Your attorney blinks. “Now?”
“Yes. Now.”
You do not explain further, because there is no version of this moment that fits into merger language. There is no bullet point for the woman I ruined is hiding scraps of salmon in a cleaning bucket three tables away and I think my entire life may be a fraud. So you leave them sitting beneath the soft chandelier light and step into the outer dining room, where the real world has already begun rearranging your pulse.
By the time you get there, Nayeli is gone.
The service station is empty except for a stained rag, a stack of dessert plates, and a faint smell of bleach mixed with garlic butter. You push through the swinging door into the kitchen, drawing startled looks from line cooks and runners who are not used to men in custom charcoal suits moving through their territory like men looking for oxygen.
