Chapter 1 – Sebastian
The morning is quiet.
Not the delicate quiet that feels temporary, but the heavy, deliberate silence that settles when I lock the world outside and refuse to let it breathe near me. The kind of quiet I can work inside.
My private studio sits atop an abandoned penthouse floor in Chicago, suspended above the city like a secret no one was meant to discover. The glass walls are long gone, the rooms stripped bare. What’s left is mine—an art sanctuary carved out of concrete and isolation.
Sheets of vellum litter the steel tables. Charcoal dust clings to my fingertips like a second skin, darkening the creases of my hands, staining me until even I can’t tell where I end and the work begins. Forged Rembrandts stare back at me from every surface—studies broken down to their bones, signatures dissected and reassembled with surgical precision. Contracts lie among them, peeled apart line by line, their lies waiting to be made beautiful.
Art and crime.
Truth and imitation.
The same discipline. Different outcomes.
I stand before the easel, shirtless, shoulders loose, charcoal sliding across vellum with practiced certainty. I don’t sketch anymore. I build. Every line exists in my head before my hand commits to it.
The face forming beneath my fingers isn’t anyone specific. Not yet.
Sharp cheekbones. A strong nose. A mouth held in restraint rather than softness.
I drag my thumb through the shadow beneath the jaw, smudging it into something gentler than I intended. I curse under my breath and darken it again. Too harsh. I erase part of it, dissatisfied.
The work calms me.
Blurs the world into silence.
Here, there are no brothers watching me with measuring eyes. No Rusnak expectations tightening around my throat. No men asking me to make blood money look legitimate. Here, I control what exists and what doesn’t.
The sharp beep of the security system cuts through the quiet.
I pause, charcoal still smeared across my fingers, and turn my head toward the video intercom mounted on the opposite wall. The elevator release light is blinking—someone is waiting below, requesting access.
My frown forms slowly.
No one comes here.
This place isn’t an address. It’s a boundary. My brothers know better than to show up unannounced, and everyone else doesn’t even know this floor exists. I don’t host. I don’t entertain. I don’t have friends lingering at the edges of my life.
Sometimes I disappear into this studio for weeks at a time. I paint. I work. I sleep on the couch. No one calls. No one looks for me.
That’s the point.
I walk toward the intercom anyway, bare feet silent against the concrete, irritation tightening between my shoulders. I stop in front of the screen and look up into the camera feed.
Lev.
An older cousin, but with how tight-knit we are, I call him my brother.
He stands in the elevator, peering up at the lens like he expects it to bite him. Blond hair falls carelessly over his forehead, sharp against the severity of his face. His eyes are icy and impatient.
I cross my arms over my chest and stare at him, unmoving.
I don’t reach for the release.
I let him wait.
“Seb, I know you can see and hear me,” Lev says through the intercom. “Let me up.”
