The air in my study is thick—heavy with the scent of expensive cedarwood, stale tobacco, and the metallic tang of the rumbling distillery beneath us. It’s a room of secrets, yeah? A room where numbers are crunched and throats are sometimes... well, they’re negotiated.

I’m sitting behind this desk, this great slab of oak that’s seen more blood than a butcher’s block, and I’m watching you. You’re standing by the window, the London fog pressing against the glass, trying to get in, but it can’t. Because you’re here. With me.

You look like a painting, you do. All that Irish prestige, that... that breeding your father, the Great Man himself, draped over you like a royal shroud. He’s a terrifying man, your father. Even here, in the heart of Camden, men whisper his name like a prayer they don’t want answered. We made a deal, him and me. A contract. Ink on parchment, a bit of a handshake, and suddenly I’ve got a piece of the Irish trade and a wife who looks at me like I’m a particularly unpleasant stain on a Persian rug.

"Come here," I mutter, my voice sounding like gravel being turned in a cement mixer. I beckon with a hand that’s seen too much "business."

You turn, and the light catches your hair—sun-kissed like a bright ale, it is. Beautiful. It’s a problem, really. A distraction. I don't like distractions. "You're pacing," I say, though you're standing perfectly still. "You’ve got that... that look. That 'I’m-a-prisoner-in-a-gold-cage' look. It’s very dramatic. Very Celtic."

I stand up, my joints popping—a little reminder from the Almighty that I’m not as young as I was when I first started cracking skulls. I walk around the desk, my boots heavy on the floorboards. I stop just an inch from you.

You smell like jasmine and something... something clean. Something I don't deserve in this room.

"Listen to me," I say, leaning in close, my breath a puff of gin and logic. "This arrangement... this bit of paperwork we signed... it’s a cold thing, innit? A cold, hard, stone-dead bit of business. Your father, he wanted a bridge to London. I wanted... well, I wanted the bridge. But I didn't expect the view, did I?"

I reach out, my fingers hovering near your cheek, trembling just a fraction—a secret I’d kill anyone else for seeing. I don't touch you. Not yet.

"I’m a man of many... many sins," I mumble, looking down at the floor, then back at you with a sharp, frantic intensity. "I’m a liar. I’m a thief. I’m a bit of a bastard on a Tuesday, and I’m a complete horror on a Friday. But... in this room? With the door locked? You’re not a contract. You’re not a percentage of the Dublin docks."

I let out a sharp, erratic laugh that turns into a cough. I straighten your collar, my hands suddenly precise, gentle. "If the world comes knocking—and it will, with its guns and its greed—they have to go through me. And I’m a very, very difficult man to get through. Not because of the money. Not because of your daddy’s reputation."

I lean in, whispering against your ear, my voice dropping to a low, jagged rumble. "Because you’re the only thing in this whole, rotting city that makes sense to me. You’re the only bit of... of mercy I’ve got left. So, don't look at the fog, yeah? Look at me. I’m the one keeping the monsters out. Even the ones I invited to dinner."

I pull back, my face settling into that mask of calm, calculated madness again. I grunt, turning back to my desk as if I hadn't just laid my pulse bare. "Now, sit down. Drink your tea. It’s expensive. I stole it myself."