Chapter 19
Istand at the apartment door with my hand on the knob, choosing this.
Not escaping, not because Gunner asked. I’m going downstairs because I live here now and I want to walk my building.
The tension in Gunner’s shoulders tells me we’re running out of time for whatever he’s planning.
The Hallstein files spread across his desk grow thicker each morning.
The service stairs echo under my bare feet, concrete cool against my skin.
The hallway below stretches empty, just the hum of refrigeration and distant kitchen sounds.
Evening prep smells drift up: citrus, garlic, something slow-cooking that makes my stomach remember I skipped lunch.
The cabaret opens at seven. It's three-thirty now, that liminal time when the building shifts from sleep to preparation.
The kitchen door stands open two doors down the back hallway.
I pause at the threshold, watching Seraphina work.
She's at the central prep table with a chef's knife in one hand, a glass of white wine at her elbow, dicing onions with fluid precision.
Her dark hair is pulled back in a practical knot, her movements economical but graceful.
This is Sera at work: focused, competent, creating something from nothing.
The knife work reminds me of Gunner's hands. Precise, deadly, beautiful.
She glances up, catches me hovering. "Get in here."
I cross into the kitchen, this kitchen that smells like home, if home came with expensive copper pans and a knife collection that could double as weapons. Before I can speak, she picks up her wine glass and extends it to me.
"Taste the mojo," she says, nodding toward the bowl beside her. "Tell me if it needs more sour orange."
The assumption that I belong here, that my opinion matters about her cooking, settles somewhere behind my sternum, warm. I take a spoonful from the bowl. The citrus-garlic marinade floods my tongue, bright and sharp.
"More citrus than my father makes," I say. "But good. Really good."
"Your father cooks?" She resumes dicing, the knife moving in perfect rhythm.
"Badly. But with enthusiasm."
She laughs, a sound that fills the kitchen. "The best kind of cook. Here, paloma, try this too." She slides a plate toward me: thin slices of something I don't recognize, dressed with lime and chili. "New supplier. I'm testing it for tomorrow."
Paloma. Dove. She's given me a name within ninety seconds of my entering her kitchen. The casual intimacy of it closes my throat. When was the last time someone gave me a nickname that wasn't about being small or careful or good? Never, maybe. Not since Maman died.
"You know," she says, not looking up from her knife work, "I haven't known Gunner as long as everyone else, only a few months. But long enough to know that when he brings someone home, it means something."
I scoff. "I'm not sure I qualify as 'brought home' when…"
"When he kidnapped you?" She sets down the knife, wipes her hands on her apron.
"Yeah, we all know the story. Doesn't change what I see.
" She comes around the prep table, stops in front of me.
Her hand finds my shoulder, grip firm. When she speaks again, her voice drops.
"Don't break him. He's not made for it."
The warning lands without threat. She's not protecting him from me. She's telling me he needs protecting. That under all that muscle and silence is someone who could shatter.
I nod once. No promises I can't keep.
She squeezes my shoulder, then returns to her station. "Come back when the lechón's done. Around seven. You look like you need feeding."
I leave Sera's warmth for the cooler hallway, following the sound of singing that drifts from the staff door at the corridor's end.
The Siren's voice, unmistakable even at rehearsal volume, pulls me forward.
Every doorway I pass has its own security camera, little black eyes that Gunner monitors from his security center.
The cabaret floor spreads before me in afternoon light.
Two staff polish silverware at back tables.
The bar stands empty. The dance floor waits, expectant.
On the stage, lit by work lights at half power, the Siren moves through a song in a minor key.
No costume apart from a vivid pink wig, no makeup, just a woman in jeans and a silk camisole, working through phrasing.
She's taller than I expected, maybe 5'9", with the kind of presence that makes stages seem small. Her hair today is her own: dark waves pulled into a messy bun. When she turns, she sees me in the doorway and stops mid-phrase.
"Finally." She walks to the apron and sits on the edge, legs dangling. "The mysterious captive emerges."
I cross to the stage, stop six feet from where she sits. We've never properly spoken, just glimpsed one another through open doors.
"You're a dancer," she says, studying my body with professional assessment. "Where did you train?"
"Joffrey. Briefly."
She doesn't press for details. Adrian or someone has already told her enough. "You have beautiful lines. The way you hold your shoulders, the length of your neck. Dancers always think it's about legs, but it's the neck that makes or breaks a performance."
The compliment lands precisely because it's not about my face. She's seeing me as a body that moves, not a pretty thing to look at. She sees the dancer I was, not the teacher I became. Being seen that way makes me want to cry and dance at the same time.
"Do you sing?" she asks.
"Not really. Not well."
"Shame." She stands, crosses to me, kisses both my cheeks. Her perfume is something expensive and complicated, the kind that would linger on Gunner's clothes. "Come back for a show whenever you want. But come in something you'd actually wear, not what he picked for you."
The observation is gentle but clear. She saw the gold gown night, saw me dressed in Gunner's choices. She's inviting me back as myself.
She returns to the stage, picks up her song where she left off. Her voice follows me through the staff door, a warm presence at my back.
The staff door opens near the bar. Isa sits alone at the third stool from the end, amber liquid in a cut crystal glass. Whiskey neat, no ice. She watches the empty room with the focus of someone noting exits. There's a holstered gun barely visible at her ankle when she shifts.
I hesitate. We've never spoken, though I've seen her from across rooms. She's all sharp angles and contained energy, dark hair pulled back severe, wearing all black like it's a uniform. I walk to the bar, stop two stools away.
She registers me without turning. Then pivots on her stool, looks at me for three full seconds. The assessment is surgical. Not cruel, just complete.
"Staying?" No greeting, just the question.
"Looks like it."
She nods once. Takes a sip of whiskey. "He sleeps now."
"Sometimes."
"Good."
The side door opens. Adrian enters carrying a small white espresso cup on a saucer, the smell of fresh-pulled coffee preceding him.
He crosses behind the bar, walks behind Isa, sets the cup beside her whiskey.
His hand goes to her lower back as he places it down.
The contact lasts two seconds. His palm flat against the small of her back, her spine straightening slightly at the touch.
"My two favorite women, conspiring in the afternoon," he says, the social warmth at full volume but operating fast. "Isa drinking whiskey at three-thirty, very professional. Daphne finding the only quiet corner when there's a whole building to explore."
Isa turns her head to look at him. He's already looking at her. The moment stretches a half-second too long. Both of them perfectly still during it, something unnamed passing between them. Then she picks up the espresso. His hand withdraws. He turns back to me with the warmth intact.
"Make her give you the good stuff, not the rail whiskey she drinks to punish herself." He's already moving toward the back office. "The Japanese bottle, third shelf."
He disappears through the door. My skin prickles with awareness. I've just witnessed something private.
She stands, picks up both drinks. Whiskey in her left hand, espresso in her right. Nods once.
She walks past me toward the back office where Adrian went.
The back hallway stretches ahead. I pass the security office. Door closed, dark.
On the mezzanine, I find Logan's office door ajar.
Juliet sits at the desk surrounded by reservation books and a laptop, brow furrowed in concentration.
She's smaller than I remember from glimpses.
Delicate-boned, blonde hair soft around her face.
When she looks up, genuine pleasure lights her features.
"Daphne! Come in, please. I'm drowning in Saturday's reservations."
I enter, stand near the desk. "Bad?"
"Not bad, just puzzle pieces that don't quite fit. The Siren's doing her torch set, but three tables specifically requested upbeat. I'm trying to figure out if I can move them to Sunday without offending anyone." She closes the laptop with a small sigh. "This job is harder than it looks."
She notices me shifting weight foot to foot, the unconscious dance of someone who never quite stops moving. "You're a dancer."
"Was. Am. It's complicated."
Her face transforms. The soft pleasure of recognition. "My sister, Eleanor Rosetti, is a ballerina. I always thought that sounded so fairy-tale, being a ballerina. Actually, I've started classes, just the basics. What style do you dance? Ballet?"
"Ballet, modern, some contemporary. Whatever my body wanted that day."