The taxi ride back to L’Atelier was a silent, vibrating void. Gabriel didn't speak, didn't offer a single word of comfort, and for that, I was profoundly grateful. Pity would have shattered me. His presence was something else entirely—a solid, unyielding bulkhead against which the storm inside me could rage without fear of collapse. The city lights smeared past the window, a river of indifferent jewels, each one a tiny world where someone else wasn't having their life systematically dismantled.
He paid the driver, and I followed him through the restaurant’s back alley. The air, thick with the smell of discarded oyster shells and damp cardboard, was a gritty, welcome contrast to the sterile perfume of Elysian. He unlocked the heavy steel door, and we stepped not into a dining room, but int
