2. Valentina
VALENTINA
The driver asks whether we’re sure about the address for the third time after the last casino glow disappears behind us. His eyes keep returning to the rearview mirror as the road gets darker.
“Very sure,” I tell him from the back seat.
Nora says nothing. Her faded blue duffel lies across her lap with the strap looped twice around her wrist, and she has been tracking turns since we left Las Vegas.
Her attention moves from the phone mounted on the dashboard to the road signs and then to the long stretches between intersections.
My army-green bag is wedged between my boots, one heel hooked through the handle because habits do not become less useful just because I tease Nora for hers.
“There’s not much out here,” the driver says.
“That’s where rich people go when they want the music kept private.”
His laugh is uncertain. Nora’s sideways look says my attempt to improve his confidence has failed.
I show her my phone anyway. The blue dot follows the route printed on the contract, cell service still holds, and the employment-office number remains in my recent calls. Back home, Mr. Alvarez has the address, the contact name, and the time we left. None of that makes the landscape less empty.
The road narrows beneath a line of low hills. A pale stone wall appears before the estate does, high enough to hide the buildings behind it, with security lights set at regular intervals. The Uber slows at iron gates and a camera turns toward us before we stop.
“Subtle,” I murmur.
“Camera on the left pillar,” Nora says. “Another above the booth.”
“I saw them.”
She checks my face instead of taking the answer on faith. I lift my chin. “I did.”
Two men in dark suits step out of the guard booth. One remains near the barrier while the other approaches the driver’s window, jacket cut to conceal whatever he carries. He checks our names on a tablet, then asks us to confirm them ourselves.
“Nora Martin. Valentina Cruz,” Nora says.
He scrolls once. “Temporary hospitality staff. You’re expected. Follow the drive to the main entrance.”
The gates open. The driver looks at us again as we roll forward, so I smile because he seems more nervous than I feel and because Nora does not need one more stranger’s fear to measure.
The estate reveals itself in pieces. Irrigated landscaping appears first, indecently green against the desert, followed by another camera and a second stretch of wall. Then the driveway curves and cream stone rises ahead in terraces and balconies.
House is the wrong word. House suggests one family and maybe a dog. This place has wings.
“Our apartment would fit in the entryway,” I say.
“Twice.”
“Three times if we stack the bunks.”
Cars line a side drive, expensive enough that I recognize only some of the logos. Security stands near the steps without getting in anyone’s way. Nora counts them. I do too.
I pay the driver before Nora can argue about splitting it and tip enough that he finally stops looking as though he should call the police on our behalf. We climb out with our own bags.
A woman in a fitted black dress reaches us before the steps. She is somewhere in her forties, with blond hair pinned low and a polished smile that looks capable of surviving an emergency without changing shape.
“Nora? Valentina? I’m Colette. Welcome.”
“Hi. You have a small place.”
Her smile adjusts by half a degree. “We try to make our guests comfortable.”
“Do they get maps?”
“Staff do.”
Nora nearly smiles. Colette either misses it or is kind enough to pretend she does.
“We can have your bags taken to your assigned suite,” Colette offers.
“We’ll keep them,” Nora says.
“Certainly. You’ll be shown the residential wing during orientation and can leave them there before training begins.”
The easy acceptance loosens something in Nora’s shoulders. Inside, another suited man verifies our names and leaves our identification, phones, and bags alone. Nora catalogs every omission while pretending to admire the chandelier.
The check-in hall is crowded with temporary staff, mostly young women and a smaller number of bartenders, caterers, coat-check workers, and people carrying garment bags. Appearance has clearly been screened along with competence. I file that away while the crowd moves around us.
A woman with a long braid and bright red lipstick catches me looking at a table stacked with gold masks. “I’m Bri. If they make us wear those for twelve hours, I’m stealing mine.”
“Valentina. I was already planning to.”
“That’s why I introduced myself. Good instincts.”
The two women beside her laugh. Kayla has short dark curls and a tattoo peeking above one ankle. Jess is blond and freckled, holding a tiny bottle of water she says cost seven dollars at the airport.
“They have free water here,” I tell her.
“I know. I’m trying not to think about it.”
Nora joins us but keeps her body angled toward the entrance. Bri asks whether we’re sisters.
“Foster sisters,” I say.
“Sisters,” Nora corrects.
The correction takes some of the size out of the hall. I fall into step beside her when Colette calls the group to order.
“The gala officially begins tomorrow evening,” Colette says, her voice carrying without strain, “but tonight’s training reception will let staff learn service flow while a limited number of guests arrive.
Discretion is essential. Many attendees are private individuals who expect privacy from everyone working on the property. ”
Event clothing will be delivered to our suites.
Masks are mandatory in public event spaces.
Phones remain ours except during official gala hours, when they go into numbered lockers in the staff corridor and are returned as shifts end.
Off-hours, we keep them in our rooms. Photography is prohibited in guest areas.
Nora raises a hand. “If staff need to make an emergency call during gala hours?”
“Supervisors have access to the lockers, and there are house phones in every service corridor,” Colette answers without hesitation. “You may leave your shift for a genuine emergency. We ask that you notify a supervisor so we know you are safe.”
The answer matches the contract closely enough to satisfy me. Nora writes it down anyway.
Our assigned suite is bigger than the studio, with two beds, a private bathroom, and a window overlooking a courtyard. I put my bag beside one bed. Nora tests the window before she sets hers down.
“Happy?”
“No.”
“Less homicidal?”
“Marginally.”
“I’ll take it.”
Colette’s tour carries us back through the house.
The ballroom doors are taller than our studio ceiling.
Black-and-gold fabric covers the walls while staff move glassware beneath chandeliers and a string quartet tests microphones.
We cross an indoor pool room with a retractable ceiling, pass quiet lounges filled with expensive art, then circle through gardens where fountains waste enough water to make the desert personally offended.
Kayla whispers that she will die if anyone falls into the pool in formalwear. Bri says she will push somebody for fifty dollars. Jess offers twenty if the victim is rich.
“Thirty if he’s annoying,” I say.
Nora does not break stride. “We are getting paid before any of you turns assault into a side hustle.”
“Always limiting our entrepreneurial opportunities.”
The dining hall connects to a large kitchen and then to a service corridor where Colette points out the staff lockers, house phones, and tray routes that keep workers out of the formal hallways. I note the service exit at the far end. Nora notes it at the same time.
We do not say nos vamos. The phrase does not need to be spoken to sit between us.
The main entrance has two visible security stations. The service exit has one guard and a keypad. Staff badges control the residential wing during event hours, and security stays near every major access point without making the guests feel watched.
It could all be normal for an event this expensive. It is still a lot.
Nora glances toward another camera. I bump her shoulder. “Seven between the ballroom and kitchen.”
Surprise flickers across her face. “You counted?”
“What, you think I only notice attractive strangers and unattended desserts?”
“Mostly.”
“Rude. I contain multitudes.”
“You contain stolen dessert forks.”
“They were abandoned.”
“On tables.”
The joke does what I want. For several steps, Nora stops carrying all the vigilance by herself.
I count exits and cameras too. Humor has never meant blindness. It means danger does not get every useful part of me before it earns them.
Colette explains the rest of the staff rules as we walk.
Names overheard from guests stay private.
Questions about occupations are discouraged.
Off-property invitations wait until shifts end.
Private suites are entered only on assignment.
So far, the restrictions sound exactly like wealthy people paying for silence.
By the time we circle back, the estate has become a working map in my head.
The main entrance sits farthest from the residential wing.
The service corridor offers the fastest route to the staff exit.
Two garden gates are marked for emergency use, and doors from the pool open onto a side terrace.
Years of being moved from house to house trained Nora and I to learn a new place before sleeping in it.
The kitchen also contains trays of miniature pastries, the bartender is practicing with liquor none of us could afford, and somebody has ordered enough black roses to decorate a royal funeral. Survival has never managed to erase my other priorities.
Staff light the last candles while the quartet begins playing. Colette stops us at the ballroom threshold to point out table sections and service stations. I am listening when three men enter from the opposite side of the room.
They are already masked.
The first is tall and broad, with dark brown hair touched by early silver at the temples.
A plain black mask leaves his gray-green eyes visible, and he studies the ballroom with the controlled attention of someone accustomed to deciding what matters before he moves.
He wears formal clothes well without looking impressed by them.
The second man is built broader through the chest and shoulders than either companion, deep warm-brown skin visible above his collar and at his hands.
Black curls are cut shorter at the sides.
Tattoos disappear beneath both cuffs and climb the sides of his neck.
His black mask is edged in gold, and he is laughing when they enter; two women notice, he notices them noticing; and the grin stays easy.
The third man is leaner, rangy muscle held unnervingly still beneath dark suit. Deep brown skin, close-cropped black hair, a nose that healed slightly off-center. His very dark eyes move over doors, hands, security positions, and sightlines before they settle on me.
He keeps looking.
Half my face is covered by the same gold staff mask worn by half the women around me, which makes the attention difficult to dismiss as an accident. The broad man follows his line of sight. Then the controlled one does.
They do not crowd one another for the view. One notices; the other two simply include whatever he found. The coordination is quiet enough that most people would miss it.
Bri whispers, “Oh, wow.”
“Which one?” Jess asks.
I should answer. Instead, I watch all three men stop at the same black-and-gold table while the lean one’s eyes remain on me.
The interesting part isn’t that they are attractive. It is the immediate certainty that whatever they are to each other, they move as if none of them expects to be left behind.