"No." Too fast. She softened it. "No, it's fine. I've got them."

She returned with the first course she'd timed unasked — oysters for the guests, nothing for Victor, who'd waved off food as if eating were a concession. Chen Wei caught her eye as she set down his plate: "Thank you." Then to Zhou Jian, in Mandarin, low and nearly fond: "At least the service has manners."

Naomi retreated to the windows, where light fell in long bars across the floor, and watched. Victor showed his phone — the rendering, all glass and ambition. He talked; Henry Lin asked about risk; Victor answered with stories about winning. Chen Wei translated something to Zhou Jian she caught only in part — something about a builder who treats his guests like a photograph he is already standing inside.

She understood every word. Stacked a tray. Folded a napkin. Kept her face like water.

And across the room Victor's hand went up — sharp, impatient, beckoning, two fingers and a snap he probably thought was subtle. Naomi saw it from the corner, and Elena saw it too, and both knew the evening's patience was wearing very thin.

Chapter 3: Get Out The trouble started with the wine.

Victor Hale had ordered the 2015 Burgundy for the table, and when Naomi set the bottle beside his water glass, he didn't look at the label so much as look through it — past it, at some larger point he was making.

Later, Elena would remember the pause more vividly than the insult. It lasted only a second, just long enough for Naomi to decide whether she would argue about her education or carry the next order. Elena had taken one step toward Table Twelve before Naomi caught her eye and gave the tiniest shake of her head. Not yet. There were bills waiting at home, a brother who needed her, and an entire room that already believed it understood the situation. Naomi refused to offer her private history as a defense against a stranger's bad manners.

"This place," he said, to no one and therefore everyone, "has the best cellar south of Napa. I should know. I drink here enough to fund it." He barked a laugh and turned to Henry Lin. "You like the Burgundy, Henry? Tell me you like the Burgundy."

Henry Lin inclined his head a fraction. Hǎo — good — soft and noncommittal, and he returned to the menu as if the wine conversation were over.

Victor powered through, with the determined cheer of a man who had decided the evening would go well and meant to drag it there by force.

Naomi refilled Zhou Jian's water first, then Chen Wei's, then Lin's — eldest guest first, the order she'd been taught years ago at another restaurant's training. She couldn't tell yet whether Lin was eldest guest or guest of honor. Both, probably.

"—the waterfront project," Victor was saying, "nine hundred million dollars, top to bottom. Hotels, residences, retail. A landmark." He tapped the table with two fingers. "I've got the zoning, the city behind me, the best architects on the West Coast. What I need is capital, and that's where you gentlemen come in." He grinned at Priya, two seats down, nursing an untouched water. "Priya here can tell you. Biggest thing to hit this shoreline in thirty years."

Priya Nair smiled a professional smile that didn't reach her eyes. Naomi had watched her all evening — competent, sharp, clearly embarrassed by her boss and trying not to show it.

Chen Wei murmured in Mandarin to Zhou Jian. Naomi's ear caught it before her mind registered listening: tā tài chǎo le. He's too loud.

Zhou Jian, barely moving his lips: Rěn yī rěn. Bear it a little.

Naomi kept her face pleasant, attentive, invisible. She set down Victor's glass and reached for the bottle.

That was when he finally looked at her.

Not at her face. At the pour — her hands, the bottle's angle, the unspilled drop she caught with a turn of the wrist.

"Hey," he said. "Hey."

She met his eyes. "Yes, Mr. Hale?" "Where's the regular guy? The tall one — the sommelier." He gestured vaguely. "This is a hundred- and-forty-dollar bottle and I've got—" He looked her up and down, and something in his expression settled, like a verdict being signed. "Actually, we're fine here. Why don't you send over someone educated to handle the table the rest of the night? Someone with some — polish."

The word landed softly and hit hard, the way a slap does from nowhere.

Beside him Priya's glass stopped halfway to her mouth. She set it down too carefully. "Mr. Hale—"

"No, no, it's fine," Victor said, waving her off. "I'm sure she's a perfectly nice girl. Nothing personal. But this is a serious dinner. A serious business dinner. I need someone who can keep up."

Naomi had been called worse. In Shanghai she'd once been refused a taxi by a driver who assumed she couldn't pay. In New York, at her first interpreting contract, a board member had asked — in Mandarin, to her face — whether "the Black woman in the corner" was security. She'd translated his question for the room with perfect calm, including the pause where everyone understood exactly what had happened.

That was years ago. This was San Francisco, and her brother's tuition was in the math of every hour she worked. She kept her voice level.

"I graduated from Stanford, Mr. Hale," she said.

For half a second, nobody moved.

Then Victor Hale laughed — full, delighted, like she'd told a wonderful joke.

"Stanford?" he said, grinning around the table. "That is quite a claim to make with a wine bottle in your hand." He glanced at the guests. "She's got a sense of humor, boys. That's what I pay for — service with a smile." He looked back at Naomi. "No hard feelings, sweetheart. Just send your manager over, will you? Daniel, is it? Tell him Victor Hale needs his A-team."

Naomi stood very still.