Page 24 of Deliverance

"Dragged into this?"

I felt like I could see eyes on us as we talked in the darkened hallway, as though someone was watching the camera feed or would eventually. "I have to explain later." I nudged my head toward the black dome above us. "There are eyes everywhere."

"I know. Even in our rooms."

Of course, there were. "We'll figure this out," I told her as I started for the stairwell opening. "Just give me time to learn how everything is run."

Erin gave a slight nod and then moved past me, opening one of the closed doors. I saw that it was a bathroom. Doing the math in my head, did that mean each girl had their own room plus six rooms for theirwork? What about the little blonde girl I saw? And what was upstairs where Saffron had come down from? The stairwell went down and not up. As I walked down the dim flight of stairs, I didn't see a camera. Frank had told David that there were cameras. Was that a lie? If so, how did Frank know about David and Lana?

When I got to the bottom of the stairs, a man in a white chef's coat was at the stove frying bacon. He glanced at me, returned to his skillet, but then quickly looked at me again. "Hello. Have we met?"

"No." I stuck out my hand. "I'm Ricardo, head of security."

"Martin, Madam's chef."

"Nice to meet you." Was heonlySaffron's chef? It wouldn't surprise me if that were the case. "It's my first official day. I'm just giving myself a tour."

"Please, look around. I'm making Madam's breakfast. She should be waking now."

I gave a curt nod and looked around the industrial style kitchen. There were cameras in two corners diagonal from each other, and I wondered if the farthest one could see into the stairwell. Maybe that was how Frank knew about David and Lana.

There were three doors at the far end of the room. "Where do those go?" I asked Martin.

He set the fully crisp bacon on a plate that had a paper towel on it. "The left one is my bedroom. The middle one leads to the service elevator, and the one closest to us is the pantry."

I balked. "Service elevator?"

"Yes, but only Mr. Russo and Madam know the code."

Did that mean Martin wasn't here under his own choice? "What is it used for?" I questioned.

"Brings in food for me to cook and stocks the pantry for the girls."

"If you don't know the code, how does it work?"

"I—" A buzzer sounded. "Madam is ready for her breakfast. I must go."

"Sure." I knew I had to get more info on the service elevator. If anything, that would be the way out, but not if only Frank and Saffron knew the code. Would I be able to gain access since I was Saffron's head of security?

I started up the stairs just as Erin was coming down. I looked around again to see if I could see any cameras. I couldn't.

"What's up the glass staircase?" I asked as we stopped at each other.

"Madam's quarters, I assume. I only saw a sitting room."

The kitchen wasn't overly large, and I assumed Martin's room wasn't either. How did it not extend to the other end of the penthouse like the main floor? In fact, the ceiling of the living room was as high as the stairs went, so that meant Saffron's space wasn't as large either. But what was below us?

I let Martin come up before me so I could continue to talk to Erin. She started to walk past me again, but I grabbed her wrist. "I'm sorry about the other night. I honestly didn't know the taxi driver was on Frank's payroll."

"How were you a bouncer and now you're here?"

I let go of her arm and sighed. "Someone tried to kill Frank at Lock. I saved him, and it got me mixed up in this shit."

"So, if we both never stepped foot in that club, we wouldn't be here?"

I smiled tightly at her. She was right, and it pissed me off even more. "Yeah, but one day, I'm getting you and the others out."

"One day soon?"