It was nearly two when the last of Sugar’s staff finished closing up the restaurant. In her mind, she went down the usual checklist.

Tables? Spotless. Mason-jarred candles? Blown out. Floors? Swept and mopped. Kitchen? Pristine. Cash registers? Closed and balanced. Dangling lightbulbs overhead? Asleep.

Minutes ago, she locked away the cash earnings in her office’s safe.

Check, check, and check.

Employees trailed through the lobby and out the entrance door in a steady trickle.

Sugar stood before the lobby desk, exchanging smiles, brief pockets of conversation, and goodbyes with them. In these moments, she learned so much about their lives outside of this business that was her life.

It gave her a glimpse of an outside world she saw very little of.

After the last employee filed out of the building, Sugar locked the entrance door with her master keys, watching through the glass door as her staff climbed into their cars. Others had already begun to drive off. A few walked across the parking lot and onto the sidewalk, disappearing out of sight in different directions as they journeyed home on foot.

Sighing tiredly, Sugar turned on her heels and sauntered into the dining area. The soft moonlight bled through the floor-to-ceiling storefront windows, casting a beautifully strange bluish glow that mingled well with the shadows. Her high heels clicking against the floor filled the stilled, cool air as she walked to the grand piano.

She stepped onto the short platform and eased onto the leather-quilted bench. Her fingers lightly grazed the black and white keys. Since the restaurant’s opening, she had a few conversations with her employees about the piano.

Some considered it a waste of space.

Others thought it to be a fancy decoration and nothing more.

She believed their theories were logical, as the musical instrument sat empty and unused during hours of operation, but she put the piano to good use when left to her own devices.

At the ripe age of four, Sugar’s grandmother Sally-Ann, a piano teacher and church pianist, instructed her in the art of music because of her obsessive interest in the instrument. She loved tapping on the keys and listening to each unique sound that streamed from the piano.

Soon, her youth imagination took over, and she became a seasoned pianist like her grandmother, confidently playing her own musical pieces that were nothing more than sharp, sour piano notes strung together that made everyone cringe.

Finally, Papa George had enough of it and demanded his wife to “teach the child the proper way before she made enough noise to raise the dead.”

Sugar was a quick learner and became quite the prodigy. By ten years old, she fluently mastered the musical compositions of Beethoven, Liszt, Paganini, Mozart, and Bach with emotional precision.

Her love for the piano never waned, but as she grew older, she realized that playing the piano wouldn’t secure a future for her. So, she quietly tucked that passion away in her heart and sometimes let it out to breathe when alone with a piano.

Sugar straightened her back and positioned her fingers where they needed to be. Closing her eyes, her fingers impressed upon the black and white keys in a slow, mournful progression as she performed Lacrimosa by Mozart.

She lost herself in the melody, surrendering to the feelings it coaxed out of her.

The anger, guilt, sadness, loneliness, and regret.

Lance’s visit picked open wounds she’d been trying hard to ignore. Now, she couldn’t help but dwell on what once was.

Sugar couldn’t not think about those eighteen years of marriage.

She couldn’t not agonize about alternate realities where everything was different, but in the end, she always came to the same conclusion: this current reality was the best thing that could have ever happened to her.

And yet...she felt like something was missing in her life.

A familiar ringtone sliced through the air abruptly, interrupting her lonely recital and ripping her away from her thoughts. She stood up from the piano bench and stepped off the platform, journeying through the dining area and into the lobby.

She picked up the device on the host desk’s counter and accepted the call.

Sugar used her spare hand to pinch the bridge of her nose.

“You still at that restaurant, ain’t you?” Sullivan, her unpleased twin brother, interrogated.

“Well, hello to you too, Sully,” she greeted.

“And I bet you there all by yourself too,” he continued without missing a beat.

Sugar sighed, “So what if I am? I don’t see the problem in it.”

He sucked his teeth. “You being alone in that restaurant at this time of night is dangerous, Shug. How many times I’ve got to tell you that?”

It was no surprise that Sullivan was overly protective of her.

Sugar was used to it.

He was the oldest of the two by four minutes and thirty-seven seconds; therefore, he took his “big brother” role seriously.

There were plenty of childhood stories and memories of Sullivan’s defensive nature when it came to her. No one messed around with Sugar because they knew they would have to deal with her twin brother’s wrath.

No one.

Not even their younger siblings.

“Sully, I stay this late every single day, and I have yet to have a problem,” she said.

“I’ve got a problem with everything you just said. Some fool could be in the shadows watching you, identifying your patterns and habits. Waiting for the perfect moment to strike,” Sullivan replied. “You’re a very attractive woman, Shug. That’s a good enough reason for some sick bastard out there to try something.”

Rolling her eyes deeply, Sugar said, “I’ve got pepper spray on my keychain and that defensive cat keychain for eye-gouging that you gave me. I always check my surroundings when I lock up the building and go to my car. I can handle myself, Sully.”

There was a moment of silence.

He finally stated, “From now on, I’ll be at that restaurant right at closing to hurry you along so you can go home safely and sleep.”

She gaped at her twin brother’s promise.

“Are you being serious right now?” Sugar asked.

“The hell you say,” Katrina, her sister-in-law, stated tiredly from nearby.

“Go back to sleep, Kat,” he ordered.

Katrina huffed. “How can I go back to sleep when you’re bickering on the phone?”

“You want me to leave the room, then?”

“What I want you to do is leave your sister alone,” his wife retorted. “She doesn’t need or want you as a chaperone. Shug’s a grown woman. If she needs you, then she’ll tell you. Now, hang up the phone.”

Katrina’s rant brought a smile to Sugar’s lips. She knew she could always count on her sister-in-law to knock some sense into her twin brother’s hard head.

“We’ll talk about this later,” he stubbornly told Sugar.

“Didn’t I just tell you to leave your si—”

Sullivan ended the call, cutting Katrina’s sentence short.

Sugar shook her head slowly as she pulled the cell away from her ear. She knew her brother would try to make good on his word, regardless of her or his wife’s protests.

Deciding it was time to go home, she returned to her office to retrieve her purse before heading back into the lobby. She unlocked the entrance door to leave the restaurant and stepped out into the warm April night air.

As she locked the door, a spike of fear rushed through her veins as a speeding car came to a screeching halt at the curb in front of the parking lot.

She swirled on her heels quickly, fumbling with her collection of keys.

Her heart throbbed deep and hard inside of her chest as she watched a passenger door fling open. Someone shoved a big dark lump out of the vehicle unforgivingly.

The lump landed on the sidewalk with a thud, and the door slammed shut.

The car sped away, made a wobbly U-turn as the driver nearly lost control, and turned a sharp right at a corner down the street.

Sugar squinted as she tried to make out what was lying on the sidewalk. Then, the lump attempted to lift itself up and failed, plopping back to the concrete.

Her eyes widened as she finally realized that the lump was, in fact, a person.

“Oh my god,” she gasped loudly.

Without hesitation, she scurried as best she could across the parking lot.

A difficult feat in four-inch pumps.

“Sir, ma’am, are you okay?” she asked frantically as she came quickly towards the body.

The body flipped onto its back with a low, pained grunt.

It was a man.

A beaten man.

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