Page 19 of Stealing Cinder

Edgar is neither. Edgar wears another man's legacy like a stolen coat and expects compliments on the fit.

"How much do you think he'll want?" Oliver tips his chin toward the briefcase.

"He doesn't want money. He wants leverage." I pick up my tumbler and the crystal is cold in my grip. I take a slow pull. The whiskey is a waste of good glass. "He wants to feel like he's above the agreement. Like signing it is a favor to us instead of the only move that keeps him breathing."

"So we stroke his ego for thirty minutes, get the signature, and leave." Bastian shrugs a heavy shoulder.

I can feel my scowl deepen when I move my eyes to my friend. "If it were that simple, we'd have been done two months ago."

Valerian stubs his cigar in the crystal ashtray at his elbow. "Edgar Silvani is a man who believes he's smarter than everyone in the room. That makes him predictable and dangerous in equal measure. He'll stall. He'll posture. He'll want concessions none of us should give."

"And if he doesn't sign?" Bastian's grin fades. The humor leaves his expression and what replaces it is flat professionalism. I know that look. He's already calculating how many bodies a war would cost.

"Then we deal with the consequences." I drain the rest of my whiskey. The burn doesn't touch the cold sitting in the center of my chest.

Maybe I should take Oliver up on his offer to use the villa in Italy. Get out of Chicago for a month. Clear the mental fog. Find my footing in a life that's started to feel like a room I'm pacing in circles.

Or maybe I should find her.

The thought surfaces the way it always does, quiet and insistent. I know her first name. I know she runs a business. I know she has a friend named Lavender who works at the Gilded Key Society. I have resources that could locate her in under forty-eight hours.

This isn’t the first time I’ve entertained the idea. I just don’t want to be the stalker type.

She chose to leave. And a man who forces himself into a woman's life after she's walked away is no man at all.

Doesn't stop me from wanting to.

That pale hair against my pillowcase. The warmth of her body curled into mine, so small she fit inside the circle of my arms with room to spare. The feel of her lips when she kissed my cheek in the shower hasn’t faded from my memory. And the way she said daddy had every wall I've built in forty-three years of survival crack down the center.

Five months. I've gone as far as to start a sourdough starter of all the fucking things. Like baking bread is some new age shit that will heal my broken soul.

But I did it anyway. Turns out the bread is pretty good. I like to work out my frustration on the dough right before I pop it into the oven.

I've paced the perimeter of my compound so many nights the enforcers stopped noting it in their logs.

"I need a refill." I push back from the table and cross the room to the sideboard. The hardwood groans under my weight in a spot near the doorway. I pour two fingers from a decanter and carry the glass back to the table. The cards are where I left them. Bastian has folded. Oliver is watching me with an expression I recognize from three decades of friendship.

"What?" I drop into my chair.

"When's the last time you slept through a full night?"

I flick his concern away. "I sleep fine."

"Bullshit." Oliver sets his tumbler down. "You look like you haven't had a solid eight hours since spring."

He's not wrong about that either.

I pick up my cards. "Can we focus on why we're here?"

The pocket doors to the poker room swing open and a butler steps through. Mid-fifties, stiff posture, white gloves. He clasps his hands behind his back and addresses the room with practiced neutrality. Every opinion he's ever held is scrubbed clean from his voice.

"Mr. Silvani is here. He'll be with you momentarily."

“And Mrs. Silvani?” Valerian asks.

The butler pauses at the door. “She and her daughters are set to arrive in an hour. Their flight from Paris was delayed.”

With that he excuses himself. The doors close and we’re left to wait again.