Chapter 3 - Blood on the Countertops
The quarters they gave me were on the second floor, just off the service staircase behind the kitchen. It was larger than any apartment I had ever rented, equipped with a private bathroom, a deep clawfoot tub, and a bed piled high with down comforters.
I didn’t sleep. I spent forty-five minutes soaking the Philadelphia frost out of my bones, watching the water turn grey, scrubbing away four months of exhaust fumes and despair. At 3:30 AM, dressed in clean, functional black slacks and a white chef’s coat I found hanging in the wardrobe—left behind by whoever had fled this place—I walked down the dark stairs into the kitchen.
It was a commercial masterpiece. Six industrial Garland ranges, walk-in freezers the size of bank vaults, cutting boards made of four-inch end-grain maple, and hanging racks lined with copper and carbon-steel pans.
It was also an absolute disaster.
Empty pizza boxes were stacked four feet high in the corner. Rotting takeout containers sat open on the stainless-steel prep tables. Dried marinara sauce was smeared across the induction burners, and the sink was filled to the brim with greasy coffee mugs and shattered beer bottles.
“Animals,” I muttered under my breath, tying an apron tightly around my waist. “Absolute animals.”
By 4:30 AM, the music began. Not from a radio, but from my hands.
The sound of bleach hitting tile. The harsh, rhythmic scrape of steel wool against scorched carbon steel. The thud of industrial trash bags being dragged to the back loading dock. By 5:15 AM, the kitchen smelled of pine, lemon, and hot steam.
Then came the food.
I found forty pounds of russet potatoes in the cool cellar. Within twenty minutes, my knife was flying against the cutting board—a steady, hypnotic *tap-tap-tap-tap* that reduced the spuds to perfect, uniform cubes. I dropped them into smoking cast-iron skillets with clarified butter, diced Spanish onions, smoked paprika, cracked black pepper, and fresh rosemary I found in the herb cooler.
Next came the meat. Thick-cut butcher’s bacon laid out across four baking sheets, sizzling in the convection ovens. Three dozen country sausages browning in a massive tilting skillet. In a heavy stockpot, I started a country sausage gravy from scratch, building a dark, nutty roux with the drippings, whisking in whole milk and heavy cream until it coated the back of a wooden spoon like velvet.
By 6:00 AM, the aroma had crept out of the service hallway, drifting through the high arches of the mansion and sinking into every bedroom, barracks, and tactical office in Ravenwood.
And that was when the wolves started waking up.
The first was a massive, bearded man with tattooed knuckles spelling *DEATH* and *TAXES*. He stumbled into the kitchen wearing an unbuttoned tactical vest over a grey thermal shirt, a Glock 19 holstered at his hip. His eyes were bleary, his dark hair sticking up in wild spikes.
Without saying a word, without washing his hands, he stepped right past me, reached a massive, hairy hand toward the baking sheet of fresh bacon, his dirty fingers hovering an inch from the crisp meat.
*CLANG!*
I swung the solid stainless-steel commercial ladle with pinpoint accuracy, slamming the rounded edge down against the stainless table half an inch from his thumb.
The metal rang like a church bell. The man jerked his hand back, snarling, his hand instinctively dropping to the grip of his pistol.
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**“Touch my food like that again,”** I whispered, stepping right into his chest, looking straight up into his bloodshot eyes, **“and you’ll be eating oatmeal through a straw.”**
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