Chapter 38 Morning light
Aleksander’s POV
Tossing and turning all night. I guess what they say is true — there is no relief for the wicked.
Every time I move I grimace. I’m pretty sure I pulled a muscle between the pacing and tossing in bed.
Getting up and walking over to the nightstand, I pop two aspirin in my mouth and roll my shoulders. Looking at myself in the mirror, I can barely recognize myself — I look haggard. The lack of sleep and stress are getting to me. But nothing will stop me in the way of protecting Maria.
I never thought walking into the Metro Diner that night would change everything.
My meeting had been early that afternoon. Business handled. Clean. Predictable. By three o’clock it was finished. I should have driven straight out of town.
Instead, I stayed.
Near dusk, Mark approached me on the sidewalk.
“Sir,” he called, stepping into my path with a bright red brochure in his hand. GRAND REOPENING — METRO DINER — FREE PIE WITH ANY MEAL.
“You should stop in tonight,” he said. “Nine o’clock. I’ll make sure you’re taken care of.”
Nine.
Specific.
I remember studying him for a second too long. Something about the way he held eye contact felt forced.
“I’ll think about it,” I said.
He pushed the brochure into my hand anyway. “Nine,” he repeated.
I should’ve thrown it away.
At 8:59 p.m., I walked through the diner doors.
The bell chimed overhead.
A couple sat near the window. One man at the counter. Mark behind the grill. Maria near the register. The place smelled like grease and brewed coffee. Harmless. Ordinary.
I chose the small table right next to the door and sat facing it. Always facing the entrance.
Maria walked over with her notepad.
“What can I get you?”
“Black coffee,” I said. “Three-egg omelette. Ham.”
She nodded and called it back to the kitchen. Mark glanced at me through the window and gave a short nod. I didn’t think anything of it at the time.
The bell over the door chimed again.
9:03 p.m.
A man stepped inside wearing a black hoodie. Head down. Hands in the pocket.
My instincts fired before my thoughts did.
His hand came out with a gun.
He raised it toward me.
Maria saw it at the same time I did.
She moved first.
“Hey!” she shouted, slamming into him with both hands.
The shot exploded through the room.
She gasped and stumbled. Blood spread across her shirt like ink in water.
Everything inside me went cold.
I was on my feet instantly. I shoved the table into the gunman, knocking off his balance. He tried to bring the weapon back up, but I had already drawn mine.
One shot.
He dropped.
Silence followed, thick and ringing.
Mark bolted through the kitchen and out the back door.
At the time, I didn’t chase him.
Not because I knew he was involved. I didn’t.
I thought he was scared. An old man running from gunfire. That’s what anyone in his position would do. Survival instinct.
My focus wasn’t on him.
It was on her.
I dropped to my knees beside Maria, pressing my hand over the wound. Blood soaked through my fingers. Warm. Too warm.
“Stay with me,” I ordered.
Her eyes were glassy but open. “I’m okay,” she whispered.
“You’re not.”
Sirens wailed in the distance. Someone was crying near the window. But all I could see was the red on her shirt.
I didn’t even think about Mark again until later.
Until the pieces started falling into place.
The brochure.
The insistence on nine.
The way he watched the clock.
The fact that the shooter walked in like he knew exactly where I’d be sitting.
Mark wasn’t just a cook who panicked.
He had delivered me.
The mole promised him money — after. Not before. Deliver first. Get paid once it’s done.
Mark agreed.
When the shooting started, he ran out the back because his part was finished. He probably thought he’d collect once things cooled down.
He never did.
The mole found him before he could talk. Shot him. Took the envelope of cash back.
Clean.
Disposable.
But I didn’t know any of that in the moment.
In that moment, the only thing that mattered was the fact that Maria had pushed a gunman out of the way to save me.
She didn’t hesitate.
She saw the weapon aimed at my chest and she moved.
For me.
That realization is what keeps me awake now.
If she had stayed where she was, the bullet would’ve been mine.
Instead, she carries the scar.
I look at myself in the mirror again. The exhaustion isn’t just from lack of sleep. It’s from replaying that second over and over.
The bell chiming.
The black hoodie.
Her shout.
The gunshot.
A soft knock pulls me back to the present.
Maria steps into my room, not healed, and still with stitches in a thin line that shouldn’t exist.
“You didn’t sleep,” she says quietly.
“No.”
Her eyes search my face. “You’re thinking about it again.”
Yeah.
“I didn’t even realize,” I admit, my voice low. “About Mark. Not until later.”
She tilts her head slightly. “You couldn’t have known.”
But I should have.
That’s the problem. I’m supposed to see betrayal before it breathes.
Instead, I let an old man hand me a brochure and dictate my time.
And she almost paid for it with her life.
Maria steps closer, her hand resting lightly on my arm. Warm. Steady.
“I made my choice too,” she says softly.
That’s what terrifies me.
Because next time, Viktor won’t rely on a cook and a brochure.
Next time, he’ll aim directly at the one person who proved she’d step in front of a bullet for me.
My jaw tightens.
He won’t get that chance again.
And I won’t let him.
I won’t.
Every time I close my eyes, I see the black hoodie, the flash of metal, the bell, the blood, and Maria’s hands on his chest before she fell.
I replay it. Not to torture myself. To prepare.
Viktor made a mistake thinking he could manipulate, threaten, or scare me through others.
Mark ran out the back. The gunman fell. Maria survived.
But he has no idea what he unleashed.
Because I know now — I’ll never let something like that happen again.
And next time, no one, not even him, will survive the miscalculation.