Page 3 of Dominion's Guard
"When do I start?" I ask.
Margot Pascal extends her hand and a business card. Her grip is firm, dry, the handshake of someone who has never had to ask twice. "Monday. Don't be late."
"I'm never late." I shake her hand. "I'm occasionally unauthorized, but never late."
The corner of her mouth twitches. She lets go of my hand, steps aside, and gestures toward the door.
I walk out of that house carrying nothing except a promise I make in the silence of my own chest, not to her but to myself: I will never break into another building again. I will honor the deal I made with Margot Pascal the same way I honored the debt my mother owed.
The night air hits me on the porch and I stand there, my body still humming with the ghost of adrenaline, the folded gloves balled tight in my fist. The life I've been living is behind me. Ahead of me there's a club I've never seen, a debt I'm going to pay the hard way, and the first person in years who looked at me and saw something worth keeping.
1
RENATA
Present Day
The last drink I build tonight is a Sazerac for a man who tips like he's trying to buy absolution.
My hands know the recipe by feel and rhythm rather than measurement. Rye whiskey, Peychaud's bitters, a sugar cube muddled until it dissolves, the glass rinsed with absinthe and turned out so just the ghost of it remains. The lemon peel twists between my fingers, oils releasing a bright citrus burst that cuts through the heavier scents of the room. I set the drink on a cocktail napkin, centered, the way Margot taught me.
He takes it without looking up. Most of them don't look up. That's fine. I prefer the ones who treat me like part of the architecture.
Dominion hums with its usual Friday energy tonight. The main floor carries the low thrum of conversation and negotiation, leather furniture catching the amber glow of sconces mounted along exposed brick walls. Music sits beneath everything, deep enough to feel in the soles of my feet but low enough to let voices carry. The air smells the way it always doesafter midnight: cologne layered over aged bourbon, with the trace of leather and the orchids Margot insists on keeping fresh at every table.
I know every member in this room by their drink. The couple in the corner booth take their Hendrick's and tonics with cucumber sliced thin, never muddled. The silver-haired man at the far end of the bar nurses his Pappy Van Winkle neat, same as every Friday since I started. He always tips well beyond the cost of the drink and never tries to make conversation, which makes him my favorite regular.
The woman at stool six orders a French 75 with her eyes already scanning the room. New member, second visit. Her hands are still but her gaze moves too fast, cataloging faces, exits, the hallway that leads to the private rooms upstairs. She'll settle in eventually. They all do. Margot doesn't let people through vetting unless they belong here, and belonging here takes a self-knowledge that most people spend their whole lives avoiding.
"We’re getting to the end of the evening, so this is last call, " I tell her.
She picks up her glass, takes a careful sip, and some of the tension in her shoulders loosens. "Thank you."
I begin wiping down my station and start closing procedures. The barback, Terrence, handles the heavy lifting on restocking while I reconcile the register and log inventory for the morning crew. Margot runs a tight ship. Every bottle accounted for, every pour tracked. The sort of operational precision that would make a logistics officer weep. I respect it because I understand it. Control over variables is how you keep a system running clean. Systems are what I do, what I've always done. The only difference is that the entry points I map now are liquor bottles instead of windows, and the exits I track lead to the kitchenand the underground lot instead of fire escapes and service corridors.
The last members filter out. I finish my counts, lock the register, hang my apron in the service closet. My ponytail has loosened over the course of the shift and I pull the elastic free, shake out my hair, and retie it tighter. My shoulders ache from hours of reaching and pouring, and my feet have the dull throb that comes from standing on hard floors in shoes that prioritize grip over cushion.
I grab my bag from the staff locker, wave goodnight to Terrence, and take the service elevator down to the underground lot. The fluorescent lights buzz their usual pale greeting, washing everything in blue-white that makes the garage floor look clinical. My MINI Cooper sits in the employee section, tucked between Terrence's pickup and a sedan I don't recognize from the evening shift.
The engine catches on the first turn. The seat adjusts to my frame, snug and close, everything within reach. Seatbelt clicks, mirrors set, and I pull out into the New Orleans night with the windows cracked.
October in New Orleans doesn't mean fall the way the rest of the country means it. The humidity has backed off just enough to stop feeling like a personal insult, but the air still carries weight after midnight, warm and thick with river water and jasmine and the slow exhale of a city that holds its heat long after the calendar says it shouldn't.
The drive from the Warehouse District to the Irish Channel takes no time at this hour. I know every turn. The route is so embedded in my body that I sometimes arrive at my parking garage without any conscious memory of the drive. Tonight I'm thinking about the inventory order for next week, about whether the new vermouth needs a different ratio in the Manhattans,about the text from Margot asking me to come in early for a staff meeting.
Ordinary thoughts. The sort that fill the spaces between work and sleep when your life has settled into something stable enough to be boring, and you've learned to love the boredom because the alternative was prison.
The parking garage sits a block from my building. I pull in, take the ramp to the second level, swing into my usual spot. Same space for years, paid monthly, cheaper than any alternative in this neighborhood that doesn't involve parking on the street and praying the meter maids sleep in.
I kill the engine and sit for a second. The garage is quiet. A few cars dot the level, the usual overnighters belonging to residents in the surrounding buildings. The air carries that garage smell, motor oil and exhaust and damp stone that never fully dries in a city built on a swamp.
My bag goes over one shoulder. Keys in my right hand, positioned between my fingers out of habit rather than active threat assessment. The stairwell is on the far side of the level, steps leading down to the ground floor and the pedestrian exit that opens onto the street a block from my building.
The stairwell door echoes when it closes behind me. My footsteps bounce off the walls, rubber soles slapping poured stone. One flight down. The landing turns and the second flight drops to the ground level, opening into the shadowed stretch of pavement between the entrance ramp and the pedestrian exit.
I'm a few steps from the bottom when I hear the voice.
Low. Male. Controlled in a way that stops me cold because I know what controlled sounds like. I spent years learning the difference between someone who is calm and someone who is performing calm, and whoever is speaking below me in the shadows past the stairwell exit is performing.
