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8

KIPTON

The diner window is filthy. Smudged fingerprints and grease streaks blur the glass, but I can still see her.

Fawn moves between the orange vinyl booths like she’s fighting gravity. Her blond hair is pulled back, and she’s in the same faded uniform she wears every day. She balances three plates on one arm while a guy in a trucker hat snaps his fingers at her like she’s a dog. She doesn’t flinch. Just turns and forces that smile, the one that doesn’t reach her eyes.

I’ve memorized that smile. I know the exact moment it becomes real for the rare customer who treats her like a person, the brief flash of warmth before she remembers where she is and what she has to do to survive.

It’s been six months of this bullshit. The whole time, I’ve been telling myself that paying her rent was enough. That watching her from across the street was noble and staying away meant keeping her safe.

The lie wore thin months ago. I’m just too chickenshit to admit it.

“Your coffee’s dead,” Noah says.

I don’t look away from the window. “I know.”

He’s leaning against the brick wall beside me, casual as Sunday in his leather jacket, but his eyes keep darting to the diner too. We haven’t spoken about why we’re here. We don’t need to. The silence between us has always been its own language.

“Ryker’s in the car,” Noah says. “Dad’s meeting got moved up. Warehouse in twenty minutes.”

I drain the cold coffee anyway. The bitterness of it tastes like the truth that paying her rent was enough, that distance meant protection. I crush the paper cup in my fist and toss it in the trash can three feet away. It misses, and I don’t bother picking it up.

Noah pushes off the wall. “Let’s go before Ryker starts planning our funerals.”

The warehouse sits at the edge of the industrial district, all corrugated metal and loading bays that smell like rust and river water. Inside, the meeting room is long and narrow, dominated by a scarred oak table that Dad’s had since before I was born. He sits at the head, back straight, silver hair catching the overhead fluorescents. He looks like a man who built an empire on other people’s fear and his own absolute refusal to feel anything.

Frank Moore sits to his left, wearing a charcoal suit that probably cost more than Fawn makes in three months. His two men stand by him, dressed as if they came from a board meeting instead of running guns through the docks. Frank smiles when we enter. It’s the wrong kind of smile…too easy, too patient, like a man who’s already won and is just waiting for everyone else to catch up.

“The Winter brothers,” Frank says. “Good of you to join us.”

Ryker takes the seat nearest Dad, posture rigid, face blank. Noah drops into the chair beside him, loose-limbed and casual as always, already scanning the room for exits and angles. I sit last, arranging my features into the mask I use for business.

Bored.

Barely paying attention.

A man with nothing to hide because he has nothing to lose.

Dad runs through the territorial agreement. Dock access, route divisions, the usual choreography of pretending we aren’t all criminals sitting around a table deciding who gets to profit from other people’s misery. He speaks with the quiet authority of a man who’s never had to raise his voice to be obeyed. Frank listens with that attentive calm, nodding at the right moments, his eyes moving across each of us with the lazy scrutiny of a man deciding where to bite.

Then he leans back in his chair and says, “You know, I’ve been noticing something, and I’m curious.”

My stomach tightens, but I don’t let it show. Or anything for that matter. That’s the rule. That’s how you survive in rooms like this.

“Your boys,” Frank continues, looking at Dad but gesturing toward us with his coffee cup. “They’ve been spending quite a bit of time at a diner on Fifth. The one with the yellow sign, rusted logo.” He pauses, savoring the silence he’s created. “Now, I can’t imagine the Winter heirs have developed a sudden passion for bottomless coffee and overcooked eggs. So I have to wonder…does it have something to do with that pretty little server? Blond hair, tired eyes, works the breakfast shift?”

The room goes still. Even Dad stops breathing for half a beat.

Noah goes rigid beside me. Ryker doesn’t move at all, which is worse. When Ryker goes completely still, someone is about to get hurt.

I force a laugh—short, dismissive, the sound of a man bored by small talk. “Are you following us now, Frank? I’m touched.”

“Just an observation.” Frank’s smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “A man in my position has to notice patterns. And three Winter brothers, regular as clockwork, hovering around a diner girl?” He shakes his head slowly, enjoying himself. “That’s a pattern worth noticing.”

Dad’s gaze shifts to us. I feel it like a blade against my throat, cold and precise.

“Business is business,” Ryker says, his voice flat and final. “Personal habits don’t enter into it.”