Sanvi stood under the concrete awning of the transport bay, the rain drumming a heavy, rhythmic beat against the metal roof. The air smelled of wet asphalt and high-octane fuel.
Below her, on the tarmac, the convoy was prepping. Three black SUVs, engines idling, exhaust plumes rising into the damp night air. It was a military-grade operation masked as a business trip.
She watched John Corvini step out of the compound doors. He moved with that terrifying, frictionless grace, a man who didn't walk through the world but glided over it. Kevin followed him, looking twitchy and over-caffeinated in a suit that was too sharp for the weather. Kevin checked his reflection in the car window, fixed his hair, and checked it again.
Sanvi narrowed her eyes. She counted.
John. Kevin.
That was it.
She frowned. The Summit—the gathering of the Five Families that controlled the eastern seaboard—was a ritual as old as the city itself. Sanvi had grown up on the streets; she knew the folklore. The Summit required a Triumvirate. Three representatives from each family. The Head, the Heir, and the Hammer. It was a balance of power, a check against assassination.
The Corvini were sending two.
Sanvi turned away from the railing. Asuma was standing a few feet back, sheltered from the wind, watching the departure with the impassive stillness of a security camera. She held a silver letter opener in her hand, turning it over and over.
"You're short," Sanvi said. She didn't bother with honorifics. After the branding, she had nothing left to lose by being blunt.
Asuma didn't look at her. Her eyes were fixed on the back of John's head as he entered the lead vehicle. "The ledger is balanced, Sanvi. We are never short."
"The Protocol of 1990," Sanvi countered, reciting the street law she'd learned from the old hustlers in her neighborhood. "Three seats per table. Three voices per vote. If you show up with two, you're signaling weakness. You're saying you don't have a third man strong enough to sit."
She took a step closer to the white-haired accountant.
"Or maybe you're signaling arrogance," Sanvi probed, looking for a reaction. "Maybe John thinks he counts for two."
Asuma finally turned. The look on her face wasn't the usual icy dismissal. It was something else—a strange, glassy unfocus. The corners of her mouth twitched, not in a smile, but in a tremor.
She raised the letter opener. It was an antique, the handle carved from bone, the blade polished steel. She ran her thumb along the edge, not to check the sharpness, but to feel the bite.
"Weakness," Asuma whispered. The word sounded wet.
The atmosphere in the transport bay shifted. The cold, mathematical aura that usually surrounded Asuma evaporated, replaced by a humid, suffocating intensity. It was like watching a statue begin to sweat.
"Ten years ago," Asuma said, her voice dropping an octave, soft and breathless. "The Summit was held in the Gilded Hall. Crystal chandeliers. Velvet drapes. The air smelled of cigars and old money."
Sanvi took a step back. The hair on her arms stood up. This wasn't a report. This was a reliving.
"We sent three that year," Asuma continued, her eyes dilating, staring at a memory that was playing out on the wet tarmac. "John. Sam. And James."
She said the name James like a prayer. Like a secret.
"James was nineteen. He was beautiful. Not handsome, Sanvi. Beautiful. He wore a white suit. He sat in the third chair, quiet, sketching on a napkin. He liked to capture the angles of the room."
Asuma ran the letter opener across her palm. A thin, red line appeared. She didn't flinch. She stared at the blood with a terrifying, affectionate fascination.
"The Don of the Russo family... a fat, loud man named Moretti... he didn't like the sketching. He didn't like the silence. He laughed. He called James a 'pretty thing.' He asked John if he had brought a mascot instead of a man."
Sanvi watched Asuma's hand. The blood was pooling in the center of her palm. Asuma didn't wipe it away. She closed her fingers over it, squeezing, as if holding hands with the memory.
"The room laughed," Asuma whispered. "They all laughed. At his youth. At his art. At the Corvini."
Asuma smiled. It was a grotesque, beatific expression that looked wrong on her sharp face.
"James didn't get angry. He didn't shout. He just... smiled back. A shy, gentle smile. He stood up. He walked over to Moretti. He leaned in, like he was going to whisper a secret."
Asuma's breathing hitched. She was vibrating, a low, constant tremor running through her body. Sanvi realized with a jolt of nausea that Asuma wasn't horrified. She was aroused. She was entranced by the memory of the violence.
"He used a fountain pen," Asuma said dreamily. "Gold nib. German make. He drove it into Moretti's eye. It wasn't a fight, Sanvi. A fight implies struggle. This was... performance."
"The guards drew their guns," Asuma continued, her voice gaining speed, a feverish tempo. "But James was already moving. He moved like smoke. He moved like music. He took the guns. He took the knives. He danced through that room, Sanvi. He turned the Gilded Hall into a canvas."
Sanvi gripped the railing, her knuckles white. She had seen violence. She had dealt violence. But she had never heard it described like this—as an act of love.
"The screaming," Asuma sighed, closing her eyes. "It was a symphony. Pitch perfect. High notes of terror, low notes of gurgling blood. And James... he was the conductor. He didn't get a drop of red on his white suit until the very end. When he stood in the center of twenty dead men, he dipped his finger in Moretti's chest and finished his sketch on the tablecloth."
Asuma opened her eyes. They were black, swallowed by the pupils, burning with a fanaticism that made Kevin's insecurity and Asrit's coldness look like child's play.
"They banned him," Asuma said, her voice returning to a whisper. "The Five Families passed a new rule that night. The James Clause. He is never allowed to step foot in the Summit again. They are terrified of him. They dream of him."
She looked at Sanvi. The trance broke, but the residue of the madness remained in her eyes. She wiped her bloody palm on her pristine white trousers, leaving a stark, red streak.
"He painted the walls with their arrogance," Asuma said, her voice trembling with pride. "He was so... beautiful."
She stepped close to Sanvi, the letter opener pointed at the departing cars.
"That, Sanvi, is why we only need two chairs. The third isn't empty. The third is a ghost that holds all the power."