Selina watched Bruce devour the chocolate with surgical efficiency. His table manners remained impeccable—Wayne breeding ran deep—but the speed was something else entirely. That dessert had Bruce Wayne's complete, undivided attention in a way nothing else had managed all evening.
When the last piece disappeared, Bruce calmly dabbed his mouth with the napkin. The confused, distant expression that had haunted his face all night evaporated like morning fog. In its place sat Gotham's favorite playboy: alert, charming, and suddenly very interested in his surroundings.
The transformation was startling.
"Forgive my rudeness, Selina," he said, flashing that famous Wayne smile. Then he turned to Jude with the focused intensity of someone who'd just solved a particularly interesting puzzle. "Who made this chocolate? I'd very much like to meet them."
Jude looked at Bruce Wayne—perfectly tailored suit, earnest expression, the kind of face that made asking invasive questions seem reasonable—and internally cursed the entire Wayne-Kyle dynamic. They were both like this. Playful, curious, impossible to deflect.
He'd just saved Bruce from whatever the hell that rose curse had been doing to him, and now the man wanted to interrogate the chef?
Where did the chocolate come from? Can't you figure it out yourself? Did I waste all that flower tea, apple juice, and Nanakusa-gayu for nothing?
But Jude's face remained professionally neutral. "Mr. Wayne, with all due respect, on a romantic evening such as this, perhaps your attention should be directed toward more pressing matters."
He gestured subtly toward Selina. "For instance, this lovely lady who's been effectively dining alone for the past forty minutes. I suspect she had rather higher expectations for her Valentine's Day date."
A normal waiter wouldn't dare speak so directly to Bruce Wayne. But Jude didn't particularly care about normal. Both people at this table knew at least some of his secrets. Pretending to be an obsequious servant seemed pointless.
Bruce's gaze snapped to Selina. She was watching him with that cat-like amusement, head tilted, expression somewhere between fond and dangerous.
"You seem much less tired than you were five minutes ago," she observed, voice silk over steel.
Fight, fight, fight.
Jude quietly backed away from the table, his internal monologue cheerfully egging them on. Don't mind me, I've disappeared. You can argue all you want. This is going to be good—
Except it wasn't.
Within minutes, they were talking and laughing again, leaning close, voices low and intimate. If they weren't in a public restaurant, Jude suspected they'd already be tangled around each other.
He stood near the kitchen doors, holding an empty tray, eyes narrowed to slits. Unbelievable. Why were they still dancing around it? At this point, watching a street fight in the rain would be more interesting than this performative romance.
At least street fights had unpredictable outcomes.
Bruce and Selina didn't linger much longer. They stood together, his hand finding hers with easy familiarity, and headed for the exit. Whether they'd go their separate ways or continue into whatever private Valentine's Day plans they had, Jude neither knew nor cared.
The mission was done. That was what mattered.
SYSTEM NOTIFICATION
Mission: Valentine's Day Milk Chocolate
Status: COMPLETE (1/1)
Reward: Advanced Climbing Mastery
The skill downloaded into his mind with the familiar sensation of knowledge he'd never earned. Suddenly, Jude could see routes he'd never noticed before—handholds in seemingly smooth walls, paths up buildings that had looked impossible seconds ago. In a city built vertically like Gotham, advanced climbing opened entire new dimensions of movement.
Essential for any vigilante worth the title. Chase and escape, high ground and vantage points, routes the GCPD could never follow.
Though right now, Jude was just a waiter. The skill would have to wait for opportunities to prove itself. Maybe someday he'd even learn to fly, and then climbing would become obsolete.
He was still contemplating the practical applications when someone clapped him on the shoulder.
Jude spun, heart jumping.
Maroni stood there, newspaper tucked under one arm, expression casually approving. "Good work, kid. Keep it up."
Then he was already moving past, heading toward a private room where Vernon Wells was presumably still enjoying his expensive veal.
Jude exhaled slowly. Overthinking things. To Maroni, waiters were interchangeable parts in a machine. A few deaths here and there meant nothing in the mafia business. The man had no energy to memorize names and faces of insignificant new hires. A casual compliment was the absolute limit of his attention span.
But Jude's relief was genuine. If Maroni had recognized him from the New Year's Eve yacht party, his cover as Falcone's infiltrator would be spectacularly blown. And there were at least a dozen Maroni enforcers in this restaurant right now, plus four more standing guard outside.
Getting out alive would require more than advanced climbing skills.
At the back entrance of Maroni's Restaurant, four men sat in a car that smelled like cigarette smoke, cheap cologne, and the particular tension of people who didn't want to be there.
"Boss is gonna kill us if he finds us sitting in here," one of them muttered, breath fogging in the cold air despite the heater.
Snow had been cleared from the street and piled in dirty banks against the buildings. Through the car windows, the night looked sharp and bitter. Nobody wanted to stand outside in that.
"You wanna freeze your ass off, be my guest." The speaker took a drag on his cigarette, tip glowing red in the darkness. "From what I see, Mr. Maroni's got at least six shooters inside already. Ever since that clown business on Christmas, nobody's getting close to this place."
The others nodded. It was hard to argue with that logic.
"All I know," the smoker continued, exhaling slowly, "is when I told my girl I had to work tonight, she was pissed. Valentine's Day, man."
"So, genius," another guard said, settling deeper into his coat. "Who d'you think the Holiday Killer is?"
The question hung in the air, unanswered.
The first bullet came through the window with a sound like a muffled cough—professional suppressor, high-caliber round. It entered through the driver's side temple and exited in a spray of red and gray that painted the interior.
The cigarette fell from dead fingers.
Second shot. The man beside him, mouth still open to answer the question, took the round through his right eye.
Third and fourth shots followed with mechanical precision. The guards in the back seat died before they could process what was happening—before hands could reach for guns in the cramped space, before mouths could form warnings.
The entire execution took maybe five seconds.
Then the shooter kept firing.
Methodical. Relentless. Bullets chewed through metal and glass, shredding the car's interior. Seat stuffing exploded. The dashboard sparked and died. Somewhere in the mechanical carnage, a round found the fuel tank.
Gasoline began to leak, spreading in a dark pool beneath the chassis.
The next bullet struck metal near the leak. Sparks bloomed in the darkness.
Then fire.
The flames raced up the side of the car with hungry speed, found the open fuel tank, and—
BOOM.
The explosion was a physical force, a hammer of heat and pressure that blew out every window on the restaurant's back wall. The shockwave rolled through Maroni's establishment like an angry god, flipping tables, throwing gunmen to the floor, sending waiters sprawling.
Screams. Groans. The crackle of fire and settling debris.
Jude heard it from the kitchen—felt the building shudder, heard the roar and crash. He walked calmly toward the front to assess the damage.
The dining room looked like a bomb had gone off. Which, technically, it had.
Tables overturned. Gunmen clutching their heads, blood streaming from where they'd hit furniture on the way down. Waiters groaning amid shattered glass and scattered silverware. Fire licking through the blown-out back entrance, casting everything in hellish orange light.
Jude looked at the chaos for exactly three seconds.
Then he turned around and walked back into the kitchen.
Maroni's restaurant got bombed on Valentine's Day. Of course it did. The curse strikes again.
He needed to stay far, far away from this scene. Nothing good came from being too close when disasters followed him around like faithful dogs.
He reached for his apron, methodically untying it.
Don't blame me for the loss.
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