I can still remember the day Leo first walked into Sam's Corner Café. It was a rainy Thursday afternoon — the kind where the sky sits low and gray, and the streets of New York feel like they're carrying secrets in their puddles. Mr. Sam had stepped into the back office to review supply orders, leaving Amanda and me to handle the slow hour.
Amanda was behind the counter wiping down the espresso machine, humming softly to herself as she always did when she was comfortable. I was restocking the pastry shelf, pretending not to be tired even though I had barely slept the night before. Life was beginning to stretch us — adulthood was creeping in, and responsibilities were no longer optional.
The bell above the door chimed.
Amanda looked up. I looked up.
And he walked in — Leo.
Tall. Broad-shouldered. Confident in a way that felt too sharp for the quiet warmth of the café. He moved with an unsettling calm, like someone who had already measured everyone in the room and decided exactly how to present himself. His eyes were dark, intense, scanning the shop before landing on Amanda.
It happened in a second — that shift in the air. A subtle tightening I couldn't explain then.
Amanda gave her usual warm smile. "Good afternoon. How can I help you?"
But when Leo looked at her, I saw something flicker across her face — not fear, not yet. More like… confusion. As though she sensed something she couldn't name.
He stepped closer, resting one palm casually on the counter. "You can help me by telling me your name."
Amanda blinked, caught off guard. "My name? Oh… I'm Amanda."
A small smile curled on his lips. "Beautiful name."
I rolled my eyes behind the pastry shelf, because something about his tone felt off — too direct, too familiar, too claiming.
Still, Amanda was polite as always. "Thank you. And what would you like to order?"
Leo didn't look at the menu. "Whatever you recommend."
She laughed nervously. "Um… okay. Latte or cappuccino?"
"Which one keeps you smiling behind this counter?" he asked.
I almost choked on air.
Amanda's cheeks turned pink. "I— I don't know. People say the caramel cappuccino is nice."
"I'll take that," he said. "And… maybe your number too."
That was the moment I froze. I wanted to interrupt, to pull her aside, to whisper, Say no, Mandy. Please say no. But Amanda was raised to be gentle, to avoid causing offense. She didn't know yet that some men take gentleness as permission.
She hesitated… then scribbled her number on the back of a receipt.
Leo tucked it into his jacket pocket, winked, and left with his drink.
The bell chimed again as the door closed behind him.
Amanda exhaled sharply. "Wow… that was—"
"Too much," I finished for her.
She shrugged, but there was uncertainty in her eyes. "He seemed nice."
"He seemed like trouble," I muttered.
But she didn't answer. And deep down, I already knew something had shifted — something that would change all of our lives.
Leo started showing up every day.
Sometimes he ordered coffee. Sometimes he didn't. Sometimes he sat in a corner pretending to read. Sometimes he simply watched Amanda, his gaze heavy enough that even customers noticed.
Mr. Sam joked about it at first. "Ah! Love is knocking on Amanda's door!" he'd say, laughing loudly.
But I wasn't laughing.
I watched the way Amanda's shoulders tensed when Leo entered. The way she tried to keep her distance. The way she sometimes avoided his calls but later apologized for it.
"He's just intense," she explained.
"He's protective."
"He cares about me."
But none of that sounded right.
Because behind every excuse she made for him, there was something else — a quiet fear creeping into her voice, into her movements, into her eyes.
The first sign was the bruise on her wrist.
A small, finger-shaped mark she tried to hide under her long sleeves. But I saw it. And when I grabbed her hand gently, asking, "Amanda, what happened?" she flinched before whispering:
"It was nothing. Leo just panicked when I said I needed space. He said he grabbed me too hard by mistake."
Mistake.
The second sign was when she stopped singing on our way to work. Amanda never stopped singing.
The third sign was when she started checking over her shoulder constantly, biting her nails, apologizing for everything — even when she hadn't done anything wrong.
By then, the darkness around her was no longer distant.
It was sitting beside her.
Holding her by the throat.
Changing her.
One evening, after we closed the café, Amanda stayed behind to clean. I watched her work in silence, noticing the exhaustion in her posture, the sadness in her voice when she said goodnight.
As we walked out into the cool night air, she suddenly said, "He's changing."
I stopped. "Who?"
"Leo," she whispered. "I thought I could handle him. I thought I could control it. But… something is wrong. Something is really wrong."
Her voice broke. She tried to compose herself, but her eyes glistened with tears she didn't want me to see.
"Amanda… what's going on?"
She shook her head, hugging herself. "He gets angry so quickly. He says things… dark things. And he keeps telling me that if I ever leave him, something bad will happen."
A chill ran through me. "Amanda, this isn't normal. You need to—"
"I know," she whispered. "I know. But I don't know how to get out."
Her words pierced me in a way I still feel today.
Because if I had known how deep the darkness truly was… if I had known what Leo carried — not just anger but something ancient, sinister, something rooted in his family's rejected deity — maybe I would have dragged her away that night.
Maybe I would have saved her.
But I didn't know.
Not yet.
All I knew was that my best friend — the girl with the quiet light — was slipping into shadows she didn't deserve.
And I was about to watch a nightmare unfold that would haunt me for the rest of my life.