Page 20 of Shattered

Delia Santoro has spent years making everything feel lighter. Especially when my world was anything but.

Now it was my turn. And I won’t fail her.

CHAPTER 5

Delia

Monday evening,someone knocked on my door like they had every right to disturb the fragile quiet I’d built.

I hobbled over on my crutches, already annoyed because navigating four steps was currently my maximum tolerance for human interaction, and opened it to find Axel Irving standing in my hallway with his assistant.

The assistant—Mark, I remembered seeing a handful of times—was holding grocery bags. Multiple grocery bags. Enough grocery bags to suggest they were preparing for an apocalypse.

“What are you doing here?!” I asked. Half shocked, and unable to avert my gaze from the bags.

“Someone requested a favor. I’m fulfilling it.” He said it like that explained showing up at my apartment with enough food to survive an apocalypse.

“Someone? Favor?” I echoed.

“I’m sure you know who.”

His assistant looked like he was trying very hard not to laugh.

Axel turned to his assistant. “Mark, I’ll call you later. Clear my schedule for the next few weeks. Move everything nonessential.”

Mark’s eyebrows rose. “Everything?”

“Everything.”

“The board meeting on Thursday?”

“Non-essential.”

“The investors flying in from Tokyo?”

“Mark.”

“Right. Clearing schedule. Making everyone unhappy.” Mark adjusted his glasses and looked at me with something like sympathy. “Good luck.”

He left before I could ask what that meant.

Axel picked up the grocery bags and walked past me into my apartment.

I stood there, door still open, my brain trying to catch up with whatever this was. Then I closed the door and followed him inside, crutches thudding against the floor.

“For the nth time, I don’t need a babysitter.”

“Second.”

“What?” I asked, confused.

“It’s only the second time you said that,” he said as my mouth hung open at the absolute audacity. He didn’t give me time to respond before he said, “And I know you don’t need one. Which is just as good…” He started unpacking groceries onto my counter. “Because I’m terrible at babysitting, but I’m decent at cooking.”

Vegetables appeared. Fresh vegetables, not the half-wilted ones from the mall a few blocks away. Cheese that looked like it came from somewhere with opinions about cheese. Bread that was probably hand-kneaded by monks or something equally ridiculous.

“This is ridiculous,” I said. “I’m a grown woman perfectly capable of feeding herself.”

“I’m aware.” He kept unpacking, completely unbothered. “But you’re not actually doing it. So here I am.”