He gives a short, humorless breath that almost counts as a laugh. “You monitoring my vitals now, too?”
“Should I be?”
“For the record,” he says, tone flattening again, “I am not bringing Cami into play again unless there’s no other choice. She’s a chaos vector. You already have one of those.” His eyes flick briefly toward the monitor. “You don’t need two.”
I file that response away for later. Cami is a weak point in his armor.Noted. Not something to use carelessly.
“Just do your job,” I say, the decision folding into place as I speak. “We need to figure out how to reproduce Z without her. I want control of the compound, not a dependency on the woman who made it.”
“And if she’s the only one who can finish stabilizing it?” he asks.
“Then we make sure no one else understands what she is,” I say. “And we limit who can get to her.”
He studies me, understanding exactly what I’m not saying.
“Protection under the guise of containment,” he murmurs. “You’re getting soft in your old age.”
“I’m thirty-one.”
“Exactly,” he says, pushing off the desk. “Ancient.”
At the door, he pauses. “If you’re wrong about her, this doesn’t end clean.”
“If I’m wrong about her,” I say, “it won’t end at all.”
He nods once, accepting that, and leaves.
The room feels different when he’s gone—quieter, but also more honest. The monitors hum. The city spills its light against the glass. And in that tiny glowing rectangle, Violetwipes the counters with tired, methodical motions, completely unaware that two men just determined the shape of her future without asking her a single question.
She is in the center of a storm she doesn’t know exists.
My underground club hums with quiet power, the kind that doesn’t need to roar to be heard. It’s a place built for strategy, not indulgence—every line of architecture designed to remind people exactly who holds the reins.
This isn’t the Red Horse down the block, where bass shakes the walls, and bodies disappear into shadows just deep enough to forget their real names. That place thrives on heat and recklessness, on the kind of chaos you can taste in the air. A good club—profitable, well-run, and a legend in its own right—but chaos isn’t my brand. And it sure as hell isn’t one of Cami’s spectacle parties, dripping in champagne and glitter and bad decisions she laughs her way through every time.
No—myclub deals in silence and leverage. Power is sharper when it whispers.
Tonight, three men sit at my private table—Senator Wells, Judge Calloway, and Police Chief Laskin—each drowning in their own sweat despite the temperature being perfectly controlled. They arrived polished, confident. Now they’re cracking around the edges, realizing too late that the ground they’re standing on isn’t solid. It belongs to me.
I swirl my drink once, letting the quiet work its magic. “Relax, gentlemen. This is just a conversation.”
Wells gives a brittle laugh. “If that were true, we wouldn’t be here.”
Smart man.
I slide a folder across the table. “Page three.”
Wells opens it. The color drains from his face—offshore accounts, illegal contributions, and laundering trails that tie him up in a neat little bow. Calloway doesn’t even touch his; he just stares at the closed folder like it might bite him. Laskin clenches his jaw so tight I can hear hismolars protest.
I lean back, letting the seconds stretch. “Here’s the thing. I make problems disappear… and I create them. Which side you land on is up to you.”
Laskin breaks first. “What do you want?”
“Simple.” I point at each of them in turn. “Wells—your financial regulation bill never hits the floor. Calloway—the case against the Order dissolves. No evidence, no witnesses, no memory of ever touching it. Laskin—my shipments move through the city clean. No raids. No delays. No heroics.”
Calloway scoffs. “And if we refuse?”
I smile at him—slow, patient, and razor-edged. “Then the rest of that folder sees daylight.”
