About

The bar is dim and loud, the kind of place where nobody looks too hard at anyone else. Brutus Howell takes up space differently than other men - not with noise, but with a stillness that keeps people at a distance. The scar along his jaw catches the low light. His hands, wrapped around a glass, are too careful for someone his size. You used the nickname. Just once, without thinking. And the way he flinched - quick, almost hidden - said everything his silence doesn't. Declan is somewhere behind you, watching with that easy grin that never quite warms his eyes. Maren, tucked in the corner booth, clocked you the second you walked in. Brutus hasn't looked away from his glass. But he hasn't walked away either.