Reckless Road (Torpedo Ink 5)

Zyah certainly didn’t have Alena’s expertise, but she did have a certain understanding, thanks to Anat, of cooking times. She had good awareness of when foods were supposed to come off a grill or the heat. Instinctively, she pulled two of Alena’s pans from the heat.

“Holy God in heaven,” Storm said. “Zyah, do you have a death wish? Alena doesn’t let anyone mess with her main dishes.”

“They’re going to burn,” Zyah replied calmly, but her heart was pounding.

“Damn it,” Ice exploded. “Who’s on her out there?”

“Fatei, says she’s otherwise occupied right now,” Keys answered, letting Ice know another club member was watching her.

“Do you want me to let it burn?” Zyah asked. “This chicken was for someone. Where’s the tag?” She found it and frowned, reading it.

“No,” Storm said. “But she might kill us.”

“Can you put it together like it’s supposed to be?” Ice asked.

“I don’t know how. Do you have a picture? Glitch? Can you?” Zyah asked. “I think it’s chicken Kiev. They need to be drained immediately. I have to check that they’re done and not overcooked.” She did so carefully, checking for tenderness, willing each piece to be cooked all the way through but still be flaky. Thankfully they were, and they were filled with good richness inside. Definitely chicken Kiev, and a recipe she wanted, it looked so good.

Glitch shook his head. “It always comes to me fully prepared. The plate, I mean. She has photographs of the finished dishes.”

“Maybe there’s a description on the menu. Give me the menu and I’ll see what I can do. I’ll need the photograph as well.” Zyah wanted to run. She looked around, saw the nearest sink and washed her hands thoroughly while they scrambled to get the menu and photographs for her of the meal she needed to prepare fast.

Zyah worked as quickly as she could, trying not to hear her heart pounding, following the description on the menu and the picture. She added steamed green beans and carrots topped with fresh whipped butter. She added rice pilaf cooked in chicken broth, with a few sprigs of parsley. When she was satisfied she had the four dishes as close to perfection as possible, she sent them to Glitch to finish off and turned to look at the next tags. It was better than looking at either Storm’s or Ice’s face.

“You did good,” Storm whispered. “Alena would hate it if her customers had to wait or if she burned something she couldn’t repair. You did your best to help her out. That’s all she’s going to see. It’s on her if she chose to try to keep that stupid relationship going.”

“It’s obviously not stupid to her,” Zyah whispered back as she looked at the next tag. This one looked much simpler. Only two plates. Both were the same. She could handle these with more confidence. “Perhaps she wouldn’t feel so alone if you got behind her a little more.”

Storm didn’t reply, and Zyah busied herself setting up the shredded beef with whiskey sauce, which was already prepared—she just had to make up the actual plates. That consisted of shredding the beef and putting it on a platter, adding the sauce on top of the meat, putting slices of fresh green apple and cheddar cheese on top. Around the sides she added the slices of avocado, lettuce leaf, thinly sliced beefsteak tomato, pickle spears, grainy mustard and thin slices of toast.

By the time she’d handed the plates off to Glitch, Alena had returned, rushing in and looking stressed, harried and guilty all at once. She avoided her brothers’ gazes, hurrying to the sink to wash her hands and then to the stove.

Zyah stepped hastily aside, moving quickly to put herself in the corner out of the way again, twisting her fingers together. She could see Alena was upset and mortified.

“Did my chicken Kiev burn? Storm?” Alena turned to her brother. “My chicken? My shredded beef? What happened?”

“Zyah dealt with it,” Storm said. “She did a pretty good job from what I saw too. Unless the customers drop dead, you might want to hire her.”

Alena looked up, her gaze searching until it rested on Zyah. “Thank you. I really appreciate you stepping up. That’s not happened before.”

Zyah nodded. “No problem. But I really do have to get home. My grandmother gets very anxious if I’m too late. Since the robbery, she’s been on edge.”

“She does know that our brothers won’t let anything happen to her, right?” Alena said. “There haven’t been any other tries at getting into your house, have there?”

“No, I’m sure you would have heard about it,” Zyah said. She was the one who was uneasy, not her grandmother. And it was mostly because she didn’t like being away from Player at night. It was strange that he didn’t seem to have the same kinds of episodes during the day that he had at night. He was in pain. He had the terrible migraines, but he didn’t have the breaks with reality that he had when he went to sleep. She didn’t want that to happen when she wasn’t there.