Page 90 of Obsessed by My Ex's Mafia Uncle

The restaurant breathes around me. Soft footsteps outside. The faint slide of doors opening and closing. Cutlery placed carefully. Voices that don’t rise above their boundaries.

I went to Japan once, saw how their restaurants run, with high turnover, and I understood immediately what it could be. High-end clientele, private rooms, and contained environments.

It’s a good investment.

It attracts the right kind of people. People with money. People who prefer discretion. People who don’t ask questions.

And more importantly, it gives me a space where conversations happen behind closed doors and no one remembers what they heard when they leave.

I pick up the cup eventually, taking a slow sip, the warmth pricking without registering.

My attention never leaves the door.

Fifteen minutes. Twenty.

I check my watch phone, but there's nothing from her.

I breathe, my teeth clenching at what this is beginning to look like. It isn’t hesitation. It is absence.

Thirty minutes later, the tea cools.

My mood? Not so much.

An hour passes.

The rhythm of the restaurant transitions again. Fewer footsteps now, the night is starting to close in around the place instead of expanding it.

I lean back slightly, my gaze narrowing just a fraction as I run Saturday night again in my head.

The way she moved the second I looked too long, like something in her snapped into place before she could think it through. Her hand on Blue, pulling her closer, angling her body away from me like that would be enough.

I know that kind of reaction. I’ve seen it before when something needs to be hidden, protected, or kept out of reach.

I replay it again, slower now, stripping it down to what it was without the noise of everything else around it.

The look in her eyes, like she could tell I was already connecting it.

I exhale through my nose, my fingers tapping once against the table before stilling.

Her trying to get Blue as far away from me as possible could only mean what I feel in my guts it means.

And if she’s not here to clear the air, then she’s not trying to. Which means there’s something she doesn’t want said.

Midnight comes.

The last of the staff move through the outer spaces, closing what needs to be closed, leaving the room untouched because I’m still in it.

Waiting… For the gift of being a father.

Again.