Emily's POV
Sleep didn't come. Emily lay in bed, her body rigid, listening to every sound the old building made. The creak of a pipe was someone on the stairs. The rattle of the window was someone trying to get in. Her mind replayed Grinder's voice on a loop. Unpleasant. Friday.
When her alarm screamed at 4:30 AM, she felt worse than if she'd never gone to bed. Her eyes were gritty, her head pounded, and the fear was a live wire under her skin, buzzing with every heartbeat.
The morning shift at the diner was a blur of grease and loud voices. She spilled orange juice, forgot an order of bacon, and got yelled at by a trucker in a stained cap. She apologized over and over, her voice hollow. The three hundred dollars she'd promised Grinder was in an envelope in her backpack, feeling as heavy as a brick.
By 7 AM, she was at Bean There, tying her second apron of the day. Her manager, Linda, took one look at her pale face and puffy eyes and silently pushed a large coffee across the counter to her. "Drink. You look like death."
Emily took it with a grateful, weak smile. The coffee was too hot and too bitter, but the caffeine was a lifeline. She gulped it down, focusing on the simple tasks: wiping counters, refilling sugar jars, setting out the morning pastries.
At 7:10 on the dot, the door chimed.
He walked in.
Emily noticed him immediately, as she had every morning for the past two weeks. You couldn't notice him. He moved differently from other people. There was no hesitation, no looking around to decide where to sit. He came in like he owned the air in the room.
He was tall, with hair so dark it was almost black, cut short and neat. His face was all sharp angles, a strong jaw that was always tight, a straight nose, and eyebrows that were two straight, dark lines over eyes that missed nothing. He wore a long, black wool coat that looked impossibly expensive, but it was always unbuttoned, as if he didn't feel the cold.
He didn't look at the menu. He didn't look at the pastries. His eyes scanned the room once, a quick, professional sweep of the door, the corners, the other customers, and then they landed on her.
Emily's breath hitched. Every morning, this same moment happened. His gaze felt like a physical touch, a beam of focused attention. It wasn't a leer. It wasn't the gross, hungry look some men gave her. This was colder. More assessing. Like he was checking her for damage.
She forced herself to look down, to wipe the already-clean counter. When she looked up, he was at the register.
"Espresso. Double," he said. His voice was a low rumble, like distant thunder. It was a voice that didn't ask. It stated.
"To stay?" she asked, her own voice sounding too high and chirpy.
A single, slow nod.
She rang him up, her fingers clumsy on the buttons. He handed her a crisp five-dollar bill. His hands were large, with long fingers and clean, trimmed nails. There was a small, silver ring on his pinky finger, shaped like a coiled serpent.
She gave him his change, and their fingers brushed. His skin was warm. He didn't react. He just took the coins, dropped them in the tip jar without looking, and went to his usual table.
The corner booth. The one with a perfect view of the front door and the entire café. He sat with his back to the wall, never to the room. He took out his phone, but his eyes kept lifting, scanning, watching.
Emily made his espresso, the machine roaring to life. She tried to ignore the weight of his stare on her back. What did he want? Why did he come here every day? There were a dozen better coffee places in Boston. This wasn't even on the nice side of town.
She brought the small cup and saucer to his table. "Here you go," she said, avoiding his eyes.
He gave that same slight nod. No "thank you." No smile.
As she walked away, she felt his gaze follow her all the way back to the counter. It made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Was he with Grinder? Was this some new kind of intimidation? Watch her, make her nervous, remind her she wasn't safe anywhere?
The morning rush hit then, a wave of customers desperate for caffeine. Emily was swept up in it, taking orders, making change, calling out names. For a blessed hour, she was too busy to think about black SUVs or silent, watching men.
When the wave finally passed, and she came up for air, she glanced at the corner booth.
It was empty.
He was gone. He always left by 8:30. Like clockwork.
Relief washed over her, followed immediately by a strange, hollow feeling. The mysterious, intimidating part of her morning was over. Now it was just the long, tired stretch until 2 PM.
She went to clear his table. The tiny espresso cup was empty, sitting perfectly centered on the white saucer. He'd left no mess. Not a single drop or coffee granule.
She picked up the saucer and froze.
Underneath it wasn't just a tip.
It was a one-hundred-dollar bill.
Emily's heart gave a funny little stutter. A hundred dollars? For a three-dollar coffee? This had to be a mistake. He'd mixed it up with another bill. She looked around the café, but he was long gone. She looked out the window, but the street was just the usual traffic.
Hesitantly, she picked up the bill. It was real. The paper was crisp. It had been folded in half.
And tucked inside the fold was a small, square piece of thick, cream-colored paper.
Her fingers, suddenly clumsy, opened the note.
The handwriting was bold, black, and slanted. It wasn't written with the café's cheap pens. It looked like it was written with a fountain pen.
Four words.
You deserve a break.
Emily stared at the words until they blurred. A hot, confusing rush of emotion flooded her—disbelief, suspicion, and a tiny, treacherous spark of something that felt like hope. Nobody gave her breaks. The world didn't work like that. The world took and took and took.
Was this a trick? A trap? Was it from him, or was it from someone else who had been at the table after him?
She folded the note around the bill and shoved it deep into her apron pocket, like it was a secret. Like it was something she'd stolen.
For the rest of her shift, her hand kept drifting to her pocket, touching the crisp edge of the bill through the fabric. You deserve a break.
Who was he?
And why did those four simple words feel more dangerous than Grinder's entire phone call?