He stares up at me, eyes round.
“Boss?” he squeaks.
I keep walking.
A pair of Kaijen enforcers near the bar stop mid-conversation. One actually crosses himself like he’s seen a Reaper. The other looks like he’s about to pull a gun and then remembers who he’s pointing it at.
Jordan’s pace falters for half a step, and I feel it beside me like a shift in gravity.
“This is your family?” she whispers.
“It’s my business,” I correct.
“That’s not a no.”
I glance at her. “Stop asking questions you already know the answer to.”
Her mouth opens, then closes. She tightens her grip on her bag.
We reach the central floor—an open expanse of tables and holo-screens, a raised stage where someone is singing a sweet, slow song about heartbreak while a thousand people pretend they’ve never had any. Above it all, the Nun’s ceiling arches high, stained-glass projections scrolling across it like moving paintings—saints drinking, angels gambling, devils smiling.
Jordan stares up despite herself.
“It’s… absurd,” she murmurs.
“Yeah,” I say. “That’s the point. If it looks like a joke, people forget it’s a trap.”
She looks at me sharply. “Are you saying I’m in a trap right now?”
I stop walking, just long enough that she has to stop too, and I turn my head toward her.
The noise of the casino rolls around us, but in that moment there’s a pocket of quiet in my chest, a space carved out by necessity.
“You’re under my protection,” I say, voice steady. “That means if anyone touches you without my permission, they lose the hand. If they try twice, they lose the head.”
Jordan’s eyes widen slightly.
“That’s not reassuring,” she whispers, but her voice trembles in a way that tells me she’s not fully rejecting it either.
“It’s not supposed to be reassuring,” I reply. “It’s supposed to be clear.”
A captain in a charcoal suit pushes through the crowd toward us, moving fast, face tight with alarm.
“Boss—” he starts, then catches himself, swallowing hard. “Lonari.”
I let the name hang between us like a knife laid on a table.
“Renn,” I say, recognizing him. He’s older—lines around the eyes now, hair threaded with silver. But the posture is the same: loyal, tense, ready to bleed if ordered.
His gaze flicks to Jordan.
“And…?”
“Jordan,” I say. “She’s with me.”
Renn’s brows lift. “With you how?”
I step half a pace closer to Jordan, just enough that my shadow cuts across her.
