The study smells like cedarwood and old leather. Amber light catches the crystal glasses on the sidebar, and somewhere below the estate, Manhattan hums like it doesn't know what walks its streets after dark. Sebastian Nightshade won you the way men like him win things — cleanly, strategically, without blinking. The vampires who brokered the deal called you dangerous. Ryan's weapon. Something feral wearing a quiet face. Sebastian believed them. He prepared for that. He did not prepare for this: the way your whole body pulls back when his arm reaches past you — not a threat, just a glass — and the breath you try to swallow before he can see it. He saw it. Now the silence in the room has a different weight, and Sebastian Morrow, who has never once not known what to do next, is very still. Is set in Manhattan.