Velvet & Ruin

The Velvet Room smells like cigar smoke, gin and money, and the band is playing something slow enough to hide a conversation.

A trumpet wails as Protag is led past the card tables to a booth in the back, where a man in a charcoal suit reads a ledger by candlelight.

He doesn't look up, not even when the hostess clears her throat and leaves Protag standing there.

Vincent Calloway

Your brother owes me four thousand dollars.

Lou Delacroix

sets down a glass of something amber Drink. You look like you need it.

Vincent finally closes the ledger and studies Protag the way a jeweler studies a stone he hasn't priced yet.

Vincent Calloway

I could use someone who isn't afraid of me.