“Mmm.”
She sat back down and studied me with the focused attention of a woman who made it her business to notice things. “Something’s loose.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Yes, you do.” She picked up her menu with the air of someone who had already decided what she was ordering. “You walked in here like a person instead of a portrait. It’s a good look on you.”
I opened my own menu and did not examine that observation too closely.
Dottie ordered for both of us with cheerful authority, something with pasta, something with wine, bread that arrived almost immediately as though it had been waiting, and then settled her chin in her hand and looked at me with the patient expectation of a woman who had decided this lunch had a purpose and was prepared to wait me out.
“The guards come everywhere?” she asked. Casual. No pity in it. That was what made it possible to answer.
“Everywhere.” I broke a piece of bread. “My father’s preference.”
She glanced toward Vlad and Dimitri, back to me. Said nothing. Just nodded once, the small nod of a woman filing something away without making it a moment and reached for her wine. That was all. No widened eyes, no careful sympathy, no “oh how awful” dressed up as concern. She simply registered it, accepted it, and moved on, and the relief of that was so disproportionate to the gesture that I had to look away for a moment.
“So,” she said. “Two scenes with our mysterious sadist.”
“We’re starting there.”
“Honey, we started there the moment I saw your face.” She pointed her fork at me with zero apology. “Two scenes. Private room at Valhalla. And before you tell me it’s complicated, I already know it’s complicated. Everyone’s life is complicated, that’s not information.”
I almost smiled. “You’re very difficult to deflect.”
“I practice.” She tilted her head. “How are you feeling?”
It was such a simple question. How was I feeling. Not what happened or what does it mean or where is this going. Just how was I feeling, present tense, right now in this restaurant with bread on the table and two bodyguards by the door.
“Strange,” I said honestly. “Like something has… shifted. And I don’t have the right framework for it.”
Dottie nodded slowly. “Strange good or strange scary?”
“Both. Simultaneously.” I looked at my wine. “I don’t understand it. Two encounters with a man I barely know and I feel—“ I stopped.
“Safe?” Dottie offered quietly.
I looked up at her.
“Yeah,” she said, without triumph. “That one sneaks up on you, doesn’t it?”
“It doesn’t make sense. Logically. He’s practically a stranger. I know his club name and approximately nothing else. Why would I feel—“
“Because he paid attention.” She said it simply, like it was obvious, which perhaps it was to everyone except me. “Real attention. Not the kind that’s looking for something or managing something. The kind that’s just… actually there.” She swirled her glass. “That’s rarer than it should be. Your nervous system knows the difference even when your head hasn’t caught up yet.”
I sat with that for a moment.
“What do you know about him?” I asked. “Outside the club.”
Dottie’s expression did something interesting, a small brightening, a shift into the particular pleasure of someone who has good information and has been waiting to be asked for it. “Master Loki. Real name Jared… Jared Kane.” She watched my face as she said it. “You didn’t know that.”
I knew the first part as he’d added the name to his text message. Now I had the second part. Kane.
Somehow together, it felt more dangerous than Loki.
I turned it over silently. It suited him in a way I couldn’t immediately explain. Less theatrical than Loki, more specific. Something with weight to it.
“No,” I said. “I didn’t.”
