Page 8 of The Reaper
I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d held. Sighed low, chest tight.
Maybe Charleston wasn’t all bad. Maybe there was something here worth the sweat and secrets. A pull beyond the call.
Her.
My phone pinged in my pocket—sharp, insistent. I pulled it out, screen glowing in the dark. Message from an unknown number:ETA requested. Dominion Hall waiting.
I typed quick:En route. 20 min.
Cast one last look at the empty window, the building now just brick and shadow. Hoped like hell I’d see her again.
That woman—whatever her name, whatever her story—might just make this trip worth the detour.
I turned, footsteps silent on the pavement, and melted into the night.
Dominion Hall called. But now, so did she.
3
MEGHAN
Icouldn’t make myself stay still.
I stood at the window again, staring out at the darkness beyond the courtyard, trying to remember the last time I’d left the house for something other than work. The answer came too easily. I hadn’t. Not in days. Maybe weeks. And even then, it had been a supply run to the farmer’s market—more task than escape.
Promenade was my life. Not just the business. Not just the restaurant. The building itself. I lived here, worked here, breathed here. Every corner of the house held a part of me—recipes scribbled in the margins of books, wine stains on floorboards from late-night stress tastings, knives sharpened until they glinted like secrets. Even the air inside was filtered. Controlled.
And I was losing my mind inside it.
I walked to the dresser and peeled the silk slip off my skin, folding it without thinking, hands moving on instinct. I pulled on soft linen shorts and a simple tank top, no bra. Slid intosandals. Hair up. No makeup. Just skin and salt and the need to move.
The streets outside were still. Dim lanterns burned along the seawall, casting shadows across the palmettos and wrought iron fences. The Battery stretched in both directions, quiet and wide, the stone walkway still warm beneath my feet. I didn’t lock the gate behind me this time. Let it swing closed and click softly into place.
I kept my pace casual. A local’s walk. Head up, shoulders back. The kind of walk that said I belonged here. That I wasn’t afraid.
The harbor was dark and endless, the tide low, the water glassy. I passed the benches where tourists usually sat in the afternoon, eating pralines and pretending the heat didn’t bother them. I passed the old cannons, pointed at nothing, relics of wars no one talked about in polite company. I walked until the city behind me blurred into silence and the only thing left was water and wind.
I came here when I needed to feel small.
Not powerless—never that. But small enough to remember there was a world beyond my own ambition. A world that didn’t revolve around reservations and the tight coil of perfectionism that lived beneath my ribs.
I exhaled. The first real breath I’d taken in hours.
In the distance, Fort Sumter sat like a shadow, barely visible under the moonlight. I used to dream about eating there as a child, hosting elaborate imaginary dinners on the ruins of old battlements with linens and candelabras and dishes my parents couldn’t afford. Later, when I was older, the dream shifted—no longer about food, but about recognition.
A Michelin star.
It didn’t even make sense. The Michelin Guide didn’t rate restaurants in South Carolina. Never had. Maybe never would.The official line was that the market wasn’t “sustainable for inspectors.” Not enough density. Not enough pull. But that was bullshit. Charleston had everything: the talent, the culture, the ingredients, the story.
What it didn’t have was a loud enough voice.
That’s what I was building.
I didn’t just want them to notice Promenade. I wanted to make them feel like not noticing it would be a mistake. A glaring omission. I wanted food writers in New York to whisper about us behind their perfect white teeth. I wanted inspectors to make off-the-record visits. I wanted rumors. Buzz. Demand that couldn’t be ignored.
And if that didn’t work?
I’d go to them.
