“Kill me, Ness,” Avery moaned as she looked at the fat stack of cake orders in front of her.

Marianne, the bakery owner, had taken on way too many orders at once. She opened the shop a few years ago and ran everything with only her and her brother who ran the counter. As the business took off and became more popular she was able to hire a few more people but there weren’t nearly enough for this sort of rush.

She developed new recipes and made things like cookies. Vanessa did breads. Avery did cakes. Marianne’s brother Marcus worked the counter and handled the financials.

Since they were all human and needed breaks everyone got two days off a week and left other people to cover their duties while they were gone. Danny, a teenage part-timer, helped with this issue as well by working the counter for a few hours twice a week after school and on Saturdays.

Marianne had some cake decorating expertise but she was self-taught and wanted a professional once her business picked up. Unfortunately, because of the popularity of the decorating videos business had picked up even more lately.

Pretty soon she was going to need to hire a second cake person but for now it was all on Avery. Who had so many cakes to do she might have tendonitis by the time she was done.

Vanessa looked over the cake orders sympathetically. “Yikes. Hang in there, Aves. I’d offer to help but I suck at decorating. I can’t even get the frosting to be even on a cupcake. I’m one with the yeast.”

She could do amazing things with bread or puff pastry but when it came to frosting or fondant she was hopeless. Her help would be more of a hindrance than anything and she knew it.

“Thanks anyway,” Avery sighed.

What a thing to come back to right after the weekend. She had been so tired after socializing while running on empty on Sunday that she spent most of Monday sleeping too and Angelo had to track her down at her apartment to make sure she was alive since she didn’t answer her phone after he got off work.

He wanted to talk about their plans for the upcoming Saturday. Why couldn’t that wait a few more days? She was still recovering from the last one!

She always knew her friend had no mercy though. He had been frighteningly efficient ever since they were kids. He didn’t believe in the concept of rest and it was totally unfair because out of everyone in their little group his job was the least taxing.

They had a few insider spies that reported to them, which was how they kept operating this long, but the people doing the actual dirty work were Avery and occasionally Jorge. He didn’t have a suit so he was only involved in deliveries. Recon the spies couldn’t pull off, vandalism, theft, and so on was all her job.

Pulling most of the weight sucked especially since Angelo was unsympathetic as ever. He should try being the one in the suit sometime and see how he liked it! That ought to shut him up.

Annoyed as she was, she wouldn’t do that for two reasons. First, the suit took practice getting used to. He would likely get himself caught then their whole operation would be a bust. Second, being in the suit was the only time she could see Mercury. She wasn’t about to give that up!

No, putting Angelo in the suit wasn’t an option. But it was nice to daydream.

He may drive her crazy sometimes but with her dad gone he was all the family she had left. Even if they weren’t technically related they had been raised like cousins and treated each other as such.

Her mom had been out of the picture for as long as she could remember. She had hardly any memories of the woman that chose her career over her daughter and walked out without ever looking back before Avery was in kindergarten.

Her dad never remarried but he did have a few different girlfriends over the years. In the end he gave up on that and said she was the only girl he needed.

They had been close. Horatio was a single father too after his wife died of cancer when Angelo was in upper elementary school so they stuck together. As a result so did their kids. Even now when all they really had in common was a goal to destroy Hunsacher. They were very different people and likely wouldn’t have gotten along at all if they hadn’t known each other their whole lives.

Avery continued drowning in these thoughts as she baked. There were a whole lot of rounds and squares to get made and cooled before the decorating process could even begin. She spent most of the day on that and was beyond ready to crash when her shift ended.

Crashing was exactly what she did if not in the way she was hoping for. Not watching where she was going because of how tired she was, she tripped and fell down the stairs.

There were plenty of people in the way so she hit a few on the way down. They must have softened her fall because she wasn’t dead. She might very well die of embarrassment though because she had bashed heads with the person she landed on and was now bleeding on them.

She immediately covered her nose with her hand and thickly said, “I’m so sorry!”

The man who dazedly blinked up at her was familiar and seemed surprised to see her once he got his bearings. “Avery?”

“Christian! Oh geez, this is even worse because I know you. I mean, I’d feel bad for landing on someone I didn’t know too but—oh, never mind. I’m making things worse so I’ll shut up now.”

“You’re bleeding!” Christian blurted in horror as if he only just noticed it.

She was bleeding a lot. In the time she had been holding her hand up to her nose it had already begun running out of it and down her arm. She may be a villain but she wasn’t good with blood so the sight made her a bit woozy.

“Yeah,” Avery said faintly. “Just a heads up, I might pass out. Don’t worry—it happens a lot.”

“Why wouldn’t I worry if it happens a lot?!”

“I’m not good with blood. Which sucks because I’m going to have to get it off of this white uniform when I get home and be reminded of it all over again.”

“You really need to sort out your priorities. Focus on not fainting first, okay? Laundry can come later,” Christian told her firmly.

“Right.”

“Is it okay if I pick you up? I want to take you to sit down somewhere you’re less likely to get trampled on and try to get the bleeding to stop. If you’re not comfortable with that and would rather walk on your own—”

Avery sighed. “It’s fine. I’m less likely to faint if I don’t have to walk.”

He scooped her up as if she weighed nothing and she was about to die of mortification because she had definitely bled on him already and this might make it worse. She also had the incongruous thought that his arms were seriously muscular.

You wouldn’t guess that by looking at him since they weren’t obvious under his suit. His suit that she bled on. She had no idea how expensive it was or if bloodstains even came off suits. Kill her now.

She had seen a few apology cakes in her day that were oddly specific. Maybe she could make him one that said ‘Sorry I fell on you and had a nosebleed on your suit’. Not that it would fix anything unless he had a really great sense of humor. She had no idea what his was like because they never had never talked for more than five minutes at a time.