Page 106 of Kazimir

“If you are serious, yes.”

I pushed off the counter so fast my chairless body nearly forgot manners. “I am serious. Lucia, I’m so serious.”

A male voice cut in from the doorway. “Bronc will lose his fucking mind when he finds out.”

I turned. Ryder Lowrey stood there with a mug in one hand, broad shoulders filling the frame, hazel eyes equal parts amused and resigned. He looked like a man who had gone to get coffee and found himself in the family business instead.

“Doc,” I said.

He stepped into the kitchen, gaze flicking from me to Lucia and back. “Tell me I heard wrong and we’re not plotting to keep Bronc’s baby sister in Philadelphia without a helmet and a signed waiver.”

“Don’t call me baby anything,” I said automatically.

His mouth twitched. “Case in point.”

Lucia reached for her coffee at last. “We are discussing options.”

Doc took a sip, then pointed the mug at me. “Options that end with your brother developing an eye twitch.”

“He already has one when I piss him off.”

“This’ll deepen it.”

I crossed my arms and lifted my chin. “It’s my life. I’m taking control of it.”

The words came out cleaner than I felt. Stronger too.

Doc watched me for a second, and whatever smart remark had been loading in his mouth changed shape. “Yeah,” he said finally. “It is.”

Lucia looked between us, cool as winter. “Then the next step is practical. If Maddie intends to stay, we speak to Bohdan.”

My pulse kicked again. This time it felt less like panic and more like standing on the edge of a jump I’d already decided to make.

Doc exhaled through his nose. “Christ. All right. But I’d advise doing the brother conversation sooner rather than later. Preferably before he hears it from somebody with a dramatic streak.”

We all thought of at least three people at once.

“Fair,” I said.

Lucia gathered her papers into one neat stack. “Finish your coffee. Then get your courage in order.”

I wrapped both hands around the mug and nodded.

For the first time in a long while, fear and excitement felt enough alike that I could live with not knowing which one was winning.

By the time Lucia led me through Obsidian’s doors, my nerves had worked themselves into a proper two-step under my ribs. The club felt different in daylight—not harmless, not even close, but quieter in a way that let me see the bones under all that midnight seduction.

The purple lighting still washed the room in that strange twilight Obsidian seemed to prefer, but with the daytime quiet it felt more like a promise than a seduction.

Lucia walked ahead of me in black heels that somehow made no sound worth mentioning. I followed, trying not to gawk like a tourist from the sticks, which was harder than I’d have liked. The main floor opened around us with all its leather and shadow and controlled sin. Even empty, the place buzzed in a way I couldn’t quite name. Power, probably. Rules. The sense that anything might happen here, but only if somebody important allowed it.

We took a corridor lined with dark panels and art too tasteful to fully understand. Up one flight. Down another hall that grew sleeker the farther we went. Less old-world seduction, more money with excellent tailoring.

Lucia stopped outside a door without knocking. “He’s expecting us.”

“Of course he is,” I muttered.

Her mouth almost twitched. “Try not to volunteer profanity in the first thirty seconds.”