The image of Judge Marcus Thorne burned in Jax's mind, cold and sharp. The Hell-flame Peppercorns felt heavy in his pocket, a tangible weight of the demonic bargain he had struck. He began to pace the floor of his kitchen, the adrenaline from the successful night service draining away, replaced by a cold, sharp dread.
"A judge?" Jax growled, the words spoken aloud to the empty room. He felt the familiar, impotent rage rising. "Are you insane?"
Kazimir's voice answered in his head, not with anger, but with a cold, dismissive condescension. "Insanity is repeating the same mistake and expecting a different result. You were doing that before I arrived. This is a calculated risk. And stop thinking like a thug."
"He's a public figure," Jax shot back, his thoughts a frantic barrage. "He'll have security. Cameras. A life lived in the open. You want me to walk up and hit him with a tire iron in the middle of a courtroom?"
"I told you a tire iron wouldn't work," Kazimir replied, his mental voice laced with disappointment. "You lack imagination. More importantly, you misunderstand the nature of this particular evil. Silas Croft was a rabid dog. Messy, loud, and obvious. Judge Thorne is a cancer. He grows in the dark, hidden within the very systems designed to protect people. His evil is quiet, sterile, and far more potent."
As Kazimir spoke, new information flooded Jax's mind. It wasn't just a list of facts; it was a sensory download of the Judge's sins. Jax saw through the Judge's eyes, felt the cold, reptilian satisfaction as he accepted a briefcase full of money in a quiet, wood-paneled office. The purpose of the money was to ensure a rival developer's son received the maximum possible sentence for a minor drug offense, clearing a path for a lucrative construction project.
He felt the Judge's sterile pleasure as he wielded the letter of the law like a scalpel, surgically destroying a family in a custody battle to repay a political favor. There was no passion in it, no anger. Just the calm, arrogant certainty of a man who believed he was above the rules he so brutally enforced on others. This soul didn't smell of rot; it had the clean, antiseptic scent of corruption that had laundered itself into respectability.
"This soul is a delicacy, Chef," Kazimir explained, the psychic images fading. "It has been aged in arrogance and entitlement. It is a rare vintage. You don't smash a bottle of fine wine with a hammer. It must be uncorked with precision."
The cold, calculated nature of the Judge's evil settled in Jax's gut, pushing aside his fear and replacing it with a familiar, righteous anger. He had seen men like this his entire life, men who used their power to crush the little guy. They just usually wore tracksuits, not judicial robes.
"Okay," Jax conceded, his pacing slowing. "I get it. He's a monster. But he's still a powerful monster. How do we get to him?"
"Simple," Kazimir stated, his tone shifting to that of a master strategist. "We don't go to him. He must come to us. Men like Thorne don't just eat dinner; they make a statement. They need to be seen at the most talked-about, most exclusive place in the city. It affirms their status, their power. We are going to make Romano's that place."
"How?" Jax asked. "We're a hit, but we're not there yet."
"The food critic," Kazimir said. "Alistair Finch. His first review created a buzz. But men like Finch are addicts. They chase the next big thing, the next transcendent experience. We will bait the hook, and he will bite. He will write a second review, a feature article, a piece so glowing it borders on religious worship. He will make us a legend. And a legend is something Judge Thorne cannot ignore."
The plan was audacious, intricate, and terrifying. It relied on manipulating people, not overpowering them. It was a game of chess, not a bar fight. For the first time, Jax began to understand the ancient, patient intelligence he was partnered with.
The following week, Romano's was a phenomenon. The phone rang so constantly that Elara had to hire a daytime receptionist just to handle the calls. Every night, the dining room was a vibrant, chaotic symphony of happy diners, clinking glasses, and scraped plates. A line of hopeful patrons snaked down the block, a testament to the magic happening inside.
Elara was in her element. She managed the floor with the cool efficiency of a field marshal, a clipboard her baton. She'd hired a new server, a competent young woman named Maya, and was training her with a poise that made Jax proud. The restaurant was running like a well-oiled machine, and it was all because of her.
Their professional partnership was seamless. In the heat of service, they were a perfectly synchronized unit. But outside of it, a new, subtle distance had grown between them. Jax was more guarded, the secret of his next hunt a constant, heavy weight. He found himself watching the door, scanning the faces of the wealthy clientele, wondering which of them moved in the same circles as the Judge.
Elara, for her part, was watchful. Her smiles were genuine when she talked to customers, but when she looked at him, her eyes were searching, filled with a question she hadn't yet figured out how to ask.
Late one night, long after Romano's had closed, Elara stood in the sterile, high-tech kitchen of her culinary institute. The lights hummed over the pristine stainless-steel countertops. She had the best equipment money could buy: a thermal immersion circulator, a blast chiller, a programmable convection oven. And in a perfectly chilled bowl, she had the finest Acquerello risotto rice, aged for seven years.
She was going to replicate Jax's risotto.
She followed the classic method with scientific precision. She toasted the rice until each grain was translucent. She controlled the temperature of the broth to the exact degree. Her agitation of the rice was consistent, the perfect rhythm to release the starches. Everything was flawless.
An hour later, she plated the dish. It was a beautiful risotto. It was creamy, perfectly seasoned, and the rice was cooked to a textbook al dente. It was a dish that would have earned her an A+ in her advanced gastronomy class.
But it wasn't Jax's.
It lacked the impossible, paradoxical texture. It was simply an excellent dish made by a skilled human. It wasn't magic. The comparison, the gap between "excellent" and "impossible," filled her with a deep, gnawing frustration.
She pushed the plate away and opened her laptop. She was too rational, too grounded in the science of her craft to search for "magic recipes." Her search terms were more academic. Obscure medieval cooking techniques. Alchemical theories of flavor infusion.Historical texts on culinary preservation. She fell down a rabbit hole of forgotten knowledge, of strange, esoteric theories about the very nature of food and taste. Her suspicion wasn't supernatural. It was a research project. And it was leading her into very strange, very dark territory.