16. Rune
SIXTEEN
RUNE
The Coleman brownstone smelled like roasting pork, garlic, and the deep caramel sweetness of slow-cooked onions, and Rune’s lion had decided it was home before they cleared the front door.
This was a problem. His lion did not get to decide things.
His lion had opinions about Lark Coleman’s laugh, her scent, her hair, and the Catwoman he’d placed on her counter that she had not mentioned once—which either meant she hadn’t received it, she was offended by it, or she understood exactly what it meant and was giving him the space to pretend he didn’t.
His lion had opinions about all of these things. His lion was not in charge.
The brownstone’s front hallway was narrow and lined with photographs—generations of them, black-and-white to color to digital, faces and celebrations and milestones climbing the walls in no apparent order.
Art between the photographs: a vibrant abstract in oranges and blues, a small oil portrait of a woman who shared Vivienne’s bone structure, a framed broadside from a 1960s civil rights march.
The hallway told the family’s history in fragments, and Rune found himself slowing to read it the way he read origin stories—each piece a verification of origin.
Lark walked ahead of him, her natural curls loose tonight instead of blown straight, bouncing against her shoulders as she moved through the hallway with the ease of someone navigating her own bloodstream.
She’d changed into a silk wrap dress in deep emerald that did things to her curves that he was not going to examine, and heeled sandals that clicked against the hardwood floors in a rhythm his lion tracked with the attention of a predator following a heartbeat.
Dinner. Her family. Behave.
“Lark, baby!” The voice came from the kitchen. Vivienne Coleman appeared in the doorway at the end of the hall, and Rune straightened by instinct.
She was taller than he’d expected. Striking in a way that had nothing to do with conventional beauty and everything to do with presence—the kind of woman who entered a room and the room paid attention, not because she demanded it but because ignoring her was a tactical error.
Silver-streaked hair in loose waves tonight, dark eyes that swept from her daughter to Rune and performed a complete inventory in the time it took her to dry her hands on a dish towel.
“Mr. Sterling.” She extended her hand. The grip was firm, brief, and communicated more than most people managed in a paragraph. “Welcome. Lark tells me you appreciate curation. I hope you appreciate seasoning. The pernil has been marinating since Thursday.”
“Thank you for the invitation, Mrs. Coleman.”
“Professor Coleman.” The correction arrived with a smile that was gracious and non-negotiable. “But you may call me Vivienne. Once you’ve survived dinner.”
She is terrifying. His lion, inexplicably, approved.
The kitchen was a war room disguised as a home.
The pernil dominated the oven, filling the brownstone with a fragrance that Rune’s lion wanted to roll in.
Harrison Coleman stood at the stove stirring a pot of rice with one hand and gesturing at a stock ticker on his phone with the other, tall and broad-shouldered in weekend cashmere, his salt-and-pepper hair and easy smile projecting a comfort that masked what Rune recognized immediately: calculating eyes—he’d built a firm from a scholarship and a dream and spent thirty years learning how money moved.
“Rune Sterling!” Harrison set down the spoon.
Crossed the kitchen. His handshake was different from Vivienne’s—warmer, longer, the grip of a man taking a physical measure.
His eyes crinkled. They also didn’t blink.
“I’ve been reading about your Oslo expansion.
Impressive logistics. How’s the Q3 pipeline looking? ”
Rune recognized the test. An investment banker didn’t ask about quarterly pipelines at dinner unless he was evaluating.
“Strong. Year-over-year consignment growth is at fourteen percent, and the rare editions market has outperformed projections.” He paused.
Added: “Excluding the counterfeiting issue, which we’re addressing. ”
Harrison’s eyes flickered. Calculating to interested. “Lark mentioned the forgeries. Nasty business. You’ve pulled the full consignment pipeline for re-authentication?”
“Complete freeze. Three-week timeline.”
“Revenue impact?”
“Significant but absorbable. The reputational risk of inaction exceeds the short-term financial hit.”
Harrison nodded. The nod of someone who had heard the right answer and was recalibrating his threat level downward by a degree. “Good. Good answer.” He clapped Rune’s shoulder. “Wine?”
Rune produced the bottle he’d brought. A 2015 Brunello di Montalcino—red, as instructed, from a vineyard he’d visited with his father six years ago. Harrison took it, read the label, and his eyebrows rose in an expression that communicated respect more clearly than any quarterly report.
“You brought a Brunello to a pot roast dinner.”
“Lark recommended red. I applied judgment.”
“Dime la verdad—did she tell you I was a wine snob, or did you do research?”
“Both.”
Harrison laughed. Full, rich, the baritone filling the kitchen. He pulled the corkscrew from a drawer and went to work on the bottle with the reverence it deserved. Vivienne, at the stove, exchanged a glance with Lark that covered an entire conversation in two seconds.
A clatter from the hallway. Oliver Coleman arrived with Sybil on his arm, a six-pack of craft beer in his free hand, and the specific energy of a younger brother who had been waiting for this moment with the enthusiasm of someone approaching a spectator sport.
“So.” Oliver set down the beer. Crossed to Rune. Looked up—because at six feet he still had to look up, and the looking-up was visibly annoying to a man who was accustomed to being the tallest person in most rooms. “You’re the neighbor.”
“I am.”
“The one who sent my sister a cease-and-desist about her music.”
“That was never sent.”
“The one who called her store ‘an assault on curation.’”
“That’s been taken out of context.”
“The one who—” Oliver pulled out his phone. Scrolled. “—and I’m quoting my sister here— ‘has a jawline that could cut glass and the personality of a museum pamphlet.’”
“Oliver.” Lark’s voice carried the particular frequency of a woman whose brother had accessed the archive and intended to deploy it. “Put the phone away.”
“I’m conducting an interview. It’s journalism.”
“It’s harassment.”
“It’s due diligence.” Oliver pocketed the phone. Grinned at Rune with an expression that was half charm, half warning. “Welcome to the family dinner, man. The wine was a good move.”
Sybil appeared beside Oliver and offered Rune a smile that could have defused a hostage situation.
“Ignore him. He’s been rehearsing that since Lark texted.
” She extended her hand. “Sybil Nakamura. We’ve technically met through Lark’s stories, but this is the formal version. It’s lovely to meet you.”
Her handshake was gentle. Her eyes were not. Behind the sweetness, the same quick assessment he’d seen in Vivienne—a different instrument, same purpose.
Rune respected it. He respected all of it—the mother’s interrogation cadence, the father’s financial vetting, the brother’s protective theater, the best friend’s silk-wrapped vigilance.
This family loved Lark with a ferocity that expressed itself through scrutiny, and Rune understood ferocious love expressed through structure.
His Pride operated on the same principle.
Different architecture. Same foundation.
Dinner was an assault on every Scandinavian instinct he possessed.
The Colemans ate at a long oak table in a dining room filled with art and candlelight and the accumulated warmth of three generations of meals served in the same space.
The pernil was carved at the table—Harrison wielding the knife with theatrical flourishes and running Spanish commentary on the quality of the crust. The rice was perfect.
The tostones were crisp and salty. The Brunello was poured with appreciation, and Harrison’s toast— “To new colleagues and good wine”—carried the specific weight of a man who had not yet decided whether the word “colleague” was accurate and was giving Rune the space to prove it.
Vivienne ate with impeccable posture and the patience of a litigator letting her target get comfortable before the cross-examination began.
It began over the tostones.
“Rune.” She set down her fork. The table quieted. Lark’s spine straightened. Oliver’s thumb moved to his phone beneath the table. “Lark tells me you lead one of the oldest lion prides in Northern Europe.”
“That’s correct.”
“She also tells me you assumed leadership at twenty-two. Very young for that level of responsibility.”
“My father retired. The succession was—orderly.”
Vivienne’s eyebrow rose a fraction. The fraction communicated: I am a professor of law at Columbia.
I have cross-examined senators. The word ‘orderly’ is doing a great deal of work in that sentence, and I intend to find out what it’s hiding.
“Orderly.” She repeated the word as if placing it in evidence.
“And the transition was smooth? No challenges to your authority?”
She knows. Not the specifics. But Vivienne Coleman had done her research, or she had the instincts of a trial attorney who could smell an incomplete narrative from six words, and Rune had offered her six words that practically waved a flag.
“There were challenges. They were resolved.”
“Resolved.” Another placement. The word entered the record. “And the business? Sterling & Mane’s expansion under your leadership has been impressive. But rapid growth in specialty retail carries risk. How do you manage overextension?”
“Mom.” Lark’s voice carried a warning.
“I’m not interrogating him, baby. I’m conducting discovery.” Vivienne sipped her wine. “There’s a difference.”