Alessio himself didn't appear the next morning, but about an hour before closing, he stepped through the door. It was a little bit busier than usual for being so late, but since Monica had been working as well, I took a seat across from him to talk for a few minutes and ask how his day went. When Monica had to leave a couple minutes early, it didn't faze me at all, and just like the night before, Alessio stayed while I cleaned up and closed down. He even kept with his pattern and offered to drive me home. The weather had continued to be terrible, so once again, I took him up on it.
The next few days were much like the ones before, but that was the way it always worked. Every day was taking people's orders, making coffee, and serving food. I wouldn't have thought twice about it if I wasn't still thinking about my conversation with Alessio when he drove me home- it was consistent, like I said, but saying it out loud had made me realize just how boring it sounded. After my life, though, I needed safe consistency. It was the exact opposite of what I had experienced so far. The fact that Alessio appeared almost every night had just added to my routine.
A couple of days went by like that, until one morning, the blonde one came back in with him. I smiled at them as they came up to the counter, "Good morning, Alessio. Starting the day early?"
He nodded with a small grin, which is more than he usually smiled, but I had begun to assume that he just wasn't as expressive or maybe stressed. The blonde one seemed surprised as he looked as his friend, but I wasn't quite sure what had shocked him.
"I'm taking a guess here, two black coffees and two slices of lemon cake?"
They both gave silent nods of confirmation, and since there wasn't anyone else in line so early, I set to work getting the order together myself. As I came back out of the kitchen holding their cups, Alessio looked around at the still dim room, "What are you doing today?"
"Me? Mostly wiping tables and making coffee. Same old thing, I suppose. What do both of you have on your plates for the day?"
Alessio jerked his head towards the Blonde one, "Leonardo here has some consultations with those other businesses that I mentioned we worked with, and I have a meeting today a town or two over."
"Sounds busy."
He nodded silently, but the man who I now knew as Leonardo gave me a small grin, "It will be, that's why we needed caffeine so early."
I was about to make another comment when Alessio's phone rang, then a couple seconds later, Leonardo's did as well. They frowned in turn as they each looked at the screens of their phones, then they nodded to each other in some unpoken agreement. Alessio tossed a wad of bills on the counter and called over his shoulder, "Have a good day, Eliana, keep the change."
I was going to call back, but they were already out the door. When I glanced down at the cash, I realized that it was way too much for what they had gotten. I highly doubted that he realized which bills he'd grabbed, even if he was rich this was a stretch, so I took the change out of the till and stuck it in one of my apron pockets, intending to give it back to him the next time I saw him. Whatever had pulled them away, I hoped it was going to be alright, from their reaction I could assume that it was very urgent. On my end, the rest of the day went smoothly, which it often seems to do right before something goes wrong.
Mr. Walker came in for his normal breakfast routine, Mike worked the grill at lunch, and both Monica and Kelly worked the the rush hours with me. Ezrah even insisted that I take a lunch break which I usually didn't do, but when he bought me lunch I didn't really want to refuse.
He and I took our lunch back to his office and I perched on the edge of his desk, "So you've been visiting the deli next door a lot. It wouldn't have anything to do with Angela who works there, would it?"
Ezrah shook his head and couched, feigning ignorance, "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Come on, I'm not oblivious. She's nice, you should ask her out sometime."
"What about you? According to Monica, there was a 'smoking hot' guys who came in here yesterday and you sat down to talk with him." Ezrah caught my expression. "Her words, not mine."
I rolled my eyes, "There's nothing going on. Why does everyone assume that one conversation means dating?"
"I could ask you the same question," He nodded at me pointedly, referencing my previous comment about Angela.
All that I could do was sigh. Ezrah didn't quite understand my history. He knew it wasn't pleasant, and he knew that I didn't really like talking about anything from before I met him, but he knew that before I got the job and he took me in, I was pretty much living on the streets. Personal relationships were a little bit more difficult for me than the average person, and dating wasn't something that I was really looking to invest a lot of time into.
"Ezrah, it's been a while since..... Well, it's a while since you've been on a date. I'm not saying any of this to make fun of you or make you uncomfortable, it's just that I know you like company, and you never seemed to like living alone. I've seen you two interact, I just think that you should give it a chance, that's all."
Ezrah was silent for a moment while he thought over my comment. He eventually snapped out of it and cleared his throat, "That reminds me, Nadia decided that she doesn't want anything in the storage unit anymore. There's a few books and things in there, even some kitchen stuff that I was going to get rid of, but I thought I'd ask you first. I'm downsizing but I know you're looking to make your place a little more home-like, you should come take some."
"I would love some... but you don't think your son might want some of it?"
I felt a little uncomfortable broaching the subject with him. I knew that his ex-wife, Nadia, had refused to let him see his son or have visitation opportunities after they split, and he didn't have the money to hire a lawyer or fight her on it. It had destroyed him at first. Ezrah loved his son completely, and Nadia had taken him with her the day she left. She didn't let her son call his own father, and if Ezrah ever tried to reach out first, she would refuse the call completely. When Nadia's new boyfriend moved in, it became obvious that she was going to try and replace Ezrah completely in every way. He rarely talked about his son, and I knew that it probably had something to do with how he basically took me in as a surrogate child.
Even then, I had only heard him mention his son once or twice in passing, and it always made him seem more sad. He had the same hopeless smile, "No, I don't think he would. His mother took some of his childhood mementos and trinkets, I kept a few things that she wanted to throw away, but the rest aren't things that he would care about. Things like pots and pans, nothing he would appreciate yet."
I nodded slowly, "Alright, I'd love to take a look."
"I can take you by the house tonight after work, you can take as much as you'd like."
It was sad, but maybe that was why Ezrah and I had such a mutually beneficial relationship. Other than each other, we had no one else. He didn't pressure me into stepping outside of my comfort zone or into telling him anything about the person I was before we met, and in return I didn't get too bent out of shape when he got ridiculously overprotective and treated me like his child.
There was a knock on the door and Monica stuck her head in, "Hey Eliana, I hate to ask this, but I was supposed to get off at noon, and I have a date to get ready for...."
"Oh, of course! I'm sorry, I hadn't realized how late it had gotten, thank you for staying late and covering register for my lunch."
"I normally would've been good with staying even later, but-"
"Not at all," I stumbled off Ezrah's desk. "Go get ready for your date, I was done eating anyways and I should've gotten back out there."
"Thank you!" She scurried back to the break room to grab her things as I waved at Ezrah who was grinning from his desk.
"I'll be on the floor, call me if you need me."
"If Kelly needs to go soon, I can come out there too."
"I can ask, thank you again for buying me lunch."
"Anytime."
Making sure that my apron was back around my waist and pulling my hair up again with the same paintbrush that somehow ended up in my pocket, I headed back to the front register. It continued to be relatively smooth sailing, and it calmed down enough that Kelly and Mike could both leave.
A small part of me was thinking of Alessio, hoping that he might reappear near closing time to keep me company, but if Ezrah didn't leave before he arrived, there would probably be a few skeptical questions that I didn't really want to answer. With the urgency that he and Leonardo had left with this morning, I doubted that they would be back. Whatever they had left to go do probably would have taken the entire day.
Even knowing that, I was slightly sad when I turned off the 'open' sign by the front door and hadn't seen Alessio yet. I sighed and unlocked the cash drawer, pulling the tray and snapping the key back into place with one swift motion. I almost ran into Ezrah as he headed out to the floor and I headed back to the office, "Sorry Eliana, I didn't hear you coming."
"It's fine, I was just cashing out." I sidled around him and called over my shoulder as I passed through another doorway, "If you wanted to leave now, you could. Balancing out the account won't take too long and I've got my music to keep me company."
"You and your music," I could practically hear his knowing smirk from all the way out on the floor. "I don't mind if you put a headphone in, music has always calmed you down."
He was right, music was definitely the most calming thing that I could get my hands on. I needed it pretty consistently, whenever I got the chance I had something playing in my ear. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my headphones, opting this time for my movie score playlist. I could still hear him whistling out of one ear, before he yelled again, "Besides, I was going to take you to go through all of Nadia's old things. I'll just drive you home after that."
"Alright," I hollered back. The money was counted and tallied when I heard something shatter in the distance. Ezrah was what you might call ridiculously clumsy, and I was used to hearing things break or a thud when he inevitably tripped over something directly in front of him.
I quickly slammed the drawer shut and hurried to help him pick up whatever he had just broken. Grabbing the broom from behind the door and keeping my gaze down to find out where the dustpan had gotten to, I made my way to the floor, "Just a mug or do I need to get the mop-"
I froze.
Ezrah was the only person I expected to see, and finally looking up from behind the counter to learn that we weren't alone anymore, my heart almost stopped pumping. Two men stood by the register, both with guns out at shoulder length, and Ezrah stood ten feet in front of them with his hands raised up by his shoulders. His sharp glance to me was both terrified and a warning.
He jerked his head to the counter next to me, "Whatever you want, you can take. We won't stop you."
My mind, once it started working again, kicked into overdrive. The first thought to process was that neither of these men were dressed like robbers, they weren't even trying to cover their faces. Both were in suits and looked well put together, but one of them seemed more nonchalant, like this wasn't a big deal at all, and the other one looked more nervous and anxious.
It had been a while since I had stared someone down at gunpoint, but it was triggering an unexpected response. What should have been panic and shock was overcome with anger and contempt. Threatening me was one matter, but threatening Ezrah crossed a line. This sort of danger wasn't his life, and I glared at the more nervous man, who quickly shifted his eyes anywhere but my own.
The calm one raised his eyebrows, "Your money is worthless to us. We want whatever he left with you."
"What is going on?" Ezrah looked genuinely confused, he obviously didn't understand what was happening any better than I did.
"Yours may be running information through here, but Niklov isn't so ignorant to ignore his laundering process."
"Look," I challenged, still trying to stare down the nervous one becuase I figured it would be easier to break him. "Neither of us has any clue what you're talking about, either you have the wrong business or your boss gave you some bad information."
Nervous man kept his eyes on us but spoke to his partner, "He said nothing about her. If this is something more, it's not our place to risk starting a turf war. Which it will if something happens to her."
The short tempered on growled out, "There's no way that she is. I don't have time for this."
He took a few strides forward and swung the butt of his gun into Ezrah's skull. I shouted in protest as he continued to grab him by the collar and push him back over a table and yell, "Where is your computer?"
I made to rush forward, but the timid one pointed his gun straight at my face. My feet planted, but I stared him down, "We have no idea what you're talking about, just leave him alone!"
I heard Ezrah making much of the same plea, but the criminal over there wasn't letting up. Ezrah grunted in pain again and a brutal anger started crawling in my chest. Obviously these men weren't going to listen to us or our pleading, so I needed to try a different strategy.
I raised my hands up by my head as well, "Alright, I'll get you the computer. Our laptop, it's under the register."
While Ezrah continued to receive a ruthless beating, the nervous one grasped his gun tighter and kept it trained on me, "Slowly, no sudden movements."
I nodded, leading him closer. I didn't break eye contact as I felt around slowly until my hand found what it was really searching for. I was going to be stupid and hope that this man was more hesitant than his partner when it came to violence.
With a grunt, I grabbed the baseball bat and swung it as hard as I could over the counter. I instinctively ducked at the same time to get out of the man's line of fire, which meant it was a glancing blow, much less effective than I would have liked. The man swore and stumbled back onto the ground, while I jumped over the counter with my weapon in hand.
Our interaction caught the other one by surprise, and he turned around in time to see me land on my feet and raise the bat above me head again. He dropped Ezrahs' limp figure and took let off a couple rounds. The bullets screamed by my ear, and I felt something warm on my arm. The man on the ground chose that moment to grab my ankle and yank, pulling me from the line of fire but also slamming me and my head into the ground.
Close by, police sirens began to wail. Through my swimming thoughts, I heard one swear and the other one wonder, "How did they call the cops?"
They argued for a second in a language that I couldn't quite decipher, then the aggressive one heaved his friend up by the collar and they headed to the door. I blinked, and my eyes must have been closed longer than I thought, because the next time I opened them, they were both gone. The sound of sirens was closer, however, and I dragged my slow limbs to Ezrah who was still laying silent. The adrenaline and panic were starting to wear off and now the fear and worry were starting to kick in.
I grasped Ezrah's shoulders and rolled him over, desperately reaching for his neck to try and find a pulse. I heard voices and the sound of car doors, as I cried through the shattered glass of the front door, "Please, someone help! Call an ambulance, we need a doctor!"
Hello! Thank you so much, once again, for reading. I would love to hear what you do or don't like, and while I'm sorry for the chapter being shorter than usual, I would really like to make sure that I'm writing what people like to read. If you like it so far, vote or comment, or let me know what you think in any way-
Elizabeth