Chapter 8 #2
“You marry her,” her mother declared into the ringing silence. “Soon. I’m not getting younger.”
“Mom!”
“What? He loves you, you love him… why wait?” She set down the teapot with a decisive clink. “Your father proposed after two weeks.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
Ava couldn’t exactly say you weren’t fake-dating to protect yourself from demon senior partners, so she stuffed a dumpling in her mouth instead.
The rest of dinner passed in a blur of food and stories.
Her mother interrogated Victor about his family (adopted, he said, which was technically true if you considered Hell a foster system), his education (Harvard and Oxford, both of which he’d probably attended when they were actually founded), his intentions (serious, though he omitted the supernatural complications).
Her father said little but watched everything. Ava caught him nodding when Victor laughed at her mother’s joke about the health inspector, when he asked for the recipe for the mapo tofu, when he helped clear plates without being asked.
“You know,” her mother said, bringing out dessert, red bean ice cream and sesame balls, still warm from the fryer, “Ava’s grandmother would have liked you.”
Ava’s hand went to the pendant beneath her dress. The jade tingled against her palm, a gentle static that crept up her wrist.
“She had excellent judgment about people,” her mother continued, spooning ice cream into bowls. “Could always tell who was worth trusting. She gave Ava that jade pendant just before she passed. Said it would bring her luck.”
“She sounds wise,” Victor said carefully.
“She was. Always said Ava would find someone who could match her. Someone just as stubborn.” Her mother smiled, the expression tinged with old grief. “Took long enough, but grandmother was usually right.”
Ava seized the opening, keeping her voice casual. “Mom, the business line of credit you have. When did you set that up?”
Her mother waved dismissively, focused on dessert distribution. “Oh, fifteen years ago? Maybe sixteen? We don’t keep track anymore. Why?”
“Who arranged it?”
Her mother frowned, trying to remember. “Such a nice woman came by. Very professional. Beautiful red dress, I remember that. She made it all so easy. Barely any paperwork, wonderful terms. The interest was so reasonable we almost couldn’t believe it.”
The pendant went ice-cold against Ava’s skin.
“Red dress?” Her voice came out strange. Thin. “Do you remember her name?”
“Something elegant…” Her mother tapped her chin, oblivious to her daughter’s growing horror.
“Lily? No, Lilith.” She smiled at the memory.
“She said she specialized in helping small family businesses. Knew all about the neighborhood. She even knew about your grandmother’s dumplings. Said she’d heard they were legendary.”
Victor’s hand found Ava’s under the table. Squeezed hard enough to hurt.
“She came back a few times over the years,” her father added, reaching for a sesame ball. “Always interested in how the business was doing. Asked about you once or twice, how you were doing in school. Your mother showed her your report cards.”
The room tilted. Ava gripped the edge of the table.
“She seemed to care,” her mother continued. “Not like those other bankers who just want their money. She said we were a good investment. That our family would go far.”
Fifteen years. Lilith had been planning this since Ava was twelve. Since her grandmother died. Since Peterson Holdings was registered in Delaware.
They’ve been watching our family for a long time. Before you. Before me.
Her grandmother had known. Had tried to warn her.
“Are you alright, sweetheart?” Her mother leaned closer. “You look pale.”
“I’m fine.” Ava forced a smile that felt like cracked glass. “Just remembered something about work.”
Victor’s thumb traced circles on her palm. Grounding her. Keeping her from screaming.
“Speaking of tradition,” her mother said, moving past the moment with characteristic momentum, “when do we meet your family, Victor?”
“I don’t have much family left, I’m afraid.”
“Oh.” Her mother’s face softened instantly, aggression dissolving into warmth. “Well, you have us now. You’ll come for Lunar New Year. No arguments.”
“Mom, that’s months away…”
“So? Good things are worth planning for.” She patted Victor’s hand, the gesture so natural it made Ava’s throat tight. “Bring your appetite. We do thirteen courses.”
When they finally left, her parents loaded them with enough leftovers to feed an army. Containers stacked in bags, each one labeled in her mother’s precise handwriting: Duck - reheat 350, Dumplings - steam only, For Victor - mapo tofu recipe inside.
Her mother hugged Victor at the door, reaching up on tiptoes, pulling him down to her level with surprising strength. He looked stunned. Ava realized, with a pang, that he probably hadn’t been hugged like that in centuries.
Her father shook his hand again, this time with warmth. “Don’t be strangers,” he said. “She forgets to visit when she’s working too hard.”
“We’ll come more often,” Victor promised.
Her mother pulled him down to whisper in his ear, one hand cupped like she was sharing state secrets. Whatever she said made him nod solemnly, his expression changing.
Ava hugged her father goodbye, breathing in the familiar smell of kitchen smoke and sandalwood soap. “Love you, Dad.”
“Love you too.” His arms tightened briefly. “He’s a good one. Don’t mess it up.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
They didn’t speak until they were in the car, pulling away from the restaurant. Ava watched her parents in the side mirror, her mother waving, her father’s arm around her shoulders, until they turned the corner and disappeared.
She lasted three blocks.
“What did she whisper?”
Victor’s hands flexed on the steering wheel. “She said you hadn’t brought anyone home in years. That I must be special.”
“Oh God.”
“And that if I hurt you, she knows where to hide a body where even the health inspectors won’t look.”
Ava covered her face with both hands. “Of course she did.”
“Your parents are wonderful.”
“They’re a lot.”
“I like that.” He glanced at her, then back at the road. “Your mother is protective. It’s nice. To see what that looks like.”
They drove in silence. Inside the car, the Lilith revelation sat between them like a third passenger.
“Fifteen years,” Ava said. “She’s been watching my family for fifteen years.”
“I know.”
“Before I even knew what I wanted to do with my life. Before law school. Before any of this.” Her voice cracked. “She showed my mom my report cards, Victor. She asked about me.”
“I know.”
“What does she want? What’s worth fifteen years of planning?”
He stared straight ahead, jaw tight. “I don’t know yet. But I’m going to find out.”
“The retreat…”
“We’ll handle the retreat. And then we’ll handle Lilith.” His knuckles went white on the wheel. “I won’t let her hurt your family, Ava. Whatever she’s planning, we’ll stop it.”
She believed him.
“You meant it,” she said after another block. “What you said to my father. About love.”
“Every word.”
“The part about wanting a life beyond work?”
“Especially that part.” His voice had gone rough. “I’d forgotten what it felt like. To want what can’t be won or acquired or negotiated.”
“Victor…”
He pulled over abruptly, tires squealing as he found a spot along a darkened street. The engine cut off. Silence rushed in.
“I need to—” He stopped. Started again. “I need you to know that whatever happens with Lilith, whatever she’s planned—this is real. You and me. It stopped being fake the moment you stood up to her at that dinner party.”
“Victor.”
“Maybe before that. Maybe from the beginning, if I’m honest.”
Then he was kissing her.
Hard. Desperate. His hand tangled in her hair, tilting her head back, and she made a sound against his mouth that might have been his name. He tasted like green tea and sesame, and underneath that, something darker: smoke and cedar and the particular heat of him.
The console between them was deeply inconvenient. She tried to shift closer and knocked over the leftover containers. Something that smelled like black bean sauce spilled. Neither of them cared.
“Back seat,” she gasped against his mouth.
They fumbled like teenagers, climbing awkwardly over seats, laughing when her dress caught on the gear shift and Victor’s foot hit the horn. Then they were in the back, she was straddling his lap, and his hands were everywhere.
“Ava.” He breathed her name against her throat like a prayer. “We should—”
“Don’t you dare stop.”
She pulled his mouth back to hers, swallowing whatever responsible thing he’d been about to say. His hands slid up her thighs, bunching fabric. She rolled her hips against him and felt him groan into her mouth, a sound that shot straight through her, pooling low and hot.
“The retreat,” he managed between kisses. “Two days—”
“I’m renegotiating the timeline.”
His laugh vibrated against her lips. “That’s not how timelines work.”
“I’m a lawyer. I renegotiate everything.”
But even as she said it, she knew he was right. Their first time shouldn’t be in the back seat of a Tesla surrounded by spilled leftovers. When they crossed that line, and they would, she wanted it to matter.
She pulled back. Both of them breathing hard. His pupils were blown wide, the demon showing behind his expression, something ancient and wanting.
“You’re right,” she admitted. “Not like this.”
He pressed his forehead to hers. “You’re going to be the death of me.”
“Drama queen.”
“Says the woman who just attacked me in my own car.”
“Attacked is a strong word. I prefer ‘aggressively appreciated.’”
He laughed and helped her climb back to the front seat with as much dignity as possible.
The black bean sauce had, unfortunately, found its way onto Victor’s navy jacket.
“My mother is going to be devastated,” Ava said. “That was her best recipe.”
“I’ll tell her it was delicious.”
“You didn’t eat any of it.”
“I’ll lie.” He started the car. “Two days.”
“Fifty-two hours and sixteen minutes.”
“Now who’s counting?”
“I learned from the best.”
They pulled back onto the road. Victor reached over and took her hand.
“Your parents did like me,” he said.
“They’re going to be planning our wedding now.”
“Let them plan.”
Two days until the retreat. Fifty-two hours until they’d have to convince a room full of demons that what they had was real.
The mark pulsed warm against her chest.
The hard part wasn’t the retreat. The hard part was figuring out what came after, when Lilith’s fifteen-year plan finally revealed itself.
But that was a problem for tomorrow.
Tonight, she had leftover dumplings and a demon who loved her. The rest could wait until morning.