“Why are you standing in this line with all of these…people?” Chef Domenico’s disdain for those around her was palpable. His lip curled, and his nostrils pinched as if he’d smelled something foul. His expression made it clear what most displeased him was herself.
He pinched her blouse away from her shoulder with his index finger and thumb and drew her out of the line to sweep her along beside him as he strode past those who’d been waiting in the hot sun since early morning.
“Excuse me,” he drawled, giving a couple in front of him the once over as he pushed through the line. On the other side was another, far shorter line. Domenico marched over and stood in it, his thin lips still quivering with outrage. He waited four back from the desk manned by a Council official.
After a moment, he turned on Lena and growled in her face, “I do not wait in line with the peones, and neither do my people. It is simply not done. Anyone who knows me, knows this. What are you trying to do?”
Taken aback, she stared at the man. His face was florid. Did he care more about discovery or his reputation? She remembered her role as a new sous chef and dropped her gaze seconds before she would have responded to the man in like outrage. “I’m sorry, Chef,” she murmured for any who might be listening. “I forgot. I was just so excited.”
He pulled himself up to his full, impressive height. “Remember your place from here on. I am doing your…father…a favor by hiring you on. But my generosity does have limits. It would be a shame for you both if you exceeded them.”
She kept her head bowed in what might appear to be crimson-faced shame to anyone looking. In reality, the threat left her shaking with rage.
“Papers?” The official snapped at her, and she realized it was the second time he’d spoken.
“Pay attention, you idiot girl,” Domenico hissed at her.
She fumbled her papers out of the folder and handed them over.
“Mina Gardin?”
She nodded, acutely aware of the sweat beaded on her upper lip and across her brow.
The man dribbled a tiny amount of wax from a candle burning beside him across the first of four boxes and neatly pressed a small square seal into it. While the wax dried, he found her name in a ledger before him and initialed beside it. “You’ll present your papers again upon arrival at the Meet, and then again when you rejoin the caravan to leave, and upon arrival home.”
He refolded the papers and handed them back, watching as she tried and failed twice to slide them back into her folder.
Domenico sighed his impatience.
“Keep them with you at all times.” The official smiled, but his lips barely perked. His face remained bored, and he had already focused on the VIP behind her as he extended his arm out and at an angle to be seen around Lena. “Papers?”
Domenico gripped her shirt between his fingers again and tugged her away toward the lines of steam-powered trucks, each with its attached car or trailer. The trucks and refitted train cars filled the cordoned-off parking area behind the Council building.
The converted trucks themselves were large, former industrial trucks retrofitted with fireboxes and boilers in the rear cargo area. Some of them had trailers attached to carry supplies or goods in large cargo boxes, or to carry the wood and water needed to fuel the trucks. Some pulled closed, adapted train cars where the caravaners would travel.
Their car was near the front of the second line of trucks. The position meant they’d be mid-way back from the head of the caravan, several cars down from the luxurious double-car carrying the Councilor. It was also many cars up from the regular kitchen cars and the supply trucks.
How efficient. She’d be spending a good portion of her day trotting back and forth, bringing up the non-specialty supplies they needed to feed Three and his elite staff, including Alex. Unfortunately, she wouldn’t actually be seeing him at all until he came for her in two days.
Domenico released her shirt once they arrived at their car. He marched up the two metal steps to the door, slid it open, and entered. Lena followed.
The train wasn’t what she expected. It was all kitchen, long, sleek, metal, and electric. As the sous chef, one of her responsibilities would be to keep it all powered. A narrow aisle ran the length of it. Stove and ovens were on one side, sinks and counter prep space on the other. At the far end of the aisle, each side had a narrow ladder leading up to curtained privacy areas: their beds. The aisle ended in a door she assumed was the bathroom they’d be sharing. Two flip-down stools at the head of the kitchen across from the entry were the only seating.
It was gleaming, clean, sophisticated, and practical. It only served to underscore that the next forty-eight hours would be hell. If she’d had any doubts, Domenico put them to rest when he walked immediately down the narrow aisle, climbed up the rungs on the wall to the right, and slid his duffel onto the mattress of that bunk.