I ignore the title and scan the corners. The ribbon in my pocket feels heavier. “Where’s Aoife?”
“In the front. Menu meeting.”
“Ten minutes,” I say, then lower my voice. “New rules as of today. You’ll get them from Benny. You will enforce them and you will make them sound like her idea.”
Siobhan’s smile keeps its shape but loses its warmth. “Copy that.”
I move through the kitchen like I built it—because in a way I did—checking sightlines. At the pass I put my palm under the marble and test the underside for space. Good. Plenty of room for a panic button that a chef can hit with the heel of a hand while shouting about plates. I make a note to bolt the rear service door from the inside during prep and only open on a knock pattern. It’s a fine line between fortress and prison. I have learned to walk it.
I find Aoife in the dining room with her manager, debating the merits of a December special. She’s in a dark sweater and an apron, hair pinned up with a pencil. The pencil has flour on it. This wrong, small detail lifts something in my chest that shouldn’t lift in a room full of witnesses.
“Orange-glazed carrots with smoked butter,” she’s saying. “They’ll forgive the sweetness if the char is right.”
“They’ll forgive anything if you plate it,” the manager says, and I like him more for the truth than the flattery.
She sees me and her mouth tightens before she gets control of it. That’s progress. That’s trust on brave little legs. “You’re early,” she says.
“Couldn’t stay away,” I answer, light on the surface, heavy under it. “Can we talk?”
Her eyes flick to the manager. “Ten minutes,” she says, a mirror of my order to Siobhan, and she leads me to the corner table that catches the winter light as if it was made for it.
“What is it?” she asks, businesslike.
“Another woman,” I say. I keep my voice low, even. “Late shift. Hospitality. Southie. The ornament was a wren.”
Her face goes still. Not blank—she’s not a woman who hides herself that way—but still like a blade laid flat. “And you’re telling me because?”
“Because you work late. Because you have a staff that walks to trains and rides home in darkness.” I pause. “Because I will not have you hear it from a screen.”
I tell her the rules. I make them sound like logistics and not fear. She listens with her mouth pressed into a line that no man can soften. “You installed buttons,” she says when I finish, not a question.
“Today.”
“And you didn’t ask me.”
“I’m asking you now,” I say. “Forgive the sequence.”
Her laugh is short. “I’m not your—” She stops, corrects herself. “Soldier.”
“No,” I say, and let the word sit. “You are the general of this kitchen. I’m giving you a perimeter.”
“Which you will patrol without my consent.”
“Which I will patrol whether you give it or not,” I answer, and she hates that I say it because it’s true. “There are things I can bend. Not this.”
She breathes out slowly through her nose. “Fine. But you use my words to tell my people. Not yours.”
“Done.”
She touches the table with her fingertips as if anchoring herself. “Anything else?”
I nod, accepting the victory like a bread crumb a starving man pretends is a meal. “I’m visiting his school at noon.”
Her eyes flicker with something I don’t name because if I name it I’ll hold it too hard. “Ask his teacher if he can bring the dragon drawing for the winter wall.”
“I will.”
I leave before the room can make me reckless. In the corridor I find Benny, give him the list in terse syllables. He doesn’t ask why. He never does. By noon I’m pushing through the glass doors of the play school where the walls smell like tempera paint and hand soap and childhood.
