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Winter is coming.

In the weather.

In other ways too…

I watch a man outside lose his hat and not bother to chase it.

“What is your long-term ambition?” I ask.

Elias looks at me over the rim.

“I want to impress you,” he says. “I want to prove I belong in your organization.”

It is a good answer.

But it’s not the whole answer.

“That may be true,” I say. “But I’m not buying it just yet. I don’t believe it is the limit of your ambitions though. Probably not even close. Don’t be afraid, you can tell me.”

Elias almost smiles. “My ambitions will become clear over time.”

Hmmm. He’s good.

Fortitude. Confidence. Not the cheap kind that talks but the kind that waits. This is a boy who could go under a name for months and not fall apart in the mirror. I file that notion then I drink.

The coffee is bitter and correct. Just how I like it. And maybe even worth the ridiculous price too.

“Would you do anything to get inside the Lucci clan?” I ask.

He does not flinch. “What do you mean by anything?”

I let the pause sit. Snow ticks against the glass.

“You may need to offer your body.”

The words leave my mouth clean. But my stomach churns. I thought I wouldn’t have an issue with the notion of Elias offering himself up in the name of work. But it’s not a simple reaction I’m having. Far from it, in fact.

I harden in my trousers at the picture of it…

Rival hands on him.

A Lucci boss taking what I have already marked.

The boy playing willing so he can walk their halls.

The heat is immediate. But so is the jealousy. A furious, stupid spike.

He’s mine. Even the thought of lending him makes my jaw set. For a moment it is as if he can see it too...

Elias’s gaze sharpens. He does not look away. “I’ll do whatever my Master tells me to do.”

Master.

Spoken in a converted bank while the first storm of the year erases the street. I regain my face and my composure too. The want and the rage go back into the box I keep for things that cannot run a war.

“We will find out soon enough,” I say, ending the discussion. I finish the coffee. “Drink. We are walking.”

Elias blinks and gestures out of the window. “In that?”