300 Brannan Street Novels & Stories

Below the image was the caption: CEO of Atelier Lumina, is she the one? I grasped the phone tight, my knuckles turning white. I let out a breath that looked like it had been withheld for an hour. Seeing her face in this context, so professional and distant, made the memory of her in my office feel like a fever dream. My Wolf wanted her that moment without minding hate brooding in me. I replied to his text immediately with a single word: Yes. Seconds later, the address was sent to me. Number 42, Obsidian Heights, The Ivory Towers. It was the most expensive street in the city, a place where the gates were made of wrought iron and the security was tighter than a federal prison.

I was pretty sure ‘acquire stalker’ wasn’t on my vision board this year. I was about to dial the number when another message appeared almost instantly. “Brooksfield Crown Hotel. 48 Willowcrest Drive, West End District, Brooksfield. 20th floor. Room 907. Go there and see for yourself.” — Unknown Curiosity gnawed at me, piercing like the throbbing in my feet. I told my driver the address without hesitation. An hour later, we arrived. “Give me the keys. Take a cab home,” I said the moment we stopped.

“You should deliver pastries there. Get yourself a secret billionaire boyfriend.” I roll my eyes. “Right. And maybe he’ll take me to his blood-splattered mansion.” “That’s the spirit.” The pick-up phone dinged with a message. I pulled off my gloves and grabbed the phone. It was an order message for three Tiramisu and two vanilla cream butter-ups. To be ordered to The Den, 801 Crescenta Street, Pueto Road. I froze, skimming through the message once again. That was....across from my shop.

"What?" "To my office. I'll introduce you as a family friend. You can see where I work." "Are you sure that's a good idea?" "Probably not. But I want you there anyway." She smiled. "Okay." --- My office was downtown in a tall glass building. The top three floors belonged to Rhiggs Development. It had floor to ceiling windows, modern furniture and views of the entire city. Bronwyn walked through the main doors and looked around. "This is impressive."

Jade bent her neck, staring up at the hotel. It was nothing short of modern, located on what was known as Billionaire's Row on 57th Street. Every level of the large tower was made of reflective glass that cast off prismatic gleams from the surrounding city lights. She could barely make out the brightly-lit night sky between the narrow spaces of the surrounding buildings.

"Where?" Finally, he gives us an address. The building is an abandoned office above a closed printing shop in Brooklyn. No signs. No cars outside. Nothing suggesting anyone has been here in years. Liam goes in first. Ronan follows. Then Cillian and me. The stairs smell of damp and dust. At the top, Liam stops. The door is already open. "Clear." We enter. Empty. Of course. No computers. No people. No weapons. "Fuck," Ronan mutters.

“Sure.” He asks if four o’clock works for me. I smooth out the calendar page and find my court mandated anger management meeting scrawled in the box for four-thirty. I ask if he can make it sooner or later than that, and we settle on sooner. Norbu gives me the address for the dharma center and tells me to leave my shoes at the door. “Your office is in Chinatown, yes?” he asks as we wrap up the call. “That’s right.”

I drank my coffee and left before the guilt could change my mind. Brennan Street was twenty minutes on foot, a narrow road in the older part of the city with small shops and tall buildings that blocked most of the morning light. The coffee shop was halfway down, unremarkable and quiet, with a side entrance through a small alley that smelled like old brick and cold air. I pushed through the side door.

1:30 PM. The apartment on Pierrepont Street was entirely devoid of criminal history. It was a classic brownstone fourth-floor walk-up, featuring wide oak floorboards that had been scrubbed clean, large bay windows that let in the pale, silver sunlight of the New York afternoon, and a small kitchen that smelled of fresh paint and linseed oil. There were no hidden compartments behind the linen presses, no secondary copper loops running through the molding, and no high-fidelity surveillance nodes hidden inside the smoke detectors.

Paying attention to it, I opened the message. 'I have information on President Bronx Vaughn. Come to 370 Gillary Sanz, Ridge Park Rd. There's a motel there. Knock on room 48. Come with the police. Tomorrow, seven am sharp.'