Page 51 of Beautiful Savage
"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 holdyour 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."
