Page 81 of Sweet Ruin

I don’t know what I expect. A website with stock photos of good-looking people in business attire shaking hands, maybe? A phone tree?

What comes up is… nothing. Well, basically nothing.

I get a hit for a New York State entity filing, registered in Delaware, a foreign LLC authorized to do business in New York. There’s a registered agent service in Albany with a P.O. box for an address. No officers listed. Neither is there a website, logo, slogan, social media presence. Nothing. A company of ghosts.

But I do find one thing of value.

On a business directory website that scrapes public filings for contact info, there’s a phone number with a 718 area code.

That’s local.

I squint at it for a long, long time.

I know what’s waiting for me on the other end of that. If I dial, a green-eyed silhouette will answer in that bone-chilling baritone with the raspy edge.

Hello, Lilah, he’ll say. I’ve been waiting for your call.

And what happens after that?

Only the devil knows—which is to say, only Kane himself knows. It wasn’t fate that brought us together; it was Kane, and he’s got plans on plans on plans. Where I fit into those plans remains to be seen.

It’s beyond obvious that those plans are neither nice, nor legal, nor peaceful. He’s a violent man who operates in a world of cash drops and shadowy threats.

How do I square that with the daunting stranger who wiped sugar from my cheek and seemed, for one wild second, like he wanted to kiss me?

He said he’d be back soon, but six days have gone by and there’s been no sign of him.

I’ve thought about him more in those six days than I care to admit. Not in a way I’m proud of. He walked into the worst night of my life, told me I was wrong about my own body, and then vanished into the snow like something I made up at four in the morning after too many hours awake.

He’s a phantom.

He’s a menace.

He’s a very bad idea.

But he’s also the last resort I don’t want to use.

In the end, we all knew this was coming.

I pick up.

I dial.

I wait.

Brrrr.

Brrrr.

Brr—

“Yeah.”

I blink, startled. I had many visions of how this conversation would go, but none of them began with the non-Kane stranger on the other end answering like I’ve already wasted his precious time.

“Uh… Er, sorry. Hi.”

“Yeah.”