Staying with Elisa served one purpose only: repaying her mother—the woman who pulled me from the orphanage and reunited me with my biological family.
Protecting Elisa for three years had been her mother's dying wish.
And that wish would be fulfilled in exactly two hours.
1.
"If you don't want to peel, then break up and get lost." Elisa's voice sliced through the din. "And stop looking at everyone with those dead, listless eyes. It's bad luck."
Her lip curled. "Honestly, I don't know how someone as shameless as you has managed to cling to me this long."
The mountain of crayfish shells before me stood nearly half a meter high.
I said nothing. My hands moved on autopilot.
*Pinch off the head. Twist away the tail. Strip the vein. Drop the glistening white meat onto the plate.*
Elisa's patience frayed. Her stiletto cracked against my shin.
"Adam Mason, why are you dawdling? Can't you see Kevin's plate is empty?"
Elisa Fox. The "Iceberg Beauty" of the capital's elite circle. My girlfriend in name only.
For three years, an unknown orphan had shadowed her every step. In the words of her inner circle: *"Elisa really found herself a good dog. Obedient to a fault."*