Page 49 of The Enforcer’s Pawn

“That’s tragic, but I’m rejecting it.”

She folds her hands. “This is what was sent.”

“Then send it back with my condolences.”

I lift the spoon from the tray and hold it toward her. “And this has spots.”

The maid leans in, studies it with grave attention, and smiles. “It is perfectly suitable, Miss.”

“Perfectly suitable is what people say about guest towels and tax forms. I’m asking for clean silverware.”

Her smile turns into a scowl. “I will ask Lidiya.”

She leaves with the spoon still in my hand and returns two minutes later with Lidiya. Mrs. Wentworth joins us shortly after, which means the spoon has officially become a management issue.

That was five minutes ago. Now Lidiya stands beside the breakfast tray with both hands folded, wearing a careful expression. Mrs. Wentworth waits near the table with her glasses on their chain, her face composed enough to make me want to knock over a chair just to see if she’ll blink.

“This spoon has seen wars, regrets, and possibly soup from 1998,” I say, holding it up.

Mrs. Wentworth looks at it once. “It’s clean.”

“Legally, maybe. Emotionally, I disagree.”

Lidiya bites the inside of her cheek. “I can bring another.”

“That would be ideal, but it doesn’t erase the original crime.” I point the spoon toward the covered plate. “And this fish situation keeps returning as if it pays rent. I asked for toast, coffee, and something my stomach can identify without a passport.”

“Toast was provided,” Mrs. Wentworth says.

“Toast arrived beside something briny and suspicious, and now the whole tray feels harbor-adjacent.”

Mrs. Wentworth takes the spoon from me with royal patience, and Lidiya moves the fish plate three inches away.

I cross to the barred window and press my palm against the glass. “I need outside. A door that opens. Five minutes where nobody watches me breathe.”

Mrs. Wentworth’s expression softens by half a degree. “You may walk the wing after breakfast.”

“I’m going to start haunting this place before lunch.”

A knock comes, and Scar Chin steps inside with another guard behind him. “Miss O’Connell, you’re to come downstairs.”

I turn slowly. “Absolutely not.”

“Antonov requests you.”

“Antonov can request it personally.”

Mrs. Wentworth closes her eyes for one second, and Lidiya coughs into her hand.

Ten minutes later, Dmitri arrives himself. The guards outside straighten before he reaches the door.

“You were asked to come downstairs,” he says.

“I was asked by men who think please has no Russian translation.”

His gaze moves over the tray, the spoon, the window, then me. “What is this?”

Mrs. Wentworth answers before I can. “Miss O’Connell has concerns about breakfast.”