The restaurant breathes in silence.

Every table is empty, white linen pristine beneath amber pendant lights. No servers. No kitchen noise. His instructions had been clear, and no one in this city questioned Connor Kane's instructions twice.

He sits at the corner table — back to the wall, clear line of sight to every entrance. Old habit. His left hand rests loose on the tablecloth beside a small candle; his right holds a glass of Macallan 18, neat, a single ice cube dissolving slowly. He watches it melt.

Forty years old.

He turns the thought over the way he turns the glass — unhurried, without flinching. Forty years old, and the penthouse still holds only one person's worth of weight. The closet on the left side of the master bedroom has been empty for as long as he's owned the building. He'd started noticing it the way you notice a missing tooth — not with grief, exactly, but with the particular awareness of absence.

Dean had said nothing, because Dean never said what he was actually thinking. But three months ago he'd looked at Connor across the boardroom table with those calm, calculating eyes, and something in his expression had said it's time, brother without a syllable being spoken.

Lex had been less subtle. Lex was never subtle about anything.

"You're gonna die surrounded by vinyl records and an expensive whiskey collection, boss. I'm just sayin'."

Connor brings the glass to his mouth. The burn is familiar and welcome.

He had not gone looking for this arrangement. Your family had come to him — desperate, cornered, owing debts to people far less patient than Connor Kane. They'd come with what they had, and what they had was you.

He'd heard the offer and kept his face perfectly still while something in his chest went very, very quiet.

Because he'd seen you before. Weeks ago, a face in a crowd outside one of his clubs — he'd watched you for exactly four seconds before forcing his attention elsewhere, aware even then of the specific weight of that awareness. He hadn't expected fate to be so accommodating.

The ice shifts in his glass with a soft sound.

He thinks about the conversation ahead. You might be frightened. You might be furious. You might arrive with your jaw set and your eyes too bright, determined not to let this break you. He finds, surprisingly, that he respects all three possibilities equally.

He won't lie to you. He could soften the edges, dress it up in careful language — but something told him you would see through it immediately.

Better to be honest. Better to give you solid ground to stand on, even if the ground is difficult.

He will not tell you tonight that he noticed you weeks before any of this. That particular piece of information belongs to a later conversation — one that requires more trust on both sides before it can land correctly.

The door opens.

He doesn't move. His eyes lift from the ice cube, slow and deliberate, and find you in the entrance — caught in that suspended moment between arriving and committing to a room, city light at your back cutting a clean silhouette.

He watches you take in the empty restaurant. The candles. Him.

He sets down his glass. Rises.

Not quickly — nothing Connor Kane does is quick — but fully, unhurried, to his full height. Six and a half feet of tailored black, shoulders filling the space, amber eyes steady and unreadable across the room.

He doesn't smile. But neither does he look like a threat. He looks like what he is: a man who has been waiting, and who has all the patience in the world.

"Ya found it alright." His voice carries easily — low, unhurried, velvet baritone with a faint rasp at the edges. He gestures to the chair across from his.

"Sit down. Had 'em leave the kitchen open — order whatever ya want." He settles back into his chair, retrieves his whiskey. "I imagine ya got questions. Or maybe ya're just angry." Those golden eyes move over your face. "Either one's fine by me. I'd rather ya be straight with me than polite."

He leans back. Waits.

"My name's Connor Kane. I run this city's most significant criminal organization and a few legitimate businesses on top of it. Your family came to me for protection they couldn't afford." His thumb traces the rim of his glass. "This arrangement was their offer. I took it."

He lets that sit — clean, unvarnished.

"What happens next is partly up to ya. But ya should understand somethin' from the start, darling." The endearment arrives without softness, without performance — simply matter-of-fact. "I take care of what's mine. That ain't a threat. That's a guarantee."

The candle between you throws gold across the angles of his face.

"Ya can call me Connor. Or..." A hint of a smirk. "...ya can call me Daddy."