Marcus lifted his coffee cup but did not drink. He had heard enough of the tone to recognize that it was not the beginning of a normal conversation. Darius moved toward the register and told Sarah to put her phone on the counter so they could speak without interruptions. She looked at it, then at him, and for a moment her face held the expression of a person mentally calculating what refusal might bring.
"You don't need my phone," she said. Darius answered with a soft sigh and reminded her that he was offering her an opportunity to settle the matter privately, without further embarrassment or expense. "Let's not make a simple conversation difficult," he added. Sarah set the phone beside the register, hating herself for how quickly she obeyed.
He placed a statement in front of her and tapped the balance. "Fourteen thousand by midnight," he said. She told him that amount was impossible and that she had disputed the claim repeatedly. Darius lifted a hand to silence her and said he was finished listening to explanations.
He moved between her and the front entrance. Sarah stepped toward the kitchen, hoping to find a reason to put another door between them, but Darius followed and stopped close enough to make her retreat against the metal swinging door. She could smell his expensive cologne and see a tiny pale scar along his jaw that she had never noticed before. The clock above the pie display read eleven forty-four.
"Sixteen minutes," he told her. "Then I begin making calls." Sarah asked him to step away, but he remained where he was and tilted his head as though considering a child who had refused to listen. He said the building could be tied up, the accounts questioned, the suppliers made nervous, and the paperwork made more expensive with every passing day.
"Your daughter needs stability," he added. Sarah stared at him, the fear in her chest moving into something colder and sharper. She wanted to scream, to tell him he had no right to speak Lily's name, but she could not stop thinking about the empty road outside. She was twenty-eight years old, and for the first time in her life the diner her father had built felt like a room she might not be able to leave.
At the far end of the counter, Marcus set his coffee cup down with care. He could see Sarah's hands against the kitchen door and the way Darius positioned himself so she had to look past him to see the entrance. He had recognized the imbalance the moment the collector arrived, but there was a difference between sensing trouble and understanding exactly what was happening. He remained still because sudden movement might turn Sarah's fear into immediate danger.
Sarah saw him when Darius turned to check his watch. It surprised her that she had almost forgotten he was there, sitting under the dim light beside the pie display with his plate empty. His expression was neither bored nor distracted. He was watching her with the focused patience of someone waiting for a signal, and she understood suddenly that her choices might not be limited to arguing, obeying, or running.