Book 1: The Way You Hum

Florence Calloway came to New York with two suitcases, a stack of medical textbooks, and a habit of humming softly beneath his breath while his fingers tapped absentminded rhythms against every surface he touched.

He had absolutely no intention of getting involved in whatever dangerous things happened beneath his brother's bar, The Hounds.

Then he met Gaston Peña.

Quiet. Unreadable. The kind of man who could silence an entire room without raising his voice. People inside The Hounds respected him carefully, like they already knew what happened to men who crossed him. Florence should have stayed away.

Instead, he stayed.

Maybe it was the late nights spent studying beneath amber lights while jazz drifted through the walls. Maybe it was the way Gaston always seemed to appear in the booth across from him without explanation. Or maybe Florence simply liked pushing at silences nobody else dared touch.

What begins as routine slowly becomes something far more dangerous: lingering glances across crowded rooms, untouched whiskey glasses, quiet acts of care disguised as coincidence, and a warmth Gaston thought he would never experience.

But The Hounds was never built for soft things to survive.

And love, in Gaston Peña's world, has always been a tragedy waiting to happen.