Page 100 of Sweet Ruin

“Yeah,” I say, “it was the bit in English that confused me most of all. Since when do you care how I am?”

He lifts a hand. “What kind of host would I be if I didn’t ask?”

“You’re weirdly courteous for a mob boss loan shark.”

Kane just smiles again. “If the shoe fits.” He rakes his fingers through his hair. “If you’d prefer, we can skip past the pleasantries and go straight to business. Unless you like the banter…?”

“Business,” I blurt way too fast. My hands find each other in my lap and start worrying the hem of my cardigan. “Definitely business, please.”

“Pity,” he says. “I was looking forward to it.”

I take a breath and seal my fate before I can talk myself out of it.

“Yes.”

Kane doesn’t move. “Yes to what, specifically?”

I wag a finger at him. “Don’t do that.”

“Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that I’m doing it anyway.”

I roll my eyes even as I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling. “Yes to your deal. I will spend every holiday until Easter with you. In return, on Easter, you give me back all the rights to my bakery and you never darken my doorstep again.”

He settles back and toys with a bladed letter opener made out of what appears to be solid gold. He rotates it between his fingers again and again.

“Good,” he says at last.

I wrinkle my nose. “That’s it? ‘Good’?”

“What would you like me to say?”

“I don’t know. Something with more paperwork in it.” I shift in the chair. “How does this work? Do I sign something? Do we shake on it? Do you cut my palm with a knife and we press them together? Your guy on the phone was mum about the sacrificial lamb.”

“We don’t do that.”

“What a bummer. I’ve got a great goat guy. Extremely reliable. Pleases the gods every time.”

“Save it for the next full moon,” he jokes. “For now, we shake.”

He holds out his hand across the desk.

I look at it and hesitate.

I have a bad track record with this hand. In the pantry, the first time we ever met, it cuffed my wrist and ordered me to apologize to myself. Ninety seconds ago, it planted me down into this chair and my skin still feels like it’s sizzling all over from that briefest instant of contact.

I eye it suspiciously. Ink skitters along the backs of his knuckles, some of it faded, some of it fresh. Two rings, one plain and heavy, one with a stone so dark it just drinks the light. A shiny seam of scar tissue running along the outside of his thumb. And under all of it, an obvious, unbothered strength.

Hands that have never once been soft or delicate for a living.

Hands that were born to break.

“Don’t leave me hanging, Lilah.”

I don’t.

I reach out and shake.

But before I can let go, I add something else. “I want to make it very clear that this is a business transaction and nothing more, okay?”