The next morning, the gray light of dawn did little to chase away the shadows inside Romano's. Jax hadn't gone home. He'd slept for a few hours with his head on his office desk, the overdue notices serving as a pillow. The numbers hadn't changed. The reality was a cold, hard stone in his chest.
He called his small team and told them to come in an hour before their shift. He said it was for a staff meeting. The lie tasted like ash in his mouth.
They arrived together. Sal, looking tired but resigned, as if he'd been expecting this call for weeks. The young dishwasher, Leo, a kid barely out of high school, was bouncing on the balls of his feet, oblivious. And Elara. She gave him a small, hopeful smile as she walked in, her worn backpack slung over one shoulder. That smile was the hardest part. It was a vote of confidence he hadn't earned.
He had them sit at table four, the scene of last night's culinary crime. He remained standing. A man used to giving orders, used to projecting an aura of absolute control, now felt small and exposed. He cleared his throat, the sound unnaturally loud in the quiet room.
"Thanks for coming in early," he started. The words felt stiff, foreign. He looked at each of them in turn. Sal's knowing gaze. Leo's youthful ignorance. Elara's cautious optimism.
He decided to rip it off like a bandage. "I can't make payroll next week," he said, the words blunt and heavy. "There's no money. I'm closing the restaurant."
Leo's jaw dropped. "What? For good?"
Jax just nodded, unable to speak past the lump forming in his throat.
Sal let out a long, slow breath. "Knew it was coming, kid," he said, his voice raspy. He wasn't angry. He just sounded weary. "You got heart, just not the touch."
But Elara didn't say anything. She just stared at him, her hopeful expression crumbling. He saw the shock, then the disappointment. It wasn't for herself, he realized. It was for him. He had failed her belief in him.
He reached into his back pocket and pulled out three envelopes. "This is your final check," he said, his voice strained. "It's for this week's hours. I... I added a little extra. It's not much, but it's all I've got left." He'd emptied his personal savings account that morning. Every last cent was in those envelopes.
He handed one to Sal, who took it with a grim nod. He gave one to Leo, who looked like he was about to cry. Then he turned to Elara. He held out the last envelope. For a moment, she just looked at it, then up at his face. He couldn't meet her eyes. She finally took it, her fingers brushing against his. The brief contact felt like a spark of static electricity.
"I'm sorry," he mumbled to the floor. "I'm sorry I dragged you all into this."
Sal stood up, clapping a heavy hand on Jax's shoulder. "Don't be. You tried to build something decent. In this city, that's more than most men do." He turned and walked toward the door without another word. Leo followed, muttering a quiet "good luck" as he left.
Then it was just him and Elara, alone in the empty restaurant. The silence stretched, thick with unspoken words.
She stood up and walked over to where he was staring out the front window at the empty street. He could see their reflections in the dark glass: a broken man and the woman who represented the normal life he so desperately wanted.
"Jax," she said softly.
He turned to face her. She was holding the envelope he had given her. She opened it, took out the crisp bills of the cash bonus, and held them out to him.
"I can't take this," she said.
"Elara, please. You earned it."
"No," she insisted, her voice firm but gentle. "You need it more than I do. For whatever comes next."
He tried to argue, to tell her to keep it, but she just shook her head, her eyes unwavering. "You built this place from nothing. You poured everything you had into it. That matters, Jax. The dream didn't work out this time, but that doesn't mean the dream was wrong."
Her words were meant to be kind, a balm on a fresh wound, but they only made the failure sting more. She was a culinary student. She understood the art, the craft. She knew he was a fraud in the kitchen, a brute trying to create something delicate.
"Don't give up on it," she continued, pushing the money into his hand and closing his fingers around it. "Just... maybe take a different path to it. Go work for someone else. Learn the craft from the ground up. You have the passion. The rest will come."
She gave his arm a final, encouraging squeeze. "I'll be okay, Jax. You worry about you."
And with that, she turned and walked out the door. The little bell above it chimed softly, announcing her departure. Jax watched her go until she turned the corner and disappeared from view. He was left staring at his own reflection in the glass. He was alone. Losing the restaurant had been a gut punch. Watching her walk away, her final words echoing in the silence, felt like his heart had been ripped out. He had nothing left. No dream. No money. No hope.
Hours bled into one another. Day turned to dusk, and dusk bled into the deep, unforgiving black of night. Jax didn't move from his spot at the empty bar. He'd found a half-empty bottle of cheap whiskey under the counter and was working his way through it, one neat pour at a time. The alcohol didn't numb the pain; it only sharpened the edges of his despair.
The ghosts of his past whispered to him from the shadows. He could make a call. Just one call. His old boss, Don Moretti, would take him back in a second. He was good at that life. Breaking legs, collecting debts, making people disappear. The thought of it, the easy slide back into the violence he had tried so hard to escape, made him feel sick. He slammed the empty glass down on the bar. He wouldn't go back. He would rather starve.
He was at the absolute bottom. There was nowhere left to fall.
A voice, smooth as silk and cold as the grave, cut through the silence.
"Tough day at the office?"
Jax froze. He wasn't alone. His years on the street screamed at him. His hand instinctively dropped below the bar, fingers closing around the cold, heavy steel of a tire iron he kept for protection. He slowly turned his head.
Standing at the far end of the bar, bathed in the dim glow of the streetlights outside, was a man. He hadn't been there a second ago. Jax would have heard the door, would have sensed another person in the room. This man had simply… appeared.
He was impeccably dressed in a tailored black suit that seemed to absorb the light around it. His dark hair was perfectly styled, and a sharp, predatory smile played on his lips. His eyes… his eyes seemed to glitter with ancient amusement.
"Who the hell are you?" Jax growled, his voice a low threat. "We're closed."
The man didn't flinch. He took a slow step forward, his expensive shoes making no sound on the wooden floor. "My name is Kazimir," he said, his voice a calm, mesmerizing baritone. "And I'm here because I'm a patron of the arts. Specifically, the culinary arts."
Kazimir's smile widened, showing a flash of impossibly white teeth. "And you, Jax Romano, are an artist without a brush."