The Breakfast Table
“So When Were You Going to Tell Me I’m Getting Fucked by a Mafia Boss?”
Rami Moretti has been running operations across three continents for years. He has a fixer, a butler, a private chef, and a driver whose full name nobody can pronounce. He has scrubbed his digital presence so clean that a casual Google search turns up nothing but charity galas and a photo of him next to a goat.
He was not prepared for Jason Clarke.
Chapter 6 opens the morning after — coffee, sunlight, the city moving past the window — and Jason puts his cup down and says it. Just like that. Calm as anything.
Rami nearly chokes.
What follows is one of the best scenes in Hold Fast so far: Jason laying out, piece by piece, exactly how he figured it out. The search results that were too clean. The Reddit thread whose author mysteriously went quiet. The honey trap aimed at his comic book interests that was too subtle to be Rami’s style. The surveillance on his building. And the bootprint — sloppy, Jason says — left behind by whoever installed listening devices in his apartment.
Rami listens to all of it. Recalibrates. And then says, with something that might be admiration: Oh. You’re going to love Taylor.
Jason has two questions. The first: where are the guys with tommy guns? He needs to establish tone. The second, the real one: am I safe?
Rami puts his cup down and means every word. Any time you’re with me. Yes.
They eat breakfast. The city keeps moving. And before they leave the table, Rami mentions — without particular emphasis — that Jason should probably think about moving into the penthouse. It would be easier to keep him safe that way.
That’s a very Rami way of asking someone to move in.
I’m not asking.
Jason says give me a few weeks. Rami nods once. Done.
And that’s just breakfast.
Saturday night, Chef Ryan outdoes himself again — and then Rami takes Jason by the hand and leads him into the bedroom, a serious-looking belt in hand, and the rest of Chapter 6 is exactly what you’re hoping it is. Intense. Deliberate. And it ends with Rami making something very, very clear about who Jason belongs to.
Mine.
Chapter 6 is available now for subscribers at romanhenrystories.com — get on the mailing list so you never miss a Thursday drop.
