Chapter 3
Lucian
Iset the table the way I set everything I want to keep under strict proof: measured, deliberate, no surprises.
Silver cutlery aligned like a row of small knives, crystal glasses that catch the light and split it into exact shards, placemats laid so the edge of a plate will be an inch from the rim of the table.
It’s geometry that makes people feel like someone is in control of the room.
I do it myself because the act steadies me; because I want every line and angle to be a statement.
Snow presses against the glass outside, turning the world beyond the panes into a white smear. Inside, the lights are warm and hard. The chair at the head remains empty. The staff move like silent punctuation marks, necessary and discreet.
Elias is twenty minutes late.
People being late is a strategy in this life. It is also a small disrespect I can’t help but notice. I don’t get angry in a loud way. I store the irritation like a ledger entry and let it weigh against whatever currency he thinks he’s buying with audacity.
When Moretti finally comes in, he walks like someone who thinks the house is an obstacle course.
He’s not exactly dressed for penance—a dark shirt that fits him close, sleeves rolled to the forearm so I can see the lean swell of muscle that suggests a swimmer’s build.
He’s shorter than me by maybe an inch; close enough that if I wanted to measure how my body could be crowded, I could.
Close enough to know he could be dangerous in very specific ways.
He’s more muscular than I thought he would be.
I guess a mafia prince needs to stay in shape to defend himself.
He moves with a boy’s bravado and a man’s physical presence: boyish, defiant, frustratingly whole.
He notices the placemats as if they are a joke and, without asking, drags his chair across and sets his placemat directly beside mine.
The move is small, childish, and it tilts whatever script I had prepared.
He’s in my personal space by design. The act is a primer for everything else he wants to do tonight.
“You’re twenty minutes late,” I say, the words neat and flat. I’m testing him to see what he values more: principle or mischief.
He grins, unapologetic. “Traffic,” he says. “Snow’s a bitch.” He lets the word hang like an explanation and then leans in close enough that I can smell the pale citrus of the soap he uses, the faint metallic tang of old blood at his lip where it scabbed. “You wanted me here, so I’m fucking here.”
The bluntness of his disrespect rolls off my back. It is not contrition. It is not fear. It is a deliberate collision.
I am irritated in a way that has nothing to do with his punctuality.
It’s the way he moves the chessboard pieces by placing himself between me and my distance.
People usually sit where they are told to sit; people in my life usually respect the edges I draw because they have been taught the cost of crossing them.
He crosses with the casualness of someone who has either never paid that cost or thinks he can bargain it away.
That thought alone makes my jaw tighten.
“Do you know the rules?” I ask.
He laughs. “You mean the rules about being polite to old men throwing a temper tantrum? No. Those aren’t my rules.” He flicks his fingers at the napkin.
He’s testing me. Fine; the eye learns shape by letting their hands find its edge. But I let him test only until the moment I decide otherwise.
We begin dinner like we both know we’re actors in someone else’s scene.
The staff brings out the courses in clean movements—seared fish, a small well-placed salad, the kind of food that’s more sculpture than meal—and each plate settles into the geometry I arranged.
He picks at the food with the practiced restlessness of someone who hasn’t been taught to sit politely at a ruler’s table.
He makes small jokes about the garnish and pokes at the parsley.
The sound of his voice in the room is a new kind of friction.
“Why did you set the table yourself? Isn’t that what the staff’s for?” he says after a bite.
I swirl the wine in my glass. “I like to do some things for myself. I don’t always sit here and look pretty.”
He snorts. “So you place me on the other end of the table like the head of the house. Did you think I’d make polite conversation?”
“I can’t show my guest a good time?”
Moretti spreads the contents of his salad across the plate.
“Sorry, I’m not interested, Lucian.”
He calls me by my name the way people fling hand grenades—with an intent to wound. He thinks familiarity is a kind of domination. In our circles, familiarity is often a trap.
I don’t tell him then that he should watch his tone. I don’t tell him because it would give him a reaction, and I’ve already had too many men enjoy seeing me show temper as an accomplishment. I want him to learn how I do control: even, inevitable, not performed.
“Shame.”
He snorts. “Sure. Shame. That’s one word for it.” He leans his forearm on the table’s edge, hand close enough to mine that a world without violence would have us touch in ordinary, careful ways.
“You planning to tell me why I’m here, or are we still playing games?”
“Your father wanted peace.” My phrase has the strength of the thing it hides. I have not said he sent you as tribute tonight. I leave the bluntness where it has its best use, as a weapon in the open, since their pride would prefer silence.
He watches me like I’m an exhibit he has come to vandalize. “Peace, right.” He tips his head, mocking the theatrics of the question.
I study him. The boyishness is a mask; a man’s body tenses beneath it. He’s lean and muscular, wide shoulders, the kind of muscle that doesn’t flash but sustains. In another life, he could be a siren sunbathing on the rocks, perfectly balanced in motion. That balance is dangerous.
“You’re nineteen?” I ask quietly.
“Twenty in February.” He flares with a ridiculous mix of pride and irritation. “You keep that in your head like a prize, don’t you? I’m not a child. Not to you. Not to anyone who didn’t think to sell me like cattle.”
“You’re not here because I’m some sort of pedophile, Elias,” I tell him. He straightens at his name. “You’re here because you are useful and your presence will be seen.”
“And useful to you how?” He raises an eyebrow, the expression more challenge than curiosity. “You want some kidnapped boy toy on your arm. I heard about your tastes, Lucian.”
I let his sarcasm slide like a stone off a pond. It used to be an issue that I fraternized with men as well as women, but as soon as I took power, the whispers have quelled.
“You did? Tell me about them.” I smile over my wine glass.
He bites the inside of his cheek and for a second the bravado blinks. I watch that flicker: proud, defensive, ready to strike. He’s testing boundaries not because he hates me but because he wants to know how far I will let him go. People like him read the world in the spaces other men leave open.
“You like women as well as men,” he says, softer now. “You prefer public sex. Your father had to pay off many people to keep quiet about it. I guess they didn’t keep their tongues if I heard about it.”
I chuckle. Maybe a little surprised by his boldness. “Perhaps.”
He leans in until his shoulder lightly brushes mine; the contact is accidental and intentional at once. The scrape of fabric sends an electric thread along my arm. He grins like a man who knows he’s stepped on a train track and wants to see if the train will come.
“What do you like, Elias?”
He blushes, his eyes pulling away from me. “Not old men like you.”
“I didn’t think twenty-eight was ancient, but I guess I must change my tune.” I sit back in my chair. “Maybe I should buy a cane. Get a shower seat. Yell at kids to get off my lawn. The works.”
Elias laughs. His armor isn’t totally intact anymore.
“Old grumpy man,” he teases, and the phrase is an insult wrapped in a dare. “That’s what you are, you know. All posture and quiet and brittle rules. I was expecting thunder and instead I got…this.” He waves a hand at the candlelight, as if it’s a museum piece to be mocked.
I want to scold him for the tone. I want to tell him that mockery around someone who spends his life buying silence with fear is a dangerous hobby. But there’s a part of me that enjoys being ruffled. The enjoyment is wrong. The enjoyment is dangerous.
“You mistake stillness for weakness,” I say. “I’m not quiet because I’m tired. I’m quiet because I’ve learned the weight of noise.”
He looks at me for a long moment, then laughs in a way that’s half admiration and half scorn. “You think you’re special cause you’re stoic,” he says. “You think the city will fear you more if you appear solemn. It’s ridiculous.”
“Do you think the city will think me monstrous?” I ask. The question is a trap.
He meets my eyes, and for the first time tonight, there’s no sardonic curtain between us.
“They’ll call you whatever gets the best headlines.
Devil of the North End or Saint of Broken Men.
People like simple names.” He taps his fork twice against the plate, a punctuation.
“But you—” He leans forward, lowering his voice.
“You’re not monstrous to me, Lucian. You’re… complicated. That’s worse, honestly.”
That word lands like a twinge in an old bruise. The honesty in it is not comfortable. It strips the theater and leaves something more real: a man considering another man without the usual inventory of advantages.