.
"You look like someone's clock ran out."
"Still time," he said.
"How much?"
He glanced at the wall clock. "Thirty-three hours."
Her eyes narrowed. "You're still keeping score."
"Can't afford not to."
He went outside for air.
The rain had stopped, but the street gleamed.
The city smelled metallic again—just like the first night.
He thought of Kazimir, of the smooth voice promising genius and fairness.
He thought of the vial still glowing faintly in the drawer.
He thought of Elara tasting for him, her face lit by the stove's reflection.
The Ledger wasn't about cooking anymore.
It was about ownership.
And he wasn't sure who owned who.
Back inside, Elara had rearranged the tables.
She was wiping the counter when she said, "You could take a night off."
"Restaurants don't take nights off."
"Chefs do. Or they break."
He half-smiled. "You volunteering to close?"
"I'd burn the place down in an hour."
"Exactly."
She threw the towel at him. "You need help."
"I have you."
"Then listen."
He looked at her for the first time that day. Really looked.
She wasn't joking anymore.
"You're running on something that's not sleep," she said. "Whatever it is, it's eating you alive."
He wanted to tell her she was right.
He wanted to tell her about Kazimir and the clause waiting like a noose.
But the words wouldn't come.
"Tomorrow," he said. "After brunch."
"Tomorrow never tastes the same," she said softly.
That night, Romano's glowed against the wet pavement.
A few stragglers pressed their faces to the window, taking photos of the empty tables.
The air still carried the perfume of basil and smoke.
Inside, Jax cleaned the kitchen in silence.
Every plate. Every pan. Every knife.
He did it because order was the only thing left he could control.
The Ledger sat beside the sink, watching.
When he turned off the lights, it opened again.
A new name began writing itself across the page, slow and deliberate:
Amir Lomas — Fraud, Predation, Exploitation.
Jax's pulse quickened.
Another quota. Another week.
He closed the book.
"Not tonight," he whispered.
But the words on the page glowed brighter, as if amused.
Past midnight, he stood alone in the alley behind the restaurant.
The city hummed low and endless.
Somewhere a train moaned across the river.
He could still taste nothing.
He stuck out his tongue into the drizzle, hoping the rain would bring something back.
It didn't.
He laughed once, short and breathless.
If he didn't find a way to deliver by tomorrow, Romano's would die the same way his taste had—quietly.
He thought of Elara sleeping a few blocks away.
He thought of the Ledger's promise that missing a quota three times would cost him the thing he loved most.
He didn't have to ask what that meant anymore.
He already knew.
The neon sign flickered above him.
R O M A.
Half the word missing again.
He wondered if that was a warning or a pattern.
He looked down at his hands.
They smelled faintly of sauce he couldn't taste.
He picked up the Ledger, tucked it under his arm, and walked back inside.
Tomorrow he'd have to hunt again.
But tonight he let the quiet hold him, the sound of rain against glass steady as breathing.
The city slept.
The devil kept time.