Chef.
My father’s chef.
My flesh tightens around me, threatening to suffocate me.
“Dani?”Raven is in front of me suddenly.“Look at me.”
I do.Her eyes are fierce and frightened.
“You okay?”she asks.
“No.”The word surprises me with its honesty.“But I will be.Once Belinda is back home.”
Vinnie straightens.“Gordon Brown, likethatGordon Brown?”
Chef blinks.“So I was right to make the connection.”
Raven squeezes my fingers once before letting go and standing.Her spine is steel.“Dani’s father had a chef,” she says.“Not a cook.Not a house helper.A trained chef.”
Chef meets Vinnie’s gaze and then Raven’s.He resists looking at me.“Is that…bad?”
I swallow.The language I want is ugly.The language I choose is clean.“He’s dangerous.”
My mind whirls.
Diego Vega.
Chef Gordon Brown.
How is this all connected?
Maybe it’s not.
But Chef Charleston felt the connection.It was enough to drive him to come here in the early hours of the morning.
And in that instant, I know it with bone-deep certainty…
Belinda isn’t just in danger.
She’s in the kind of danger people don’t come back from.
