Chapter 9
Leo
My designer white uniform, the one Amelia sources from a Parisian couturier who apparently specializes in dressing clueless billionaires like chefs, is gone.
I threw it in the penthouse incinerator without ceremony.
It was a casualty of war, stained with egg yolk, industrial bleach, and my own profound humiliation.
I now wear what Amelia produces when I ask her for something real.
It is dark grey, ridiculously expensive Japanese selvedge denim work pants. A plain black T-shirt that costs more than Tess’s monthly electric bill. And a pair of high-design, luxury work boots engineered to look rugged, even though they will never actually encounter mud.
I look less like a baker and more like an actor playing a brooding artisanal craftsman in a perfume commercial.
But I am here. On time.
Tess is already at her steel table, clipboard in hand. She looks up when I enter. Her eyes scan my new, ridiculously stylish uniform. She does not comment. Her gaze flicks to my hands.
My hands are a catastrophe.
The broken nail on my left thumb is covered with a neon-blue SpongeBob Band-Aid I found in my penthouse’s ironic first-aid kit. The rest of my fingers are red, raw, blistered, chemical-burned by sanitizer and scrubbed by steel wool.
Tess sees them. I see her see them. I shove my hands into my pockets as if that fixes anything.
“Did you sleep well?” I ask foolishly, unable to find anything interesting to say.
“I guess,” Tess replies hesitantly. “What about you?”
For a second, my night flashes before my eyes. The shower I took to ease my back, the conversation with Amelia about my business partners being unhappy I canceled everything, the calls I ignored from Marissa.
“Yeah, my evening was quite relaxing,” I lie. “Ready to get back into things.”
“You’re on pre-shape,” she says. “Gwen left the first bulk ferment for you. Don’t tear the gluten. Don’t use your hot palms.”
“Yes, boss,” I mutter.
And so, my day begins.
I am a ghost who shapes. I am quarantined, set apart from the delicate, high-stakes ballet of croissant lamination and oven work. My entire world reduces to a twenty-pound tub of sticky, wet, eighty-percent hydration sourdough.
Pull. Scrape. Turn. Fold.
It is, I discover, a form of meditation.
A very, very frustrating form.
The dough is alive. It is fickle. Tess is right, you have to listen to it. If I am angry, I tear it. If I am hesitant, it sticks to me like glue. If I am distracted, the structure collapses, and my boule turns into a sad, wet pancake.
I have to be present.
I have to be gentle but firm.
I have to focus.
Gwen arrives with her usual clatter and peers over my shoulder. I manage to shape three small boules. They are lumpy. My seams are messy. At best, they are a solid C.
“Huh”, she says, grabbing an espresso. “You’re still here. And you haven’t set anything else on fire. I’m impressed.”
I grunt. My focus is entirely on the mass of dough in front of me. I am trying to get the tension right, trying to create that smooth, taut skin Tess produces in three seconds. Mine is pockmarked.
“Thanks, Gwen”, I say.
“You still didn’t tell me how you knew my name before you met me”, she says, standing with her hand on her hip.
“You are nosey”, I laugh.
“She sure is”, Tess shouts from the kitchen.
I could tell her it was my assistant who saw her name in the investment documents, but somehow this seems more fun. I ignore Gwen for now and become obsessed with the pull.
Hours pass.
The bakery comes to life around me: the roar of ovens, the shush of the espresso machine, the murmur of customers, the ding of the front door. I am in my own world, back aching, hands stinging, entire being narrowed down to wet flour.
I am no longer a billionaire. I am no longer a businessman.
I am a man fighting a war against gluten.
Tess walks over and looks at my work.
“There’s hope”, she says softly. “Let me show you.”
Tess is explaining something. I know that because her mouth is moving. But I am not listening.
I am watching the way she gestures when she talks about the bakery, how her hands move like they are shaping the future in the air. How her voice changes when she is passionate. How she does not ask for permission to take up space.
She catches me staring.
“Leo”, she says sharply. “Are you with me?”
I snap back instantly. “Yes.”
She narrows her eyes. “What did I just say?”
I open my mouth. Nothing comes out.
Her expression shifts, not angry. Not amused. Curious.
“Oh”, she says softly. “You weren’t listening.”
“I was”, I lie, badly.
She watches me for a second longer, then shakes her head. “Go fold boxes.”
“Yes, boss,” I say automatically.
I turn away, heat crawling up my neck.
The truth is terrifyingly simple.
I wasn’t listening because I didn’t want to miss her.
And I don’t know how to come back from that.
At 3:05 p.m., the bakery is quiet. The morning rush is a distant memory.
The pastry case is a wasteland of crumbs and a few sad, day-old muffins.
Tess sits at the front counter with her laptop open, face tight as she stares at the week’s sales figures.
The croissant disaster still lingers in her expression.
She rubs her temple, a gesture I recognize as her I’m-one-invoice-away-from-a-panic-attack look.
Gwen is in the back, audibly singing along to a punk rock playlist as she preps fillings for tomorrow.
I have finally produced a dozen acceptable boules that Tess doesn’t immediately toss back into the tub. I am promoted.
I am sweeping.
I am, I decide, a very good sweeper.
I am methodical. I create neat, efficient piles of flour dust and crumbs. This is a task I can do.
The front door jingles.
Not the normal polite jingle.
This one sounds frantic. Violent.
A woman rushes in, dragging a teenage girl by the arm. The girl, maybe fifteen, wears a black T-shirt with an anime character I don’t recognize. She is visibly, profoundly upset. Her face is red and blotchy. Tears streak through dark eyeliner, leaving clean tracks down her cheeks.
“Please,” the woman says, voice cracking with desperate panic. “Please, you have to help me. I… I know you’re closing, but… It’s her birthday.”
Tess looks up from her spreadsheet. Her not-my-problem mask snaps into place instantly. “Ma’am, we close at four. What can I get you?”
“A cake,” the woman says, voice breaking. “I… I ordered a cake. From La Fantaisie Patisserie. For her party. It’s tomorrow at six. And they just… they just canceled. An hour ago. They said their head decorator is sick. They just… sent a text.”
The girl lets out a heartbroken sob and buries her face in her hands. She clutches her phone. On the screen is a picture of a cake.
I squint from my corner.
Oh. Wow.
It is elaborate. Three tiers. Black fondant. A complex crystalline-looking decoration on top.
Tess looks at the photo, then at the clock, then back at the woman. Her expression is polite, but firm.
“Ma’am, I’m very sorry to hear that. But we don’t do custom cakes on demand. All of our custom orders are placed a week in advance. I can sell you one of the lemon pound cakes.”
“But you don’t understand!” the woman pleads. “It’s her sixteenth birthday! It’s the one thing she asked for. It’s…” She looks at her daughter. “Maya, what’s it called?”
“It’s a Shadow Weaver cake,” Maya whispers, voice thick with tears. “From Aetheria Chronicles.”
“I… I’m sorry,” Tess says again. I see genuine regret flicker behind her exhaustion. “I can’t make it. That’s… that’s a week of work. That’s not even baking; that’s sculpture. I just… I can’t.”
The mom looks defeated. She wraps an arm around Maya, who is crying silently now, shoulders shaking. “Ok. Ok, honey, let’s just… let’s go. We’ll get ice cream.”
“It’s not the same,” Maya weeps.
They start to turn away.
Tess’s gaze drops back to her laptop as if she is forcing herself to survive the day.
And then my mouth betrays me.
“Wait,” I say.
The word escapes before I can stop it. It echoes in the quiet, flour-dusted shop like a gunshot.
Tess’s head snaps up. Her eyes are lethal.
I have just broken Rule Number Two. In front of civilians.
“Leo,” she says, voice low and cold, a warning wrapped in a threat. “There’s nothing we can do.”
“I… I just…” I take a step forward, hands held up, palms dusted in flour. I am not looking at Tess. I am looking at the phone in Maya’s hand.
Because I know that cake.
I know that character.
I know that world.
“I know Aetheria Chronicles,” I say, my voice quiet but alive with something other than misery for the first time in four days.
It’s awe. “My God. Is that supposed to be a Level Seven Shadow Weaver? That’s…
that’s all wrong. Her mana-scepter is completely inaccurate.
The crystal should be obsidian, not amethyst.”
Maya’s head whips up so fast I’m surprised she doesn’t get whiplash. Her tears stall mid-fall. Her eyes go wide with shock.
“You… you know Aetheria Chronicles?”
A rush hits me, the old me, pre-billionaire, pre-optimized existence. The part of me that read things because they mattered, not because they were useful.
“Know it?” I say, and my voice warms as if my body has been waiting for this.
“My venture fund was an angel investor in the South Korean gaming studio that adapted it. I read all twenty-three of the original light novels, in the original fan-translated text files.” I can’t help it.
I’m already in it. “The anime adaptation is fine, but it completely fails to capture the sociopolitical complexity of Lord Kael’s betrayal.
And don’t get me started on the Moon Palace arc. ”
Tess stares at me like I’ve just grown a second head.
Gwen pokes her head out of the prep room, expression pure baffled delight.
Maya, however, looks like she has just seen God.
“Oh. My. God,” she breathes. “That’s exactly what I said! The anime nerfed Kael! They turned him into a one-dimensional villain! And the Moon Palace arc? They cut out his entire redemption side-plot with the wolf-spirit! It’s criminal!”
“Right?” I say, stepping forward, broom forgotten, because suddenly the bakery is not my isolation cell.
Suddenly, it’s a room with another living human being who understands this particular obsession.
“It’s lazy writing,” I say, heat rushing into my voice. “They wanted a simple bad guy for the season finale, and they sacrificed the entire emotional core of the narrative to do it.”
“He’s not a bad guy,” Maya says, practically vibrating now, tears completely gone. “He’s an anti-hero. His motivations are complex.”
“It’s the classic utilitarian dilemma,” I say, gesturing wildly with my flour-dusted hands, because apparently, I have decided to die on this hill. “His betrayal saved millions. But the anime just ignores that. And that scepter…”
I lean closer to the photo on her phone.
“That’s the anime scepter,” I say. “It’s purple.”
I straighten, appalled all over again by the artistic crime.
“It’s wrong.”
Maya’s mom looks back and forth between her suddenly radiant, animated daughter and me, this giant, dusty, intensely opinionated nerd in a bakery. Then she looks at Tess.
Her eyes are pleading. “Please?”
I realize, dimly, that I may have just gotten myself into serious trouble with Tess again. But I couldn’t stand seeing this kid this devastated on her birthday.
There has to be something we can do.