When Love Poisons Your Dream

forgotten part of the city. It smelled of dried herbs and memories. He didn't ask questions. He jus

urner phone and a cheap laptop. I had set up a cloud-based security system for Aura, a system Sarah didn'

wor

inspection. I fast-forwarded through hours of footage of an empty kitchen, then stopped.

Dav

a package from his jacket, and placed it in the back of the cooler.

eek earlier. The timestamp was 2 a.m. The kitchen was dark, but the

ught her how to properly filet a fish. He kissed her, and she kissed him back, h

the cooler and pulled out a container of my signature demi-glace, the one that took me three days to

dripping with scorn. "He has no vision, no ambition. He'd sti

aurants for extra cash. I remembered selling my grandfather's vintage car to pay for the custom-made ovens, a decision that

had made a call to a guy I knew, a forager who operated in a grey market. He was reliable, his product was supreme, but he wasn't certified. It was a risk,

m not as a strength, but as a weakness she could exploi

nto the toilet. There was nothing in my stomach but bile. I splashed cold water on my fa

t was a local news segment. Sarah, dressed in black, her face a mask of prac

e. "Ethan put his entire soul into that restaurant. He was a brilliant, passi

the video: "Poor woman, my heart goes out to her." "That chef is a mon

made my skin crawl. It was a physical revulsion,

ris, smiling under the Eiffel Tower. A selfie from our first anniversary, her head on my chest. I stared at the

selected all the pho

hit

life, had been razed to the ground. On its ruins, something