The restaurant stood alone mid-block.
Small. Clean. No sign that shouted its name. The facade was brick and glass, unremarkable, the kind of place you could walk past without registering it.
Jude relaxed slightly.
In Gotham, size attracted attention. Small operations flew below whatever radar existed here. Safer. Quieter. The kind of place where you could imagine working a shift without anything catching fire.
"A few things before we go in," Drake said quietly. "Donald isn't simple. The less you say, the better."
"The person behind him is the dangerous one?"
"Donald himself is dangerous. The person behind him is something else entirely."
They walked toward the entrance. Jude's mind drifted, briefly and uselessly, to certain businesses near his old school—the corner stores that were always half-stocked, always dim, the clerks always busy with their phones. No real customers, no apparent reason to exist. They never closed. Never seemed to make money from anything visible.
He'd figured out what they were around age sixteen.
Maybe this is like that, he thought. Quiet. Low-drama. You pour wine, smile at people, and nobody shoots anyone.
He pushed through the door.
A grey entrance corridor. Expensive abstract prints on the walls. A blonde woman already waiting, professional smile calibrated to exactly the right degree of warmth.
"Mr. Drake, welcome." She looked at both of them. "Please follow me."
The main dining room opened ahead.
Floor-to-ceiling wine cabinets on one wall, bottles arranged with the precision of a trophy case. Warm light at exactly the level that made people feel elegant rather than just dim. Wallpaper that probably cost more per square foot than Jude's rent. Lush plants in the corners. And the guests—suits with a particular quality to them, jewelry that sat on people like it belonged there, the specific ease of people who had never had to check a price.
This is not a corner store money laundering front, Jude thought.
"Upper class," he muttered. "Actually upper class. Why isn't this in Diamond District?"
"Otisburg has money too," Drake said under his breath. "This place caters to people who prefer their arrangements quiet. Do you want the job or not?"
The receptionist turned. "Mr. Donald is waiting upstairs."
I'm here, Jude thought, with the resignation of someone who has made a series of decisions that all seemed reasonable in the moment. Might as well see it through.
Drake gave him a brief look that communicated several things at once, primarily: don't say anything unexpected.
They climbed the stairs.
Men in black suits lined both sides of the upper corridor. Stationed. Patient. Their posture said welcome and their eyes said try something. They made space without moving, which was the point.
Jude's scalp prickled.
This wasn't a quiet operation. This was the kind of room where important people had important conversations, after which other things happened somewhere else that nobody asked about. He took a breath, filed his scattered thoughts into something that resembled composure, and followed Drake through the door.
The man behind the desk stood when they entered.
Middle-aged, solid build, a suit that somehow added danger rather than subtracting it. His face held a quality of stillness that wasn't calm so much as control—the face of someone who had decided long ago that most reactions were a waste of time. His eyes stayed sharp throughout.
When he saw Drake, something shifted in his expression. Marginal. Real.
"Drake." The voice was rough, unhurried. "Haven't seen you in months. You look different."
Drake had been grinding himself down to nothing for the better part of a year—the dark circles, the weight loss, the particular hollowness of someone running on fear and no sleep. Most of it still showed. But his eyes were clear now in a way they hadn't been. Whatever had been pressing on him had lifted.
"Got lucky," Drake said. The smile came easily, which was new. "Camilla's illness resolved. Once we get things settled, we're going home. Leaving the city."
Something moved through Donald's eyes and was gone.
"Spending your life with someone you love." His voice went briefly distant. "That's not a small thing. Even outside Gotham. Congratulations."
"You're rich," Drake said. "You could go anywhere. Have whatever you want."
"My parents were from Gotham." Donald looked down. The smile that followed didn't reach his eyes. "I'm from Gotham. I'm staying."
The words landed with the weight of something that had been said before, many times, until it stopped feeling like a choice and became just a fact.
Drake cleared his throat. Nudged Jude forward.
"This is the friend I mentioned. Just arrived. Doesn't know the city. His skill set is..." Drake paused. "Local standards don't quite apply."
Donald's expression reset. The gentleness was gone. What replaced it was professional and evaluating—a Gotham native's assessment, head to foot, taking inventory without hurrying.
"Background?"
"University graduate." Jude kept his voice level.
Both Drake and Donald looked at him.
Drake's look specifically said: you finished university? I thought you were—
"The institution and the individual can have different standards," Jude said, before Drake's face could complete the thought. "I graduated. That's all the word means."
"What did you do?" Donald asked.
"Wrote romance novels." Jude said it like he was reading off a tax form. "That market doesn't translate here."
Drake's head turned so fast it was almost audible. Romance novels?! his expression said. You told me you were a writer and I assumed—
Jude looked at the wine cabinet.
"Honest, anyway." Donald nodded once.
Both of them looked at him.
The logic of that response—romance novels as a point in someone's favor—wasn't immediately legible. Donald didn't elaborate.
"Can you use a gun? Knife?"
"No." Jude paused. "But I have one."
His hand moved toward his waistband on instinct. Stopped halfway.
Pulling out a weapon in a mob boss's office. He weighed this option for approximately one second. No.
He lowered his hand.
"Smart," Donald said. His expression didn't move. "Not stupid."
He leaned back against the desk and studied Jude with the patient attention of someone who had assessed a great many people in this room and had learned what to look for.
"Why are you here?"
"Waiter position."
"Brave." Something that might have been faint approval moved through Donald's eyes. "Lucky too, making it through a first night in this city. But you'll need to learn to shoot. Otherwise the job has a short career trajectory."