The air in the back room of the Velvet Lounge was thick with cigar smoke and the dangerous kind of silence that makes your skin prickle.

Across the mahogany table sat Taehyung Vane. The head of the Vane syndicate. He didn't look like a thug; he looked like a predator in a three-piece suit. He swirled the amber liquid in his glass, his dark eyes fixed on me with a lazy, unblinking intensity.