Mookie’s at the door. Barbarian at the gates. Werth watches as Haversham ushers Mookie inside. Like a man leading a dire wolf in on a leash.

Mookie. With a heavy cleaver hanging at his hip in a sheath. And his beat-to-shit leather satchel dangling over his beefy shoulder.

Candlefly approaches from around the corner. Smiling. Hand extended.

Mookie sees him. But then looks past him.

Right at Werth.

The lip curl. The narrowed gaze. The popping knuckles. Hate waits hot in that gaze. He thinks I betrayed him, Werth thinks. Shit, maybe I did.

“Mr Pearl,” Candlefly says, his voice more unctuous than usual. He doesn’t wait for Mookie to return the handshake – Ernesto reaches right in, pushes his hand into Mookie’s gargantuan grip.

His eyes suddenly go wide.

Werth hears the grinding of knucklebones.

“You’ve got an impressive…” Candlefly’s head cranes on his neck. The pain in his wince is obvious. “Handshake.”

“Boss said it was how you got someone’s measure,” Mookie growls. “I wanted you to have my measure.”

“Consider it so.”

“My daughter.”

“–is downstairs.”

“You hurt her.”

“She attacked us.” A lie. Werth knows they sent people after her.

Candlefly tries to retrieve his hand. But Mookie doesn’t relinquish the man.

“Where’s the Boss?”

“Upstairs. Resting. Recovering.” Werth hears that and thinks: yeah, right.

“I want to see Nora.”

“Of course,” Candlefly says. “This way, please? Though, first you’ll have to… let go of my hand?”

Mookie says nothing, instead makes the sound in his chest of a tomb being opened. He finally lets go of Candlefly’s hand.

“Shall we?”

Candlefly heads toward the cellar steps.

Mookie walks after, once more giving Werth a look. In that look, Werth can practically see himself being torn limb-from-limb in the dark behind Mookie’s eye.

Werth gives him a nod. As if to say, “It’s OK”.

All Mookie does is bear his teeth like a rabid dog.

He follows the two of them downstairs, walking with Haversham.

Down into the wine cellar. Racks of wine necks and bottle bottoms. Barrels in the back. Warm lighting. Everything smells of wood and must and the faint sour tang of spilled wine. And there, in the middle, in a chair:

Nora.

Mookie pushes past Candlefly. He runs to her, drops to his knees. Cups her head in his hands. “You’re all right?”

She wrenches her head away, then gently pushes his hands away from her face.

“I’m fine,” she says.

He goggles at her. “You’re… not hurt. Or tied up.”

“Duh.”

“I don’t get it.” He turns. Gives a desperate look to the others, then back to Nora. “They hurt you.”