Page 46 of The Devils in the Details

I watched from the study window until he cleared the courtyard. Then I moved to the library, because that was where he would expect to find me, and Theodore Romano was a man who appreciated expectations being met.

The library smelled the way it always smelled — old paper, lemon oil, the faint trace of wood smoke from the deep stone fireplace that hadn’t been lit in weeks.

Leather-bound spines lined the walls, faded gold lettering catching what little light made it through the heavy curtains. The tapestries had gone soft with age, burgundies and golds muted to something that looked richer than it was, like memory viewed through the wrong end of a telescope.

Through the open door, the worn banister of the grand staircase was visible — dark walnut, smooth from generations of hands, the patina of something that had been touched by Romano men for longer than I had been alive.

Zephyr was already there. Bare feet on the wide-plank floor, turquoise sparkles catching the low light, his laptop bag slung over one shoulder like he’d been mid-migration when the car arrived and had decided the library was as good a destination as any.

He had the tea tray set up on the low table — porcelain, thin, the kind that had survived three generations of family drama without acquiring a single chip, which was its own kind of miracle.

My grandfather paused in the doorway. His dark eyes moved across the room once, inventorying, the look of a man reading a space he once knew well and noting the changes.

The mustache — trim, old-world, the kind of facial hair that had been fashionable when he was young and had simply outlasted fashion — didn’t move, but something behind his eyes did, a fractional shift that might have been approval.

Zephyr looked up. Offered tea with the complete ease of someone who had decided this was a normal social exchange and was now implementing that decision without consulting anyone’s sense of propriety.

“Tea,” he said. “Also caramel. The good kind. Not the kind they sell at gas stations, which I mention only because gas station caramels are a crime against humanity and I have strong feelings on the subject.”

Theodore accepted the teacup. Thin porcelain between weathered fingers, steam rising in a thin curl that caught the light from the window. He accepted the caramel too — gold foil, offered from Zephyr’s pocket with the casual generosity of someone who treated sugar as a universal language.

He unwrapped it deliberately. Slow fingers, careful. The foil came away, and he held the caramel between thumb and forefinger, studying it the way another man might study a document.

Then he looked at Zephyr. Really looked. Eyes moving from the chipped turquoise polish on toenails to the bare feet to the laptop bag to the white T-shirt that had slid off one shoulder in the way it always did, like gravity had a personal investment in the collarbone situation and was exercising its rights accordingly.

“I had heard,” Theodore said, his voice dry as the paper on the shelves, “that Ari had acquired an interesting assistant.”

“Indispensable,” Zephyr said. He didn’t smile. He didn’t need to. The word landed with the weight of something that had been tested and found accurate, and the casual certainty of it cost me something every time I heard it.

Theodore’s mustache moved. A fractional shift, the closest thing to amusement his face was designed to produce, and he put the caramel in his mouth with the same deliberate care he’d applied to the unwrapping.

“I can see why Ari keeps you,” he said.

“Everyone eventually does.” Zephyr picked up his own tea, blew across the surface once, and took a sip that managed to convey both courtesy and the distinct impression that he was humoring the entire exchange out of personal generosity rather than obligation.

I watched from my chair. Said nothing. The leather creaked under my weight.

Theodore set his teacup down on the saucer. The porcelain made a soft click, precise, the sound of a man who had finished with preliminaries and was now moving to the point.

He folded his hands on his knee, the rosewood cane leaning against the arm of his chair, and the room got quieter in the way rooms do when Theodore Romano decides it’s time to speak.

“Alexios has been cultivating old Romano loyalists for months.” His voice was low, clipped, the cadence of a man who did not repeat himself and expected the room to keep up. “Running quiet pressure through business channels. His patience is running out.”

I didn’t ask how he knew. Didn’t ask about the soft edges in his loyalty, the places where blood might pull harder than pragmatism. My grandfather had chosen his side the day I took the seat, and questioning the choice now would have been an insult to both of us.

“He has always wanted the head seat.” Theodore’s dark eyes held mine across the library, steady, giving nothing away. “He was never capable of taking it cleanly, so he will take it by force if he decides the moment is right.”

The conclave. Two weeks out. The Romano family’s first real shot at reestablishing standing since Geno’s disaster had gutted us and left us bleeding on the floor of the alliance.

Attendance-only status ended if I walked in with leverage and walked out with a deal. Alexios knew it. Everyone knew it.

“He will move before or during.” Theodore didn’t elaborate. Didn’t need to. The arithmetic was clear — a family divided cannot stand at a table of families united, and Alexios had spent the last year making sure the division ran deep enough to matter.

I nodded once. “Thank you.”

Theodore stood. The cane came up, found the floor, and the tap of wood on hardwood carried through the library. On his way to the door, he paused. Looked at Zephyr. Held out a hand.

Zephyr reached into his pocket. Produced another caramel. Gold foil, slightly crumpled, and he placed it in Theodore’s palm with the quiet ceremony of someone exchanging contraband at a border crossing.