The door opened and the warmth of the restaurant came out to meet them before they were fully inside.

Liam stepped in.

The entrance was a short corridor, dark paneling on both sides, a single painting on the left wall that he didn’t look at long enough to identify, just registered as something old and probably expensive.

Then the corridor ended and the room opened up.

It was bigger than it looked from outside.

The ceiling was high with dark beams running across it and the light came from everywhere and nowhere at once, candles on every table, small fixtures along the walls, all of it warm and low and deliberate.

Round tables dressed in white linen filled the floor at comfortable distances from each other, the settings on each one precise, a single candle in the center throwing a soft circle of light.

Dark wood chairs with upholstered backs.

The kind of room where the details had been thought about by someone who cared about details and had the money to act on that.

Waiters moved between the tables in dark uniforms, unhurried, appearing when something was needed and disappearing cleanly after.

One passed close to Liam carrying two plates on one arm, his eyes already on the table ahead of him.

The floor was dark hardwood. Quiet underfoot. The kind of floor that absorbed sound rather than throwing it back.

About two thirds of the tables were occupied.

A couple near the window, an older man sitting alone reading something, a group of four laughing at something quietly enough to keep it at their table.

Nobody looked out of place. Nobody looked like they were thinking about the bill.

Liam looked at all of it as they walked.

The murmuring from the occupied tables reached him as one low continuous sound, not individual conversations, just the general presence of people who were comfortable and in no hurry.

The smell of the room was food and candle wax and something that might have been the wood itself.

Then he started noticing the people noticing them.

Not loudly. Not all of them.

But it was there.

A woman at a table to the left looked up and then leaned toward the man across from her and said something behind her hand.

A pair near the bar went slightly quieter as they passed.

Someone at a corner table glanced over and then looked back down at their plate with the specific speed of someone who had decided looking was a bad idea.

Liam caught pieces of it as they moved through the room.

"Who is that with them."

"No idea."

"You see the jackets on the other two."

"Those are Blade Family bodyguards."

"So who’s he."

Liam kept his eyes forward.

’What?,’ he thought. ’So that’s what they are. Not just hired muscle.’ He glanced briefly at the red suit moving ahead of him, then at the dark suit who had positioned himself a half step behind Liam’s right shoulder without Liam having decided to let that happen. ’Bodyguards. That’s what they are.’ Something settled into place. ’Which means whoever I’m walking toward must be really dangerous.’

The red suit stopped.

They had reached a table near the center of the room. Not tucked away. Not hidden. Right there in the open where you could see every other table and every other table could see you.

The man sitting at it had stopped eating.

He was holding his fork loosely, not using it, his other hand resting flat on the edge of the table. Looking at Liam as they approached with an expression that was open and completely still.

He was young.

That landed first.

Young in a way that made Liam look twice because nothing else about him matched it. His suit was green, a deep specific green that most people wouldn’t attempt, and he wore it with the ease of someone who had never once questioned whether it worked.

White shirt underneath, the tie knot sitting exactly where it was supposed to sit. His hair was the thing that arrived last but stayed the longest.

The top section was white, clean bright white, and the underlayer where it showed at the sides was a light green that matched the suit close enough to be intentional. Cut neatly.

The two colors sitting against each other like someone had made a very deliberate decision and never looked back.

His glasses were thin framed.

His posture was straight. His side of the table was immaculate. The cutlery aligned.

The napkin folded with its edge parallel to the table’s edge.

His water glass sat at the exact top right corner of his setting, equidistant from both edges.

He set his fork down when Liam reached the table. Aligned it with the knife. Stood up.

He extended his hand.

"Liam," he said. The voice from the phone. In person it had the same quality. Measured. Placed. Every word landing exactly where he put it. "Thank you for coming. I’m Stiles."

Liam looked at the hand. Then at the face behind it.

He shook it.

Stiles’s grip was firm and brief. He released it cleanly and sat back down and adjusted the position of his napkin before looking back up.

"Please," he said, gesturing to the chair across from him.

Liam sat.

The red suit moved to a position a few feet away and stood with his hands behind his back. The dark suit had gone somewhere behind Liam, quiet and positioned.

Stiles picked up the menu from beside his plate and held it across the table. "Have something."

Liam took it and opened it.

He looked at the first column of numbers.

Then he looked again.

’Okay,’ he thought.

The first page was drinks. He moved past it.

Second page. Starters.

*Oscietra Caviar — 30g serving* — $480

*Seared Foie Gras, brioche, fig reduction* — $320

*Truffle Burrata, aged balsamic* — $210

He moved to the next page.

Mains.

*Pan Roasted Dover Sole, brown butter, capers* — $680

*Wagyu Beef Tenderloin, bone marrow jus* — $1,200

*Whole Roasted Lobster, herb butter, seasonal* — $950

*Rack of Lamb, rosemary, black garlic* — $780

Liam looked at the lamb.

Then he looked at the number next to it again.

’Seven hundred and eighty dollars,’ he thought. ’For one plate.’ He moved his eyes down the page slowly.

The cheapest thing on the entire menu was a side dish. Truffle fries. $95. ’The restaurant Clara’s parents took us to had a four hundred dollar main and I thought that was insane.’ He looked back at the Wagyu. Twelve hundred dollars. ’That place was a fast food joint compared to this.’

He closed the menu.

He reached for his water glass.

"The coaster," Stiles said.

Liam stopped.

He looked at Stiles.

Stiles was looking at the table where Liam’s glass had been sitting directly on the linen.

His expression hadn’t moved. Not annoyed. Not performing patience. Just noting something that to him clearly needed noting, the same way you might mention that a door was open.

Liam looked to the right of his setting. A small coaster sat there that he hadn’t registered. He put the glass on it.

"Thank you," Stiles said. He looked back up at Liam. "Did anything on the menu work for you?"

"I’m fine."

Stiles looked at him for a moment. "You should eat. The kitchen here is worth it." He glanced at the menu. "The lamb is straightforward. Good starting point if you haven’t been here before."

Liam looked at him.

’This is not what I thought I was walking into,’ he thought. ’Any of this.’ He watched Stiles pick up his fork, angle it against the food on his plate, and take a small precise bite.

’He looks like someone who has strong opinions about where things belong and enough patience to wait for everyone else to figure that out.’

A waiter appeared at the edge of the table without sound, looking at Liam with polite patience.

Liam looked at the closed menu in front of him. Then at the waiter. "The lamb."

The waiter nodded once and was gone before Liam had finished the sentence.

Stiles set his fork down and aligned it and looked at Liam across the candle.

"I appreciate you being here," he said. "I know the circumstances of the invitation weren’t ideal."

"Your guy pointed a gun at my face," Liam said.

"Yes." He said it the way someone says yes when they already know. "That wasn’t what I asked for. He interprets his role broadly sometimes." He looked briefly toward where the dark suit was standing behind Liam and then back. "It won’t happen again."

Liam looked at him. "You said you wanted to talk about my future."

"I did." Stiles picked up his glass. Set it back down on his coaster. Precisely. "But I find these conversations go better when both sides have eaten. So." He gestured toward the kitchen. "A few minutes."

Liam sat back and looked at Stiles Blade across the white linen and the candle.

Young. Clean. Precise. The kind of person who noticed where your glass was sitting and said something about it with the same energy other people used to say good morning.

’I’ve met dangerous people,’ he thought. ’I know what that usually looks like. This doesn’t look like that.’ He watched Stiles take another small precise bite, chew, set the fork down. ’And that’s exactly what’s throwing me off.’

Around them the restaurant continued at its own pace.

The couple near the window.

The man reading in the corner. The waiters moving between tables like the room ran on its own logic and they were just part of the system.

Liam looked at the candle between them for a moment.

Then he looked back at Stiles.

Stiles was already looking at him. Waiting.

Patient in the way that had nothing to do with being relaxed and everything to do with being completely certain that the conversation would happen when it happened and not before.

"You’re not what I expected," Liam said.

Stiles looked at him. Something moved briefly across his face, not quite a smile but adjacent to one. "Most people say that," he said. "Especially after they meet me for the fisrt time."

Liam looked at him.

Stiles picked up his fork again. Aligned it. Took another bite.

The kitchen door opened somewhere behind Liam and the smell of food moved through the room briefly before settling.

Liam sat back in his chair and waited and thought about what kind of person corrected your coaster placement before telling you why your life was in danger.

The candle between them burned steadily.

Neither of them said anything.

The room moved around them at its own quiet pace and outside the arched windows the city continued doing what cities do, completely unaware of what was sitting at the center table of this particular restaurant on this particular night.