Chapter 3
RAVEN
The next evening, The Silver Table smelled of roasted garlic, expensive cognac, and hypocrisy.
I entered through the front door this time, my cane tapping a sharp staccato on the polished marble. The air conditioning was humming its low D-flat drone, and underneath it, the murmur of the dinner rush was just beginning to swell.
"Raven! My god, you're here."
It was Geoffrey, the floor manager. His voice was pitched an octave too high, laced with that frantic, patronizing worry I loathed.
He smelled of peppermint breath mints and nervous sweat, and he always seemed surprised to see me even though I'd been playing piano at this restaurant since my father owned it.
"I'm on the schedule, Geoffrey," I said, keeping my face neutral. "Why wouldn't I be here?"
"Well, just... with the rush... I mean, it's going to be packed tonight. A lot of VIPs. Are you sure you're up for it? I can put on the playlist."
I stopped, turning my head slightly to where his voice originated, about five feet eight inches off the ground.
"I've been playing this room since before I can remember.
And for the past year without being able to see the piano.
Do you think I forgot where the keys are since yesterday?
Or that I'll suddenly forget how to play because there's a bunch of people here I can't see anyway? "
"No, no! Of course not," he stammered. "I just... I don't want you to get overwhelmed."
Overwhelmed. The code word for in the way.
"I'm fine," I said, stepping around him. I didn't need to count the steps to the piano. My body knew the distance. Nineteen paces past the host stand, slight left, twelve paces to the raised platform.
As I moved deeper into the room, the acoustic landscape shifted. The casual dining chatter faded, replaced by the guttural, low-frequency rumble coming from the back booths.
The Russians were here.
The Silver Table was my father's legacy, his pride and joy.
The dream he'd built from nothing, brick by brick, table by table. He’d fought for this place, sweating over ledgers and arguing with suppliers until it became the kind of establishment where Austin's elite made reservations months in advance.
It was supposed to be his retirement. It was supposed to be my inheritance.
Instead, it was a mausoleum I visited every night.
I could still feel the phantom sensation of the old back office, the air thick with the smell of receipt paper and lemon polish.
That’s where he’d crammed the battered upright piano, wedged between overflowing filing cabinets and boxes of crisp linens.
I remembered the weight of his hands—calloused, warm, an impossibly large—guiding my small ones across the yellowed keys.
He’d press against my back, a solid wall of safety I hadn’t realized was temporary.
"Feel it, Raven," he’d murmur, his voice a low rumble vibrating through his chest and into my spine. "Music isn't heard. It's felt. It has weight. Texture. Close your eyes and let your fingers find the truth."
He thought he was teaching me art. He didn't know he was training me for survival.
He couldn't have known that headlights would blind us, that metal would scream, and that I'd wake up in a world permanently stripped of light.
The irony of it all wasn't lost on me. He'd prepared me for the darkness, taught me to see without eyes, to read the vacuum-sealed silence of a room before a single word was spoken.
Now, I used those lessons to navigate the floorboards he’d practically laid by hand. But I wasn't playing for him anymore. I was the helpless, tragic blind girl, put on display for the men who had swooped in to pick the meat off his bones.
His beloved restaurant was a nothing but a front for the Bratva. I knew it. Hell, everyone knew it, though no one said it. The new owners, a conglomerate called 'Vostok Holdings,' paid well and tipped better, but the men who sat in the corner booth weren't there for the stroganoff.
I cataloged their voices as I passed.
The Wheeler-Dealer: Wheezing laugh, smells of cheap cigars.
The Enforcer: Rarely speaks, heavy breathing, the creak of leather shoulder holsters.
And Viktor: The one I thought of as the shark.
I felt the air shift as I neared the piano and smelled mint and vanilla. I didn't have to see him to know Viktor was standing there.
He stood directly in my path to the bench, and he didn't move out of my way when I stopped, the tip of my cane just grazing his expensive Italian loafers. I knew the kind of shoes he wore because I'd overheard one of the waitstaff talking about his expensive taste in footwear once.
"Evening, Raven," he said. His accented voice was smooth, like gravel tumbling in oil. Some women would find it sexy, and I might too if I didn't know who he really was and who he worked for.
"Viktor," I nodded, keeping my chin up but my eyes unfocused. "You're blocking my instrument."
"An artist needs her box," he mused, but he didn't move. "I saw you left late last night," he said. It wasn't a question.
My pulse spiked, but I forced my breathing to remain even. I was a performer. And this was just another stage.
"Did I? The set ran long. The couple at table four requested Clair de Lune three times." I tilted my head slightly, letting my gaze drift past him toward nothing.
"You went out the back."
"I always do. The bus stop is closer that way," I lied effortlessly. It was closer, but if I didn't have my sneakers I took the front to avoid the trash. "Why the interest in my commute? Worried I'll get mugged?"
He laughed quietly. "No. But I was wondering if you happened to hear anything back there? Anything... unusual?"
The pause before 'unusual' was heavy. He was weighing me.
I imagined the blood on my shoe. The silence. The feeling of eyes on me.
I smiled, a vapid, innocent curve of lips.
A mask I'd perfected after coming back to work here.
They had no idea who lived behind these useless eyes.
"Hear anything? Just the dumpster cats fighting.
And I think a garbage truck was backing up a few streets over.
Why? Did I miss some kind of excitement? "
I tilted my head, offering him my blind profile. I knew exactly what he saw: a helpless woman in a red dress with vacant eyes and a cane. A doll. Nothing more than a puppet who entertained on cue.
Viktor was quiet for exactly five seconds. Then I heard the fabric of his suit rustle as he leaned in, his minty breath ghosting over my face. "Just be careful in the alley at night, Raven. It's not safe for someone like you. Too many shadows."
"I live in the shadows, Viktor," I said, my voice dropping a soothing octave. "I don't mind them."
He grunted, finally stepping aside. "Play something cheerful tonight. No funeral marches."
"I'll see what I can do." I'll see. Ha! Blind joke. I wondered if he caught it. Probably not. Subtlety wasn't Viktor's strong suit.
Once I heard his footsteps moving away, I navigated the step up to the platform, found the bench with my knee, and sat. Taking a moment to center myself, I adjusted the bench distance. My hands found the keys, the familiar cool ivory grounding me.
I was shaking. Just a little.
He was fishing. He surely knew I'd walked through the blood. He wanted to know if I'd understood what it was.
I launched into a Chopin Nocturne, letting the melody ripple out across the dining room. The customer conversations dipped, then resumed, creating a rhythmic undertone to my playing.
I let the music take me somewhere else. To a place where I felt powerful. Here, I controlled the tempo. I controlled the emotion. I could make these murderers and thieves feel sadness, joy, or nostalgia with nothing more but the shift of a chord.
My fingers flew, muscle memory taking over. And as I fell into the music, the darkness behind my eyelids filled with the colors of the notes—deep blues and purples and golds. The colors of the night.
But about an hour into the set, the feeling returned.
The restaurant was full now. Clinking silverware, laughter, and the hiss of the espresso machine nearly overpowering the sound of the piano. But beneath the noise, a singular sensation pricked the back of my neck.
It wasn't Viktor. I could hear Viktor arguing in Russian near the kitchen doors.
This was something else. Something much more focused than the usual stares.
Someone was watching me. Not watching the performance. Watching me. Chills raced up and down my arms. It wasn't fear exactly. It was something else. Something that felt like recognition, though that made no sense.
I transitioned into a darker piece, Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in C-sharp minor. The heavy, ominous chords crashed through the room as I tried to ignore the prickle of my skin.
Either someone was completely entranced by my playing, or someone was watching me. I was certain of it. But just to be sure, during a pause in the song, I turned my head slightly to the right, feigning a stretch, my ear straining to filter the sounds in the room.
There. Right there.
Breathing.
Someone was standing near the service alcove, just to the right of the stage. Too still to be a waiter. Too quiet to be a guest.
And the presence felt…familiar, somehow.
My fingers didn't falter, but my mind began to race. Was it the killer?
Or was it something worse?
I pressed harder on the keys, the music swelling violently. Let them watch. Let them think I was just a blind girl playing pretty songs in a cage.
I knew the shape of the cage now.
Time to start rattling the bars.