A/N: AU fic. Pretty much everything in here belongs to Jim Butcher, and I make no profit from any of this. Also, this is my first Dresden Files story.

I thumped the end of my staff into the ground, and called up a fraction of my power. "Ventas servitas!" A whirlwind howled through the air and the door splintered open, fragments of wood flying everywhere. Inside, Marcone sat behind his desk, Hendricks in front of him. He raised an eyebrow.

"Mr. Dresden," he said calmly. "How may I help you?"

I frowned, and looked at the hole I'd made. "Why is your front door made of plywood?"

"I took the precaution of making all of my dramatic entrance points – as opposed to strategic, you understand – similarly flimsy so as to limit casualties when you inevitably break your way through them to make a wild accusation." He folded his hands on the desk. "I presume you came here for a reason and not to merely stand there staring at me."

I brandished my staff in his general direction, and saw Hendricks half rise. Marcone motioned him down. "You pissed off Summer," I said. "What the hell did you do?"

"Oh, that. One of their shapeshifters attacked a child. As I am the Freeholding Lord and Baron of Chicago under the Unseelie Accords, and the crime was committed in my territory, I dispensed justice as I saw fit. I take my responsibilities very seriously, Mr. Dresden, just as you do yours." He looked at me calmly. "May I ask how this came to your attention?"

"You know I'm attached to Winter," I said. I didn't want to say her name, didn't even want to think it. "My, uh, employer mentioned it. Marcone, you can't just go around screwing with members of the Courts –"

"Mr. Dresden," he said evenly, "you are aware of my views on violence against children. I have no need to justify myself to you."

"Not me, no. But Summer's going to come for their revenge, and if you just break the Accords whenever there's a child in danger..." I sighed. Who was I kidding? I'd have done the same thing. Still. "You're risking war in Chicago."

"If the Courts stay out of my business, I'll stay out of theirs. The people of Chicago are my business." He tilted his head. "Are you here to arrest me, perhaps? I would have thought that Winter would not be displeased by my actions."

"They don't want war," I said. Not right now, anyway. "But I'm not here in my official capacity."

"I see." He sighed. "Mr. Hendricks, please give us a moment."

Hendricks gave me a glare of warning, and stood. He wasn't as tall as I was, but he had a hundred pounds on me and he was all muscle. He used to play football, I think. It shows. He grunted as he stepped past me, and through the ruined front door.

"Are you here to warn me?" Marcone asked. "If so, I thank you for the sentiment, but it is unnecessary."

"The fae are not to be messed with," I said. "Now listen, I don't like you, and you don't like me either, but I have no urgent wish to see you splattered across the sidewalk. So pay attention, Marcone. Go through official channels next time."

"You tell Summer – and Winter – that the children in my territory are off limits," he said, and there was a timbre of steel in his voice that I didn't often here. "And the next time one of them is touched, the hell with the Accords."

"Marcone," I said in borderline desperation, "you are insane. Don't be insane. You want to start a war with the fae? When they know exactly which strings to pull? They'll bring things from the Nevernever that you can't even imagine and they will eat Chicago like a mid-morning snack."

He exhaled. "Mr. Dresden, I have my boundaries."

"Boss," Hendricks said, appearing by the door with a submachine gun cradled in his arms like a small child. "Move."

In a flash Marcone was on his feet, reaching inside his jacket and pulling out a sleek pistol. I recoiled unconsciously. "Whoa, what the hell?"

"This is a matter of some urgency, Mr. Dresden," he said, still cordial as he moved around the desk and past me. "I would advise you move as well."

A reaction like that could only mean one thing – an attack of some kind. Maybe from Summer, maybe not. Marcone had a lot of vanilla mortal enemies too. I gripped my staff and followed him out through the building.

The tingle of magic whispered across my skin, and I flung out an arm, stopping both him and Hendricks. "Wait." I took a step forward, trying to gauge where it was coming from, and what it was. "Magic."

Hendricks raised the gun, alert. I raised the hand with the shield bracelet, pulled power from the magic now seething around me, and sent up the shield in a translucent curve. "Stay behind me," I said, and approached the door to the alley. Part of me couldn't believe I was protecting Marcone.

Gunshots rang out in the night, and instinctively I brought up my shield, deflecting a small spray of bullets. It staggered me a little, and the shield flickered. Just as I was preparing to use more of my power to strengthen it, something rounded the corner and slammed into me. And into Marcone, who was next to me despite my clear and specific instruction to stay behind me. He stumbled back, and Hendricks made a noise, but he waved him off. "I'm fine."

"You don't know that." I had no clue what the spell was, but my head felt a little fuzzy. Otherwise I seemed fine. I brought up the shield again, infusing it with enough magic to hold off anything similar, and ducked out around the door just in time to see a black car slam shut its doors and struggle to start.

"Go," Marcone said to Hendricks. "Mr. Dresden will protect me."

The nerve. Hendricks looked at me. I sighed. "I'll protect him. Go."

The car was still there, and I could hear frantic cursing coming from it. Newsflash – technology does not work well in the presence of magic. Especially not if you're going to be tossing spells around like an amateur. My body felt warm, but I didn't feel strange otherwise. If the spell had been meant to hurt me in some way, it wasn't doing a very good job.

Hendricks ran down the alley, and just as he neared the car it finally got started and heaved into reluctant motion. He cast a glance back toward us, then whipped out his cell phone and made for the SUV.

"He's calling Ms. Gard," Marcone said. "Are there more of them?"

"Don't think so." I finally released the shield and leaned against the wall, fighting to keep my breathing under control. "What the hell was that about?"

"Hit," Marcone said simply. "There's an attempt on my life every week or so, from all angles. As you may have noticed, I've crossed many people in the course of my life. I can't be sure which particular enemy that might have been. If only they had been courteous enough to leave a calling card."

"Christ, you think maybe you should get a new job?"

He waved a hand dismissively. "I've become accustomed. I know how to deal. You of all people, Mr. Dresden, should know how calmly and rationally I deal with formidable opponents."

Well, if that wasn't the truth, considering how he'd replaced his door. "Yeah, I'm kind of a hazard," I admitted. "To buildings, especially."

He turned abruptly, which put me face to face with him with only inches of room to spare. I had the time to notice that his eyes were the colour of sage in the half-light before his hands settled lightly on my waist and pushed me back into the wall. "You are also a hazard," he murmured, "to my blood pressure and to my insurance premiums."

"Blood...pressure?" It stumbled out of me before I could stop to puzzle out the comment. It dimly registered that he was touching me, and, in fact, that I could feel his fingertips lightly on the skin of my hips beneath my T-shirt. When had that happened?

"Do you know, Mr. Dresden, what it is like to be frustrated?" He growled the word and moved closer, effectively trapping me between his body and the wall. He smelled like some expensive cologne that made the bottom drop out of my stomach. "I would like to take this moment to remind you that you are the most frustrating man I know, and despite the fact that I may not appear to be lacking in beauty sleep you have been doing an excellent job of keeping me awake at nights."

"I – what? Come on, people try to assassinate you once a week. You've got bigger threats than me to worry about."

"I am not worrying about the threat you pose to me, Mr. Dresden. I am merely...frustrated." He said that last with the faintest press of his hips to mine, and it dawned with crystal clarity precisely what kind of frustration he was talking about.

I stared at him. "Wait – you're gay?"

His lips tightened in annoyance. "Meaningless designations. You think the world is a factory and one can label everything? There is no black and white. I do not attend pride parades, partake in ridiculous nightclubs, or habitually include rainbows as a theme in my wardrobe."

I goggled. I couldn't help it. What correct response was there in that moment?

"Don't make this harder than it has to be," he said quietly. "I am taking an enormous risk now in showing myself as vulnerable. I have great personal respect for you, Mr. Dresden, do not let that be unfounded."

To tell the truth, now that I was really standing there taking a good long look at Gentleman Johnny Marcone, he was handsome in a way that my favourite weasel word 'blandly' didn't do justice. It was unfair. I curse the ineffable hidden laws of the world that make the villains so much better looking than the good guys. Everything was there, from the touch of silver at his temples, bone structure utterly wasted on a crime lord, that trim, muscular body in his impeccable suit. His lips, Christ almighty. I wanted so badly to kiss him, just to see if they were as soft as they looked.

"Um," I said intelligently, and kissed him.