Dead By Sundown

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Coffee Cups

Chapter twenty-eight

The room was in complete darkness when she awoke. It took a moment to remember just where she was, to calm the thunderous rattle of her heart against her chest. Nightmares, one after the other had filled her sleep like parasites until she could no longer tell what was real and what wasn't.

  It was the gentle glow of amber light seeping through the cracks in the doorway that pulled her from those horrors. She was safe.

  Safe.

  The word clanged through her mind, sharp as a throwing knife. Jesus, she hadn't felt safe in years, not even when she lived with Michael.

She slipped carefully off of her bed and padded towards the light coming from beyond her door, needing to walk off some of the anxious energy that still clung to her after her nightmares. 

  Lorenzo sat on the couch hunched over piles of paper strewn across the coffee table. Tension was rolling off him in waves, a frustrated groan leaving him as he took in the chaos of the coffee table.

  Numbers and dates were beginning to blur and as she reached his side, Nadia knew Lorenzo hadn't even tried to sleep. The plans had to be burned at the back of his retinas by now.

  Clearly she wasn't the only one who feared what lay ahead.

  Empires would fall—that's what Piero had said. She just prayed it would be the right empire that fell.

  Leo raked a hand through his hair and huffed out in exhaustion, Nadia's feet carrying her towards the sound before she could fully comprehend what was happening.

  "Do you ever sleep, Lorenzo?" Nadia asked softly as she walked around the couch to sit beside him.

  If he was surprised by the sound of her, he didn't show it. "No," Lorenzo grumbled without looking up from the paper in his hand. "the devil doesn't sleep."

  Nadia scoffed in response, "oh please, Leo, I've seen the devil's sleep far more than most people."  

  Lorenzo sighed heavily. "Fine then, I don't need sleep because I'm Jesus." There wasn't even a hit of comedy in his tone, his concentration wholly on the paper clutched in his hand. She knew he was no longer truly reading it

  "Now that's a stretch," she joked, for some reason feeling the need to ease his tension.

  Lorenzo continued to ignore her. It ruffled her feathers enough that she felt the need to stalk towards him with a huff.

  "Pathetic," she grumbled, snatching the paper out his hand and slamming it back on the table.

  Irritation rolled off him in waves, but Nadia matched it with her own cold stare. Leo sighed again, running a calloused hand down his face, defeated. "I've said it before, I'll say it again: you are going to be the absolute death of me Nadia Regarza."

  "Not just yet Leo, you've got time before I hand your ass back to you." 

  Finally, he looked at her.  "Fighting words," he muttered, the anger and fight leaving him in a rush. The exhaustion was clear as day on his face, enough that Nadia swallowed her words and turned to the piles of paper at the table.

  "We're going to need some strong coffee to get through this,"

  "Nadia, go back to sle—" she cut him off before he could finish that sentence.

  "I'll start checking over this section—" she gestured to the left side of the table closest to where she now sat "—you go and make some coffee."