The limo slid south across the bridge like a knife through wet paper. Cotai's towers dropped behind them, phoenix wings and holograms collapsing into a smear of neon against the rain. The glass muted the storm into suggestion: streaks chasing each other down black panes, reflections bent sideways until they bled into nothing.
Iris had the cedar box in her lap. Light as a clutch, dressed up with foil and seals, and still only tea. Maybe there were secret messages drawn on each tea leaf, maybe it was enchanted in such a way no drone could pick it up and omenpath would spit it out instead of teleporting to the other node. She couldn't care less.
She turned it once in her palm, checked the neat brush characters on the lid, and smirked. Courier work, reduced to groceries.
Kwan sat across from her, hands folded, looking at the box like it was most dangerous thing in the world.
Maybe it was. Mafia boss deprived of his obsession, and it was a key to his happiness.
Iris thumbed her comm. "Guess we'd better find out where his highness wants this."
The line clicked once. Wei answered immediately, as if he'd been waiting at the other end of the wire all along. His voice came flat, impatient. The scrape of chopsticks against iron in the background.
"Do you have it," he said.
Iris cocked a grin at the glass, watching neon run down it like paint bleeding from bad calligraphy. "I do. Question is: where do you want it? The docks? Pier shrine? A warehouse shaped like another warehouse? Give me your favorite cliché and I'll make it scenic."
For a moment the only sound was the hiss of something frying. Then Wei said: "Diamond Hill. My apartment."
She blinked, crooked smile sharpening. "Cute code name. That's what—your dock nine euphemism?"
"No code." His voice was as bland as broth. "My apartment. I am waiting."
The line clicked dead.
Iris looked at the comm like it had insulted her mother. "...Dead drop, my ass."
Kwan didn't move. "Need to be somewhere?"
"Yeah, got an address. Or, rather, a goddamn welcome mat. Diamond Hill." She leaned back, tossed the box up in her hand and caught it again. "You ever seen a triad boss hand out his home location like candy?"
"Yes." Kwan's voice was a slab of granite. "When he's sure the guest won't walk out different than they walked in."
Her grin stretched, dangerous and thin. "Comforting. Can't wait to meet his wife and kids."
Diamond Hill rose like a scar through Kowloon. Corp towers fell away, replaced by older mountains patched with concrete, scarred with ward-paint that bled vermilion in the drizzle. At the peak, a block that pretended to be residential but stood too tall, too clean.
The limo's tires whispered into the underground ramp. Gates opened without hesitation. Even the old wards painted across the pillars glowed false-green PASS without stuttering. Someone had paid monks well to make sure Wei Yanshu never had to wait at his own door.
The lift carried them up forty floors. Carpet smelled of sandalwood burned too fast. Glyphs in the corners glowed faintly, chewing at her presence, then backing down like a dog that knew better. Kwan's reflection in the mirrored walls didn't look at her, didn't look at the box. Only at himself, face flat as a magistrate's ledger.
Door opened before guard even moved to knock.
Wei stood in the frame. No jacket, no entourage. Just shirtsleeves rolled neat, apron knotted at his waist, dishcloth over his shoulder, luminous ink dancing under his skin. Garlic and ginger hissed behind him in a wok.
His eyes flicked first to the cedar box in her hands. Then to her dress—black silk clinging damp to ribs, hair streaked from Cotai rain. Then to Kwan's blank mask.
"I asked for tea," Wei said. "Why are you coming here with a bodyguard, dressed like you were visiting a Mayor?"
Iris lifted the box in salute. "I was expecting docks, maybe a temple with too many pigeons. Instead I get Diamond Hill dinner theater."
Wei's mouth curled, not quite a smile. "You assume I live in shadows. Shadows are cheap. I prefer light."
He reached out, took the box out of her hands, and with a twist of hand opened the box, filling the room and entire corridor with unmistakeable fragrance.
"Good." He finally said, after a moment.
"That's it?" Iris leaned against the doorframe, looking at Wei, who opened a drawer, pulled a roll of notes bound with cinnabar thread, and held it out towards Iris. "I break my heels on the cobblestone and all I get is "Good"?"
"You are paid to deliver. You delivered. Shoes are your problem."
"Guess I'll invoice for repairs"
"Invoice settled."
The wok hissed louder. Wei turned back to it, stirred once, garlic catching on the iron. He didn't look back at them again. "You should leave before the rice burns."
Dismissal as neat as a blade sliding into its sheath.
The hallway carpet swallowed their steps. The lift sighed closed. Rain waited on the other side of the glass, streaking Diamond Hill into ribs of neon and black.
Iris leaned against the limo seat, grin crooked. "Well. That was domestic. Crime lord in an apron. Did not have that on my bingo card."
Kwan's eyes stayed on the glass. His silence pressed.
She lit a stick, violet ember flaring. Smoke curled into the car, sweet-metallic, filling the hush. "You're sulking," she said.
No answer.
"Come on. You looked like you wanted to scold him. Inspector's honor bruised?"
Still nothing. His reflection in the glass didn't twitch.
She exhaled smoke toward it, grin widening. "Fine. Be the quiet type. But I know that look. You've got questions."
Finally: "Why you?" His voice was low, even. "He has runners, lieutenants, entire families chained to his errands. Why ask you to fetch leaves?"
Iris tapped ash into the tray and shrugged. "Hell if I know."
Kwan's reflection frowned.
The limo whispered down the hill. Rain thickened, glass blurring neon into watercolor. She blew smoke at the ceiling and laughed, soft. "All that," she muttered, "for tea."
The city didn't laugh back.