The kitchen at this hour should hold only two night staff and a security runner. When I walk in, all three stand near the far wall, eyes on the island where a black box sits on the stainless steel.
“Who opened the door?” I ask.
The head cook, Galina, lifts her hand halfway. She’s older. Her knuckles are red from scrubbing.
“It was already unlocked when I came in,” she says, voice tight. “The box was on the counter, no note. I called him.” She nods at the security runner.
“We cleared the bay,” the man says. “No one in the loading bay. The exterior camera shows the door open, then nothing, then closed again. Loop in the feed. Same as upstairs.” He's sweating.
I turn my focus to the box. It is identical to the first—matte black, no markings. The cardboard is dry. I pull gloves on, step to the island, and lift the lid. Inside lies a single photograph.
Raina, tied to a chair.
She's younger, hair shorter, face thinner, arms pinned behind her, ankles lashed to the legs. Tape covers her mouth. A thick rope bites into the skin at her throat hard enough that I can see the strain in her neck. Her eyes are wild. There is a line of blood at her wrist where she fought the ties.
The room behind her is what freezes my breath.
Pale tile, cracked at the corner near the floor. A metal shelving unit with a bent middle rack. An old service sink with a particular rust stain on the left side, like someone once poured out a bucket of diluted paint and never cleaned it properly. I know this room.
Years ago, before renovations, there was a storage area in the north service wing that looked exactly like this. We replaced the shelving, retiled the floor, and moved the plumbing. But the pattern, the dimensions, the way the light hits from the high window—all of it is my house.
The photo isn’t new. The edges are slightly worn, the color a touch faded. This was taken years ago.
The weight in my chest grows heavier by the minute. This isn’t about starting a war. The war was already happening under our noses.
“Out,” I say to the kitchen staff.
Galina starts to protest, then shuts her mouth and ushers them out, pulling the door. I take the box and the photograph andhead into the service corridor behind the kitchen. Pipes drone and pulse above, carrying heat. Storage doors are on both sides, some open, revealing cleaning supplies, linens, crates of bottled water.
Halfway down, near a turn, she crouches in the shadow of a fire extinguisher cabinet.
Bare feet on cold tile, knees pulled to her chest, thin shirt clinging to her back. Her hair has come loose from the knot, strands stuck to her cheek. Her arms are wrapped around her legs, hands gripping her ankles.
“Raina,” I say, the word breaking out of me before I can temper it.
Her eyes are wide, fixed on the far end where the corridor hooks toward the laundry. When she hears my steps, her head snaps toward me. For a second, she looks like she might bolt. Then she recognizes my voice.
“Stay where you are,” she says. Her voice scrapes.
I stop a few steps away, my hand open at my side, gun tucked at my back. She stares past me, down the corridor, as if expecting someone else to step from the shadows.
“There’s no one else here,” I tell her. “He’s gone, if he was ever inside.”
“You don’t know that,” she replies, eyes wild and voice shrill. “You didn’t know last time, either.”
I take one step closer. Her skin has gone pale, but there is a flush high on her cheekbones, fear or anger or both. The small scar on her wrist stands out, white against the tight grip of her own hand.
“Look at me,” I murmur.
She lifts her chin. The tile is cold under us. I can feel it through my socks. The storm outside hums through the pipes. I hold the photograph where she can see it. Every muscle in her body goes rigid. “Where did you get that?” she says. Her voice is paper thin.
“Kitchen,” I answer. “In a box with no return address.”
Her gaze is locked on the picture. She looks like she might be sick. Her fingers claw at her own shins, nails digging in. “That was years ago,” she says. “Before I left.”
“Before you ran.”
“Yes.”
