Voight held the door open, to a small establishment advertising itself as The Edelweiss.

Zelda scowled. “I don’t want to be seen with you.”

“A bit late for that,” he observed dryly.

The dim interior had a certain faux old-world charm and looked expensive, with too much leather and so much carved wood that she felt like she’d stepped inside a cuckoo clock—only one where cowbells dangled from the rafters. A hostess came forward, holding menus. “Good afternoon,” she said, smiling brightly in recognition. “Your usual table, Sturmbannführer?”

He nodded, and she led them to a booth in the corner. The plush leather seats were worn with age, and the table was adorned with a small vase of fresh flowers, a quaint attempt at earthy charm in an otherwise ostentatious setting. Antique farming implements adorned the walls, alongside vintage photographs capturing scenes of rural life from a bygone era. Light filtered in through the old, wavy glass windows, casting soft patterns on the tablecloth.

The hostess handed them each a menu, as they settled into their seats. “Beer?”

“Wine,” he corrected her. “Grüner Veltliner, the Hund if it’s still available.”

“Very good,” the hostess acknowledged, before departing.

Zelda and Voight locked eyes across the table, each scrutinizing the other with an unspoken wariness. Despite his usual impeccable appearance, Voight appeared paler than usual, an exhaustion etched into his features that she hadn’t noticed before. The shadows under his eyes had deepened, a testament to the stress he was under at work. As the hostess returned with a bottle, he barely spared a glance at the label, as he searched Zelda’s face for signs of what only he knew. They were alone in the restaurant, two not quite enemies both wondering what would happen next.

Leaning back in the booth, he observed the decor with a contemplative gaze. “I like this place,” he remarked, a note of nostalgia in his voice. “It reminds me of home.”

Curiosity tugged at her, overcoming her better instincts. “Where’s home?”

“München.” He pointed. “Aren’t you curious about the menu?”

“No,” she said firmly, bristling at his patronizing tone. Letting this man dictate her choices was bad enough; that he’d also had to rescue her, now, not once from twice only added insult to injury. She wasn’t about to let him feed her, too, as though she really were a child.

He arched an eyebrow. “You look like you haven’t eaten in three days.”

“You look like you haven’t slept in three days,” she shot back, with undisguised irritation. “Do you sleep?”

His posture stiffened. “No.”

A waitress approached their table with a carafe of water, and inquired if they were ready to order.

He nodded briskly. “We’ll start with the Hummer-Cocktail, followed by the Wienerschnitzel with lemon, no jam, and Rösti. Two the same,” he added. “And the lady will also take dessert.”

The waitress blinked, momentarily taken aback. “What would she like?”

“Coupe-Dänemark,” Voight replied smoothly, handing back the menus.

Zelda had only the faintest idea of what he’d just ordered, and all of it sounded highly suspicious. She could use some help calming her nerves, though, and the wine at least seemed harmless enough. Sipping at it hesitantly, she told herself that she wasn’t hungry…although her willpower slipped a little when the waitress returned, presenting her with her appetizer. It looked like the filling from a lobster roll, piled high in a martini glass.

Voight tucked into his own without comment.

She fidgeted with her napkin, her stomach growling as her confusion deepened. If Alex knew what she was doing, he’d lose his mind—but he’d always told her what to think and how to act, presenting himself as a paragon of virtue while subtly undermining her confidence in her own choices. Voight, on the other hand, was anything but gentle. Yet he engaged with her as an equal, as overbearing and paternalistic as he was, debating her ideas rather than dismissing them out of hand. It was a disconcerting contrast that left her torn between resentment and a begrudging admiration for his unwillingness to conform to societal norms. “You shouldn’t have told Alex that you were doing things to please me,” she chided quietly.

He looked up, his expression unreadable. “I was.”

His admission hit her like a punch to the gut; she’d expected some offhanded comment at her expense, not this frank acknowledgment that her well-being actually mattered to him. In an effort to cover her shock, she scowled. “Alex doesn’t realize that all of this is just another interrogation technique,” she informed him, her gesture taking in their cozy cave of a booth. “Wine me, dine me, pretend to care.” Leaning forward, she dropped her voice to a mockingly conspiratorial whisper. “You can’t coax out my secrets, unfortunately. I don’t have any.”

Something flickered in Voight’s eyes, and was gone. “I see,” he said tersely.

“I know how you operate,” she continued, her voice growing colder.

Finishing his lobster, he placed his fork down with deliberate care and then steepled his fingers. “The Gestapo,” he asked, his tone studiedly conversational, “or me personally?”

Her eyes narrowed slightly. “Both.”

He paused for a beat, deftly flipping open an ornate cigarette case. With practiced ease, he retrieved a cigarette, the lighter appearing and disappearing in a fluid motion. His expression fixed, he slammed the flat box down on the table, its sterling silver surface gleaming under the dim light. Zelda couldn’t help but notice the intricate scrollwork design etched into the metal, the insignia of the SS standing out in gold. Exhaling a cloud of smoke, he directed his gaze toward the ceiling. “Well,” he mused, after a moment, “you are clever, for a little girl. Now eat.”

Mocking her resolve to resist, the lobster called to her. A few short months ago, Satan himself could’ve offered her food and she would’ve eaten it; she, Charlotte, and Constance had survived on rats—and been glad for them. Visceral memories flashed before her, of Charlotte grabbing one big sucker by the tail and slapping him down onto their propane powered hot plate. His squeal had been like nails on a chalkboard and she’d felt sick but she’d also felt an overwhelming surge of relief, that this meant she’d get to eat; none of them had had the strength to run after him. So, with a resigned sigh, she picked up her fork. Voight didn’t acknowledge his victory, as she took her first reluctant bite, only watched her with that inscrutable gaze.

When she was done, the waitress brought their main course.

She ate with single-minded determination for a long time after that, the soft clinks and gentle scrapes of her knife and fork blending into the ambient sounds of the restaurant. Veal pounded thin, breaded and fried, hash browns formed into a cake and then baked, green beans drenched in butter, this was a feast the likes of which she’d only dreamed of. Finally, she straightened, summoning the courage to meet his gaze. “Thank you,” she murmured.

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He cocked his head, taken aback. “For what?”

“For lunch and….” She trailed off, her voice faltering as she pushed the last bite of veal around on her plate, feeling exposed. “For rescuing me.”

His real smile unfurled slowly, softening his sharp features, transforming him from a cynic aloof from the world into something altogether more human. There was a boyishness to it, an innocence she hadn’t expected from a man so steeped in darkness. For a moment, the weight of his years seemed to lift, revealing a glimpse of who he might’ve been under different circumstances. The effect was disarming, catching her off guard and leaving her momentarily breathless. “I’m glad,” he replied, with genuine warmth, “that I’m good for something.”

Flustered, she gulped down the last of her wine. “If you hadn’t joined the Gestapo,” she asked, “what would you have done?”

He poured her more, his expression growing thoughtful. “My father wanted me to follow in his footsteps. He’s something of an auto baron, with manufacturing plants all around Bayern.”

“Really?” she asked, taken aback. “Why didn’t you?”

He stubbed out his cigarette with a sharp twist, anger flashing in his eyes. “I did everything possible to ensure that I turned out nothing like the man,” he snapped, with surprising force.

She wrinkled her nose. “He was too kind?”

Voight didn’t respond immediately, only frowned at his cigarette case as he turned it over in his hands. “My father beat my mother remorselessly,” he said slowly, his voice distant, as though recalling a story from someone else’s life. “On an almost daily basis.” His gaze clouded, as he drew a deep breath. “One of my first memories is of him standing over her as she clung to him, apologizing again and again for whatever she’d supposedly done.”

Zelda gaped, open-mouthed. “Oh, God.”

“He knocked her teeth out,” Voight continued, his tone flat and strangely mechanical. “He broke her arm. Whatever he felt like doing. And when I tried to protect her….” Shrugging, he looked up. “The bastard beat me, too. He put me in the hospital almost as often.” Then, as though he’d just announced that he was thinking of trading in his Porsche, he lit another cigarette.

“Nobody stopped him?” she questioned, doubt warring with concern.

“Stopped him from doing what?” Voight’s laugh was a harsh, abrupt sound. “He was the head of the household; her job was to please him. The law was, and still is, on his side. From the doctors who bandaged her up to her own parents, everyone told her that if she just tried harder, was sweeter, then he wouldn’t get so mad.” Disgust tightened his features, though his tone remained detached and clinical. “She even defended him when I tried to convince her to leave.”

Zelda gaped at him in stunned incomprehension. “Defend him?” she echoed. “How?”

Voight’s shrug was unsettlingly nonchalant. “He had to act like this at home, she’d tell me, get everything out of his system so he could be calm around the people who mattered. His employees all loved him. She treated it like some twisted badge of honor, being his punching bag, and expected me to to the same.”

The waitress took their plates, which neither of them acknowledged. Zelda’s own struggles in childhood, which mostly amounted to her conviction that no one loved her as much as her older sister, suddenly seemed so small. Her father and grandmother had constantly urged her to be more like Charlotte, but neither of them had ever raised a hand to her or even really said a cross word. She wanted to tell Voight that he made a lot more sense to her, now, but didn’t think that would come out right. “Your mother,” she ventured instead. “What happened to her?”

“My parents separated,” he replied, with a faint trace of rebuke. “And later divorced.”

Zelda’s brows knitted in confusion. “Good for her, though, for finally leaving him.”

Voight’s lips firmed into a thin, unpleasant line. “He left her.”

She almost dropped her glass. “What?”

“He wanted more children,” Voight explained. “She couldn’t give him more.” His expression darkened further, as he knocked the ash from his cigarette onto his plate. “Obtaining a divorce is difficult, even for the well-connected. But she was failing in her duty to him and, more importantly, to the Reich. I didn’t see her again,” he added, “until I was at university.”

“You weren’t allowed to go with her?” Zelda’s voice was filled with incredulity.

He snorted derisively. “Of course not.”

Telling herself that she was being invasive, and acutely aware that out of her depth was an understatement, she nevertheless forged on; she had to know the rest. “Did your father remarry?”

“Yes.” Finishing his second cigarette, Voight’s eyes held a bleak humor. “Luckily, for him and for me, by that point I was in boarding school.” He paused, lost in recollection. “The bastard undoubtedly understood that keeping me around was dangerous. Once I turned eighteen, though, I tracked my mother down. She was living with cousins, in Switzerland.”

“She must’ve been ecstatic to see you,” Zelda stated, relieved that there was some hint of a happy ending to this miserable tale.

“I like to think so,” Voight replied, his expression softening as a strange note crept into his voice.

If Zelda hadn’t known better, she would’ve called it regret. But that didn’t make sense; escaping abuse was something to celebrate—right? “Where’s your mother now?” she asked cautiously.

Something behind his eyes abruptly shuttered. “Dead.”

She was still struggling for a response when the waitress reappeared, in the world’s worst example of timing. Placing a plate between them, she chirped cheerfully about having brought two spoons. A Coupe-Dänemark emerged as a perfectly round ball of vanilla ice cream, coated in toasted coconut. Accompanying it was a dainty pitcher of chocolate sauce. She fixated on it, a lump in her throat at Voight’s revelations, until it started to melt.

“What about you?” he eventually inquired. “What do you want to do, with your life?”

His tone was bland, devoid of the vulnerability he’d shown earlier. He’d reverted to his usual caustic and detached demeanor, observing others’ problems with something between a sardonic smirk and a scowl. As he relaxed, sipping a Vesper, it was as though that other man had never existed.

A blaze of rage engulfed her—at him, at herself, at the unfairness of a world that had led them both to this point. “What I wanted,” she grated, “before, was to design clothes. But that doesn’t matter now, does it?” Gripping the spoon tightly, she jabbed it forcefully into the remains of the ice cream. “In your world, a woman is just one more raw material. First, she’s the beloved, molded for her man’s pleasure into a sexual object. Then, later, she becomes a mechanical womb to bear his children. But never, never is she valued in her own right.”

If he was surprised by her outburst, he gave no sign. “Motherhood is a noble calling.”

Which, she thought, had to be one of the most sexist phrases ever uttered. Resisting the urge to snap back that he might change his tune if his cherished leader had told him that his world was his husband, his family, his children, and his home, she grimaced. “I want to belong to myself.”

“So no husband, then?” Voight prodded. “And no children?”

“No,” she said firmly, her eyes meeting his.

She caught his slight downturn of the lips, quickly smoothed over into nothing. “You’re only eighteen,” he pointed out. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure that keeping a home isn’t a life,” she stated quietly, her tone resolute.

He hesitated, then nodded. “Fine. How about a job, then?”

She couldn’t help but feel a spark of interest, at the suggestion. “Doing what?”

He put down his cocktail, his gaze lingering on her. “Working for me.”

Her laugh was more of an incredulous snort. “I’d rather go back to scrounging in dumpsters.”

One of those non-smiles played at the corners of his lips, as if her distaste amused him rather than offended him. “How unfortunate,” he commented, with smugness that didn’t escape her notice. “Because you’re my new assistant. Starting Monday.”