Page 67 of Wicked Mafia Beast
I send it to Persia.
The reply comes in under a minute.Absolutely. There's a café on Halsted I love. 11am? I'll send the address.
Getting out of The Foundry requires negotiation. Kon emerges from the training room with damp hair and a black t-shirt clinging to the sweat still cooling on his skin, and his expression shifts the moment I tell him where I'm going.
He notices I don't ask and I particularly love how his dark brows draw together, the scar bisecting his left eyebrow pulling tight, and his jaw sets in that particular way that means he's calculating threat levels behind those black eyes.
"I'll drive you."
"I can take a cab."
"I'll drive you." He says it the same way, same tone, same volume, but the finality underneath turns the repetition into a wall I can't climb over.
"Kon, it's coffee with Persia. In a public café. In broad daylight."
"And I'll be parked outside. You can take all the time you need." He crosses his arms, the muscles in his forearms flexing beneath the barbed wire ink, and looks at me with the patient immovability of a man with a stubborn streak wider than mine.
"Non-negotiable, Onyx."
The frustration flares hot behind my ribs. I want to argue and remind him that I survived twenty-five years without a six-foot-four Russian shadow and I can handle a damn coffee date. But the stubborn set of his mouth and the genuine concern darkening his eyes take the fight out of me before it fully forms.
"Fine." I grab my jacket and shove my arms through the sleeves. "But you're staying in the car."
"Da."
"I mean it, Kon. No lurking. No watching through the window. No scaring the baristas."
The corner of his mouth twitches. Almost a smile, gone before it fully commits. "I don't lurk."
"You absolutely lurk. I can’t shower without you passing in front of the bathroom door five times."
“That’s because I am convincing myself not to stalk inside that shower and fuck you senseless. Passing helps.”
Oh.
He leaves it at that and ten minutes later we are in the car heading toward Persia. He showered in record time and smells fuckable, I mean deliciously tempting.
I force myself to focus. The café is a narrow brick-front shop on Halsted with mismatched furniture and the warm, yeasty smell of fresh pastries layered over dark-roast coffee. Persia is already seated at a corner table when I walk in, Sofia balanced on one knee, a half-eaten scone on a plate beside a latte topped with foam art. She's wearing a flowing lavender dress that somehow makes her violet hair look lovely, and the smile she gives me when I approach is warm enough to heat the entire room.
"You came." She stands and pulls me into another one of those hugs I'm slowly learning to accept, Sofia squished between us, the toddler's chubby hand grabbing a fistful of my hair. "Sit. I ordered you a cortado because you seem like a cortado person. If I'm wrong, I won't be offended. I'll just silently judge."
I smile. “Noted.”
Sofia stares at me with those dark, assessing eyes she inherited from Rafael and shoves a piece of scone in my direction with a fat fist.
"She's sharing." Persia's aqua eyes sparkle with amusement. "That means she likes you. She bit Luca last week so I would take the mushed scones if I were you."
"Smart kid."
"The smartest." Persia settles Sofia on her lap and turns those perceptive eyes on me, the sparkle fading into a quieter attention, a stillness that reminds me she didn't survive an abusive arranged marriage by being oblivious. "So. You said you needed to talk."
I wrap my hands around the cortado, letting the ceramic warm my palms, and stare at the foam dissolving into dark liquid. The café buzzes around us, the hiss of the espresso machine, the low murmur of conversation, the scrape of a chair against tile. Normal sounds. Safe sounds.
"I need to ask you about Rafael." I lift my gaze to hers. "The real version. Not the sanitized one. I need to understand how you ended up where you are and whether..." I trail off. Swallow. "Whether it's real."
Persia doesn't flinch. Doesn't bristle or deflect or offer the polished version I expected. She takes a sip of her coffee, wipes a smear of foam from Sofia's cheek with her thumb, and meets my eyes with the steady gaze of a woman who has long since made peace with her own story.
"Believe it or not, I’ve had this same conversation with Katriana.” She pauses and takes a sip of her latte. “Let me start at the beginning, okay?”
