She focused on the automatic. Making coffee. Serving cakes. Cleaning the counter. Each repeated gesture was a safe place to hide her mind. While her hands knew exactly what to do, her thoughts remained suspended, numb – as if someone had turned down the volume of the world for a few minutes.

And in that small, fragile window of time, that was enough.

When the crowd thinned out, Marco grabbed a cloth and began wiping the counter next to her. The line had disappeared. Only two customers remained at distant tables, engrossed in conversations that had nothing to do with Bea. She liked that. The anonymity. The rare feeling of being able to exist without being noticed.

“So... what really happened this morning?” Marco asked carefully. “I know it wasn’t just the rain.”

Something tightened in her chest. Bea watched the foam of the cappuccino she had just made slowly dissipate, the design fading as if it had never existed. She thought about lying. She thought about saying nothing. But Marco’s calm presence made the words flow out on their own, before she could hold them back.

“Nico showed up at the store,” she said quietly, almost as if confessing to a crime. “He was more irritated than usual.”

The words came out dryly, without emotion. That was how she survived the memories: recounting them as if they hadn’t happened to her.

“He broke a few things… and decided to take it out on me.” She swallowed hard before continuing. “That bastard of a father of mine is still alive and causing trouble out there…”

Marco stopped cleaning. Bea sensed it before she saw it. His silence weighed heavily on her. His jaw clenched, stiff, as if he were holding onto something he didn’t want to let go of.

“Was he the one who hurt you?” he asked.

She nodded. The gesture came automatically, wearily. She brushed the hair away from her forehead and showed him the superficial cut, now covered by a makeshift bandage. It didn’t hurt anymore. Physical pain never lasted. It went away too quickly.

What remained was something else.

Something that didn’t bleed.

Something that was tiring.

For a moment, Bea wondered why it still affected her so much. Why, even after everything, each encounter managed to tear her apart from the inside. Maybe because some wounds never truly heal. They only create a thin enough layer to deceive those looking from the outside.

“This was his fault,” she said, gesturing slightly to the bandage. “The other injuries were because I fell in the street...”

Even while speaking, she felt a strange need to justify herself. As if the pain needed an acceptable explanation to exist. As if, without it, it could be dismissed.

Marco cursed under his breath. His brow furrowed, and for a second Bea saw anger there that wasn’t hers, which made her uncomfortable.

“You shouldn’t be dealing with this alone. Have you thought about leaving that neighborhood? Asking for help?”

She took a deep breath before answering. Her eyes fell to the counter, to an old coffee stain that never quite came out.

“Marco…” she sighed. “You know it’s not that easy.”

Because it never was. It had never been.

“I need that job. The salary.” The words came out mechanically, rehearsed. “And my brother’s there... Leaving would only complicate things.”

She didn’t say she was afraid too. Afraid of change. Afraid of failure. Afraid of discovering that, even far away, everything would still be broken in the same way. Some prisons had no address.

Marco bit his lip, frustrated. Bea knew that silence – the silence of someone who wants to help, but doesn’t know how. After a few seconds, he took a deep breath and forced a sad smile.

“Okay. Just... be careful, please.” he lowered his voice. “You know you can count on me and Lili, right?”

She looked at him and managed to smile back. A tired, crooked, but genuine smile.

“Always.”

And it was true. Even when she pretended she didn’t need anyone.

The doorbell rang.

Bea turned reflexively, ready to answer, and froze mid-movement.

The man who entered didn’t seem to belong there. It was as if someone had cut out a scene from another movie and pasted it in. The dark suit fit his tall, strong body perfectly, without a single crease out of place. His black hair was combed with almost surgical precision. His shoes shone too brightly, too clean, as if the street had never dared to touch them.

But it wasn’t just the appearance.

He carried a dense, cold presence that seemed to suck the warmth from the environment. Bea felt this even before she understood why.

His eyes met hers immediately.

Gray. Sharp. Not in the obvious sense. They were eyes that observed too much. Like blades hidden beneath an elegant surface. For a moment, the world around them blurred – the hum of the machine, the low voices, everything dissolved. Only that gaze remained.

She swallowed hard and forced herself back into her body. To the counter. To the role she needed to play.

“Good afternoon. What would you like?” she asked.

Her own voice sounded firmer than she felt, and that surprised her.

He tilted his head slightly. His lips curved into something that might have been a smile. It didn’t reach his eyes.

“A black coffee, without sugar.”

As Bea prepared the order, she felt his gaze fixed on her. It wasn’t curiosity. It was assessment. As if she were an object out of place, an incomplete equation. She tried to ignore it, to focus on the familiar movements – grinding the beans, fitting the filter, pressing the button. But the feeling wouldn’t go away.

When she placed the cup on the counter and pushed it toward him, their fingers touched for a second too brief to justify the shiver that ran down her spine.

She quickly withdrew her hand, as if she had touched something too hot.

“Thank you,” he said.

The voice was low, drawn-out, controlled. Each word seemed chosen beforehand, as if nothing there was spontaneous.

Bea nodded, unable to respond immediately.

There was something about that man that unsettled her. It wasn’t exactly fear. It was something else. An unsettling feeling that, somehow, he saw beyond the surface she tried so hard to maintain.

And Bea hated it when someone looked too deeply.

She looked away, as if that could protect her. She had learned early on that looking certain people in the eye was an invitation. To violence, to misguided curiosity, to being seen too much.

He brought the coffee to his lips with a calmness that was unsettling. His eyes never left her. They didn’t blink, didn’t wander, didn’t seek distractions. Bea had the uncomfortable feeling of being the only fixed point in that entire room, as if everything else was just scenery.

“You…” he began, his voice low, almost swallowed by the steam rising from the cup.

He stopped. The pause stretched beyond what was acceptable.

“Nothing. Forget it.”

Bea’s stomach clenched in an old reflex. Interrupted sentences always left something trapped inside her, like a weight that wasn’t hers, but that she ended up carrying anyway. It was as if they expected her to understand something that hadn’t been said – and she hated that feeling of silent inadequacy.

He tilted his head, and that strange smile reappeared. It wasn’t kind, nor exactly cruel. It was closed off, indecipherable. A smile of someone who seemed to be a few steps ahead, keeping information she definitely didn’t possess.

He put money on the counter. Too many bills. Much more than the coffee cost. The wrong amount for something so simple. For her.

“Sir…” Bea began, but he was already walking away.

Before opening the door, he cast one last glance over his shoulder. It wasn’t quick. It was necessary. One second more than needed, calculated as everything about him seemed to be.

The little bell rang as he left. Almost at the same time, the rain outside intensified, beating harder against the glass. Bea remained motionless, the money still clutched between her trembling fingers, unable to let go.

Marco approached slowly, respecting the silence that had formed around her.

“Do you two know each other?”

She shook her head, still feeling that gaze like a warm mark on her skin.

“I don’t think so.”

The answer sounded weak. It didn’t convince Marco. It didn’t even convince herself.

The rest of the shift passed like everything else in Bea’s life usually did: in blurs. Automated orders, clinking cups, hot steam rising, footsteps coming and going. She functioned in basic mode, the kind that required the bare minimum to stay on her feet. Survival. Still, the feeling of being watched didn’t leave her. Even knowing, rationally, that he was no longer there.

When the movement finally subsided, the sky outside was heavy, a dark and weary gray. The rain had turned into a fine, persistent drizzle, the kind that doesn’t hurt, just wears you down.

“Bea, it’s time to go. You can go now,” Marco said, while cleaning a cup. “Try to get some rest, okay?”

She nodded, murmuring a thank you that came out weaker than she intended. She picked up her still-damp coat and threw it over her shoulders. As she left, the cold drizzle hit her face like a cruel reminder that the day wasn’t over yet.

The streetlights flickered, reflected in the puddles scattered across the cracked asphalt. Bea walked slowly. Each step required an internal negotiation. Her soaked sneakers squeaked against the ground, her eyes burned, and her whole body ached as if that single day had lasted for weeks.

One block before she got home, she stopped.

The heart skipped a beat. Then another.

Across the street, two men were trying to break down the building’s gate. Bea recognized them immediately. She didn’t need to think. They were Nico’s men. One of them, in particular, she would recognize anywhere: the worn leather jacket, the bald head gleaming under the dim light of the lamppost.

They argued in hushed voices, but their gestures were aggressive and impatient. Bea’s chest tightened until it hurt.

How many more times would she have to repeat that she didn’t know where her father was?

How many more times would she pay for someone who was never there for her?

She looked around desperately and spotted the concrete staircase of an old building. She didn’t think. She just ran. She squeezed under the steps and huddled together, the dampness rising through her clothes, the cold creeping in uninvited.

She tried to control her breathing. She failed.

Don’t look at me. Please. Don’t look at me.

Time lost its shape. The sounds of the city – distant horns, footsteps, a loose laugh – mingled with the sound of her own heart, too fast, too loud. The cold seeped into her bones. Her eyelids felt heavy, as if someone had hung weights on them.

Falling asleep wasn’t a choice. It was her body surrendering.

When she woke up, the pain came before any thought. In her back, in the nape of her neck, in her legs. Her stiff body protested against the impossible position under the stairs. The sky was dark, almost starless. The street, too silent.

She blinked a few times, and reality hit her like a punch.

It was still Friday.

The day was not over yet.

She looked at the watch on her wrist. 9:37pm.

A third job awaited her.

The idea of wearing a tight uniform, serving expensive drinks to people who would never know her name, and maintaining a smile she didn’t feel seemed absurd. Almost impossible. But there was no alternative. Hospital bills don’t pay themselves. Exhaustion is not an acceptable excuse.

She stood up with effort, every joint aching. She stretched her back with a grimace and drew a deep breath into her lungs, as if that could prepare her for what was to come.

She ran her fingers through her wet hair, adjusting what she could. The coat was still heavy, cold, clinging to her shoulders, but there was no time to change anything. She straightened her posture.

And she started walking towards the nightclub.

Each step was a small act of resistance. Not courage. Pure resistance. The city glowed in neon and shadows, completely indifferent to the fact that Bea was falling apart inside.

Like always.