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Heat hits my throat. Not the twisted high of the club. Something else. Place. The thing I quit college for and never found in Singapore or in a Greek crew or in Zane’s favors.

“I won’t ever let you down,” I say.

“I know,” Dmitri replies, passion and menace in his voice—just the way I’ve come to crave.

And with that, Dmitri pours the juice. Two glasses. We toast like it is vodka and bright city lights, except it is morning and pastry flakes and a truth that has been waiting decades.

The glasses touch. We drink. Then he kisses me.

A man kissing the boy who gave him his father back and then agreed to hunt the rest of the world for him.

When we break apart I look past his shoulder at the city in the glass.

I have hustled and run and lied and wanted a master who was not a middleman. I have taken a crop and a plug and a pan to a fixer who thought I was poison.

This is it. Not an office. Not a literature degree.

My true place.

Chief intelligence general to a Pakhan who loves me. A boy who will train with Hardy until the pistol is my brother.

A young man who will sit at the table that seats a war and bring files instead of only his body for his Master to devour.

Forever, I told him last night.

This morning forever comes with a job title.

I kiss Dmitri again, orange sweet on his mouth, and I let the last of the night go.

The Lucci are being hunted. My Daddy’s father’s name is clean.

And I am exactly where I was always trying to get, and wouldn’t change it for the world.

18

DMITRI

Three weeks later the private lot still smells of concrete and cold oil.

Elias stands beside a dark car that is not mine.

He looks perfect.

Keys in his hand. Coat belted. An ice cold smile on his face.

I take my darling boy’s face and kiss him. Not a claim for an audience. A send-off. He is leaving on his own recon… a motorcycle club on the outskirts that has been sniffing at our new edges, talking too loud in the wrong bars, asking questions about routes that used to belong to dead Lucci men.

Spy work.

His work now.

A chief intelligence general who knows how to call his own plays once the orders have been given by me.

“Get what we need,” I say. “How you get it is yours. I trust the method. I trust you.”

Complete faith.

Total trust.