9. Rafe
RAFE
THE CAR COOLER CONFESSION
The drive from my family’s estate to Quinn Bradley’s apartment should’ve given me enough time to think through the evening properly.
I’d intended to review the museum director’s public philanthropic record, and the three most likely ways the conversation could go if the director allowed me more than four minutes of uninterrupted attention.
I had files on my phone, notes from Payton & Wallace.
I had a clear purpose, which should’ve been sufficient for occupying my mind.
But I couldn’t concentrate. I found myself thinking about a law intern, a thrift shop in Chelsea, and an eighty-year-old woman in a bedazzled pantsuit who had called me Mr. Vineyard and gotten away with ordering me into a pink velvet chair.
The worst part wasn’t that I’d tolerated it.
The worst part was that I’d enjoyed myself.
I’d only gone because Quinn needed appropriate attire for the event, and I hadn’t trusted the phrase I have a place to go. I’d expected to be useful and possibly irritated, but that was hardly new.
I hadn’t expected Quinn to emerge from the dressing room in one unsuccessful dress after another, meeting each judgment with humor instead of embarrassment, even when I could see the quick calculation behind her eyes.
She was fast. Not merely clever, though she was that, too.
Fast in the way of someone who had spent her life reading rooms before the rooms decided whether they would welcome her.
From what I’d seen at the firm, Quinn was pleasantly competent and disconcertingly resourceful. She completed work quickly because she’d taken the time to understand the systems other people merely complained about. She listened when others assumed she was only carrying coffee.
At the thrift shop, she’d been different. Still clever, still observant, but looser. I’d seen something in her when Octavia had fussed over her without pity. Quinn had accepted it, but not before trying to deflect it with humor, as if she couldn’t accept without it.
I understood that more than I wanted to.
My maternal grandmother had died long before I was born.
My mother spoke of her rarely, her memories were often braided with the Fog, names sliding out of order, old jokes arriving without their original context attached to them.
But in her lucid moments, she described her mother as opinionated and elegant.
A woman who wore silk to breakfast and once told a visiting dignitary that even though his concern was real, his hat was unforgivable.
I wondered, unwillingly, if being scolded by Octavia over a dog’s formalwear was what having my grandmother around might have been like.
The city slid by in dark glass and smeared light. The ride was smooth enough that I barely even noticed the traffic. I unlocked my phone, looked at the notes for the gala, and read the first sentence three times without absorbing it.
Quinn had laughed with startled pleasure when I told her Max needed his tie, as if I’d surprised her by becoming a person she could laugh with for several seconds.
It had been… gratifying. Unfortunately. This case was too important, and I had been too disciplined for too long to be distracted by something as foolish as a… crush. An infatuation. Whatever this was.
The driver turned onto a narrow street lined with older brick buildings, most of them wedged together because the city had run out of space and patience at the same time.
I rolled down my window to fully absorb my surroundings.
The storefronts had metal gates pulled halfway down.
A laundromat glowed, its bright lights announcing its practicality.
Trash bags crowded the sidewalk next to a delivery bike locked to a signpost. Beneath a fire escape, a man was smoking and pacing while speaking into his phone in rapid Spanish.
I checked the address again, certain there had been a mistake.
“This is it, sir,” my driver said.
The building wasn’t derelict, but it was tired.
The brick had darkened around the windows.
The entrance light flickered—no, the entrance light blinked unevenly, casting a weak yellow circle over a narrow vestibule with scratched glass.
One of the buzzers appeared to have been taped into place.
The front steps were clean but worn at the center from decades of people carrying groceries, laundry, children, or just their exhausted selves.
This was where she lived.
I knew, objectively, that not all lawyers were wealthy. I knew she was an intern. I knew Payton & Wallace treated its young staff as if ambition were a renewable energy source that required no food, sleep, or appropriate pay. Quinn’s tote bag alone had suggested a budget under siege.
Still, my mind resisted the evidence in front of me.
Law interns worked brutal hours. They handled sensitive documents, client communication, research, deadlines.
They were asked to perform useful labor in rooms where everyone wore suits that cost more than a month of the rent Quinn probably paid here.
Surely the compensation wasn’t generous, but it had to be enough to afford more than this narrow, exhausted building on a block where the curb looked like it had survived several small wars.
I caught sight of my reflection in the window and corrected my face.
Quinn hadn’t asked for my opinion of her building. She hadn’t asked to be measured against a standard set by my family’s fortune. It wasn’t her dignity that was lacking here. It was the system around her that had decided her labor could be expensive to bill and inexpensive to buy.
I rolled up my window and got out of the car before the driver could open my door, smoothing my jacket as I stepped onto the sidewalk.
The evening air smelled like rain held back by heat, the usual city mix of pavement, food carts, exhaust fumes, and someone’s laundry detergent venting from a basement unit. I looked toward the vestibule.
The correct thing, I assumed, was to go inside.
Except I wasn’t certain whether going inside without being invited would be intrusive. Texting from the curb felt inelegant, but entering the building might imply pressure. I could call, but that seemed worse.
I glanced at my phone.
Then at the building.
Then at my phone again.
Ridiculous.
I’d negotiated shipping contracts with wolf packs who considered “good faith” a weakness. I’d once landed in dragon form on a private airstrip in a thunderstorm because my mother had wandered from the house and refused to come inside until someone showed her where the moon had gone.
So, I could damn well collect Quinn Bradley from her apartment.
I climbed the steps and found the row of buzzers beside the door, each label tucked behind cloudy plastic. Most had faded to illegibility. One had been corrected in pen so many times that it now appeared to belong to three different people and possibly a small business.
I found Bradley after a moment and pressed the button.
Nothing happened.
I waited, then pressed it again.
Still nothing.
I glanced back toward the car, then at the door.
Texting from the sidewalk would have been easier, but I’d already committed to the archaic ritual of collecting someone properly, and I resented being thwarted by a broken buzzer in front of a building that apparently maintained the security standards of an unlocked shed.
I tried the handle, and the door opened. I stood there for a second, hand on the metal pull.
“That’s unacceptable,” I muttered.
The lobby beyond was narrow and dim, with tile worn dull in the center and a wall of mailboxes, several of them dented.
Someone had taped a handwritten note above the radiator asking tenants not to leave packages unattended because three had gone missing that month.
Another note, in a different hand, said MANAGEMENT HAS BEEN NOTIFIED ABOUT THE FRONT DOOR AGAIN.
I stepped inside and let the door swing shut behind me.
It didn’t latch.
I looked at it. Then at the broken buzzer. Then at the stairwell visible past the mailboxes.
I wasn’t concerned, of course. There was no reason to be concerned.
Quinn Bradley was a grown woman, an intern at a highly competitive law firm, and the owner of a retired military dog who could remove an intruder’s bad intentions from their body by force.
She’d lived here before I’d ever noticed her, and she would continue living here without requiring my opinion.
Still, the door should’ve fucking locked.
I rolled my eyes at myself, which did very little to make my concern less irritating. Apparently, I’d gotten close enough to the woman long enough to develop sentiments about her building’s entry system. Excellent. A perfectly normal progression.
I was considering whether to text her after all when I heard movement above me.
A door opened.
Footsteps approached the stairs, and my thoughts stopped arranging themselves properly.
I’d seen the dress in Octavia’s shop. I’d approved it.
I’d watched Quinn stand in front of a spotted mirror while Octavia adjusted the sleeve and muttered about hems. I knew the color was such a deep plum it was almost black until light brought it to life.
I knew the beading was restrained enough not to look cheap and distinctive enough not to vanish in a room of people trained to overlook effort.
None of that had prepared me for Quinn wearing it as if the dress had been crafted for her in a bespoke tailor shop instead of something we’d bought in a thrift store.
Her hair was up, but loose strands framed her face.
Her makeup didn’t disguise her but clarified her, drawing attention to the soft green of her eyes, the clean line of her mouth, the intelligence in her expression before she even spoke.
The earrings Octavia had chosen flashed even in the weak light of the lobby.