Speaking of being responsible. I turn my thoughts back on work since it’s the safe zone of my life right now. Six months I've spent building files on the Red Letter Syndicate. I know their crimes, their connections, their body counts. I know they're dangerous men who do dangerous things.
What I don't know, what nothing in my research prepared me for, is this: Persia Milano makes really good scones.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Kon slides a plate of eggs across the counter, the ceramic scraping softly against the granite. The same routine as every morning: him cooking, me perched on my barstool, coffee bitter enough to strip paint, conversation that dances between intel exchanges and the kind of banter that makes my chest do inconvenient things.
Except today, the routine breaks.
"You've been invited to lunch." He says it casually, his dark eyes fixed on the pan like the words don't carry weight.
I set down my mug. "Invited by whom?"
"The wives." He reaches for his own coffee, the muscles in his forearm flexing beneath the barbed wire ink. "They want to meet you."
"The wives." I repeat it slowly, turning the word over, trying to figure out how I feel about it. A week ago I would have called them hostages in designer clothes. Now I'm not sure what to call them, and the uncertainty sits heavy in my chest. "And what exactly does one wear to a lunch date with the women of the Red Letter Syndicate? Is there a dress code? Should I bring a side dish? Maybe a casserole and a list of my intentions with their brother?"
His jaw softens at the corners, the faintest trace of amusement flickering through those dark eyes. "Persia said to come as you are."
"That's what people say when they've already decided what they think of you." I push a piece of egg around my plate, the fork scraping against ceramic. "Do they know? About us?"
"They know enough."
"That's not comforting, Kon."
The truth is, I'm terrified. Not of the wives themselves but of what they represent. If these women are happy, genuinely happy with men I've spent six months categorizing as criminals, then every assumption I've built my investigation on starts to crack. And I'm not sure I'm ready for that.
Not even close.
Kon drives me to the Redthorne Building in a black SUV that smells like leather and his cologne. The city scrolls past the tinted windows, glass and steel and the organized chaos of a Thursday afternoon in Chicago. He doesn't try to fill the silence. He never does.
His hair is tied back in that leather cord but the wind from the cracked window has pulled strands loose across his jaw, softening the hard angles of his face in a way that makes my chest do stupid things. His hand rests on the wheel, scarred knuckles wrapped loosely around the leather, and I catch myself staring at those fingers and remembering what they felt like inside me last night.
I look away. Focus on the skyline.
The Redthorne Building rises thirty-two stories into a slate-gray sky. Kon guides me through a lobby, past security that nods at him without a word, and into an elevator with biometric access that whisks us to the top floor.
His phone rings and he holds the elevator for a minute while he picks up.
"Speak."
There's a pause while the person on the other end says their piece. Kon's jaw tightens, that micro-shift I've learned to read as threat assessment in real time. His eyes cut to me briefly, then away.
"How many at the location?" Another pause. His free hand curls into a fist at his side, the knuckles going white beneath the ink. "Tell Luca to pull the surveillance footage from the south entrance. I want eyes on every vehicle that's come through in the last forty-eight hours." His voice drops, the accent sharpening the consonants into blades. "And get me Brennan's current location.Da.I don't care how. Find him."
He ends the call without a goodbye. That's Kon. No pleasantries when there's a problem to solve.
Kon looks at me and mouths, “I’ll be up shortly.” He reaches in, pushes the button for the pent house and turns a key in a hidden compartment.
A few moments later, the doors to the elevator slides open and I step into a space that rewrites every mental image I've ever constructed about the Red Letter Syndicate world.
This is not a headquarters. Not an office. Not the polished command center I built in my head to replicate the coldness of my father’s mansion after six months of research and worst-case assumptions.
This is a home.
Warm colors wash the walls in shades of cream and soft gold. Oversized furniture clusters around a fireplace with real flames licking behind glass. Toys scatter across a plush rug, a stuffed elephant here, a tower of wooden blocks there, a tiny pair of pink shoes abandoned near the couch. And the smell. Butter andvanilla and scones baking in an oven, warm and domestic and so painfully normal that my throat tightens without warning.
A woman rounds the corner from the kitchen and every preconception I've built shatters on impact.
