Chapter 4 - Midnight Snow
The restaurant staff didn't dare bring Adrian a bill. Instead, the manager himself hovered ten feet away, wringing his hands, bowing slightly whenever Adrian glanced in his direction.
"We should go," Clara said, checking her cracked phone screen. "Leo’s starting the eye-rubbing phase. If we don't get him home in the next twenty minutes, he turns into a miniature Tasmanian devil."
Adrian nodded. He stood up, towering over the dining room. He reached into his coat, pulled out an envelope containing five thousand dollars—petty cash he usually kept for emergencies—and dropped it onto the table beside his ruined tie.
Clara’s eyes nearly popped out of her skull. "Are you insane? There’s thousands of dollars there!"
"The food was acceptable," Adrian said. "And the service improved."
"Adrian, take that back right now! You can't just throw money around like—"
"Clara," Adrian interrupted, his voice firm yet quiet. He picked up her threadbare winter coat from the back of the chair and held it open for her. "Put your coat on. It’s freezing outside."
She opened her mouth to argue, saw the absolute finality in his grey eyes, and shut it. Grumbling under her breath about "arrogant billionaires who think they own the world," she slipped her arms into the coat. Adrian gently lifted Leo into his arms.
The toddler didn't cry. Instead, Leo snuggled right against Adrian’s broad shoulder, resting his sticky cheek against Adrian’s bespoke cashmere lapel. Adrian’s body went completely rigid. He had carried wounded soldiers out of combat zones, dragged traitors through basements, and held dying men in his arms.
He had never held a sleeping baby.
"He likes you," Clara said softly, a tired smile softening her features. "He usually screams when strangers touch him. You must have warm shoulders."
"I am made of stone, Clara," Adrian said dryly.
"Right. A stone that over-tips waiters and lets toddlers ruin four-hundred-dollar ties."
They stepped out through the front doors into the frigid night air. Snow was falling heavily now, blanketing the city streets in a layer of pristine, hush-white powder. Up and down the avenue, car horns were beginning to blare. People were pouring out of bars in sequined dresses and novelty glasses, laughing, shouting, waving champagne bottles.
From a nearby church tower, the bells began to toll.
*Clang. Clang. Clang.*
"Five! Four! Three! Two! One!" a crowd roared down the block.
"Happy New Year!"
Fireworks exploded over the river, casting brilliant flashes of emerald, sapphire, and crimson across the snowy sky.
Clara stopped on the sidewalk, looking up at the lights. Her breath plumed into the freezing air like smoke. For a fleeting second, the exhaustion vanished from her face, replaced by a pure, childlike wonder.
Adrian didn't look at the fireworks. He looked at Clara.
In a world governed by betrayal, greed, and paranoia, he had forgotten that people like her existed. People who gave away half their table to a stranger simply because he looked cold. People who fought every day just to keep their children safe, asking for nothing in return.
"Happy New Year, Adrian," Clara said, turning to him with snow catching in her brown hair.
"Happy New Year, Clara," he responded softly.
Then, from the darkness of the alley next to the bistro, the sound of heavy boots crunching on fresh snow shattered the moment.
"Well, well. Ain't this sweet?" a raspy voice sneered.
Three men stepped out of the shadows. They wore heavy leather jackets, ski caps, and sneers that carried the distinct rot of cheap whiskey. The man in front—stocky, with a crooked nose and brass knuckles gleaming on his right hand—stepped directly into Clara’s path.
Clara gasped, pulling back instinctively. "You... you were at the diner."
"Told you we'd find you, sweetheart," the man with the brass knuckles growled, spitting a wad of tobacco onto the clean snow. "Julian owes ten large. Since he ran off like a rat, you're picking up the tab. Hand over the purse, and let's take a walk to your apartment to see what else Julian left behind."
Adrian stepped forward, shifting Leo into his left arm, shielding Clara entirely with his back.
"You have five seconds to turn around and walk away," Adrian said. His voice wasn't loud, but it carried the chilling certainty of an executioner reading a warrant.
The thug laughed, waving his brass knuckles. "Who the hell are you, grandpa? Her new pimp? Step aside before I rearrange your pretty face."
May you like
The thug took one step forward. It was the last mistake he would make all year.
***
