Chapter 4: Fourteen Nannies and One Quiet Place Near the Kitchen Door
The dining room had not returned to normal. It had only learned how to move around the damage.
A busser stood beside the broken table with a dustpan held against his leg, waiting for the last guests to be escorted away from the nearest chairs. The rain pressed dark stripes against the tall windows. Somewhere behind me, glass shifted under a broom. Each small sound made Lucia’s shoulders tighten.
She stayed close enough that I could feel her presence without touching her. Her navy dress was wrinkled at the waist and marked with dust from the floor. Her dark hair hung wild around her pale face. She kept looking toward the bodies in dark suits, then back to me, as though measuring which direction had fewer walls.
I had a tray abandoned near the edge of the dining room and a section of tables waiting for service. The glasses on it trembled whenever someone passed. A manager watched the tray, then watched me, and finally glanced toward the kitchen. No one asked me to leave Lucia. No one had to. The unspoken instruction was already there: get back to work.
I moved slowly toward the service entrance, keeping the kitchen door in sight and leaving the dining room open behind us. Lucia followed after a pause. She did not take my hand. She did not need to. Her shoes made two soft sounds against the floor, then stopped whenever I stopped.
The kitchen corridor was brighter than the dining room, crowded with stainless steel counters, stacked plates, and staff moving carefully around one another. It was not private. The cooks could see the doorway, and anyone in the restaurant could see into the corridor if they looked. I pulled a folded linen-covered crate away from the wall and set it near the kitchen door, where Lucia could sit without being boxed in.
She lowered herself onto it, knees drawn close. Her eyes remained on the dining room.
Gideon stood several yards away, tall and rigid in his dark suit. The bodyguards had formed no obvious line, but their positions made one. One blocked the wider passage. Another watched the kitchen entrance. Gideon’s gaze moved from Lucia to me, then to the damaged table. He looked as if he were waiting for the correct moment to reclaim the scene.
When he took one step forward, Lucia immediately pressed her back against the wall.
He stopped.
The pause was more powerful than any order. Gideon’s face tightened, but he did not advance again. A bodyguard turned slightly toward him, awaiting direction. None came.
The manager pointed toward my tray. I picked it up and carried it through the service area, placing fresh water and clean glasses on two tables near the far wall. I made three trips. Each time, I kept Lucia in view. She sat by the kitchen door, watching my movements with the guarded attention of someone expecting to be left behind.
A server brought me a stack of menus. I tucked them beneath my arm, then returned to the corridor. Lucia had shifted on the crate. Her feet were now angled toward me instead of the dining room.
Gideon remained where he was.
The number came from him without explanation, directed toward no one in particular and offered like a fact that should settle the matter. “14 nannies couldn't even get near her.”
No one answered. The sentence hung in the warm corridor beside the smell of coffee and roasted meat. It did not explain Lucia. It explained only that repeated control had failed to create safety.
I placed the menus on a service shelf. My hands had begun to shake, not from fear alone but from the practical knowledge that my shift was continuing without me. A table near the windows needed clearing. Another had been waiting for water before the interruption. The manager checked the dining room clock.
Lucia noticed.
Her fingers closed around the edge of the crate. She looked at me, then at the room I had to return to. Gideon saw it too. He took another step, careful and measured.
Lucia slid off the crate.
May you like
I set the menus down again.
The kitchen door swung open behind me, and a cook emerged carrying a tray of plates. There was nowhere left to stand without choosing one obligation over another. My work waited in the dining room. Lucia waited beside the door. Gideon waited for me to move.
Related Stories
