"Tobias Langford has been living with you for months."
"Yes."
Ronan nodded slowly, processing.
"Why?" he asked. "Why risk everything for a stranger?"
"You didn't see him that day. The look in his eyes." I paused. "He wasn't running from a wedding. He was running for his life. I couldn't hand him back to the people who'd made him that desperate."
"And now?"
"Now he's figuring out who he is. He's met with his brother and is starting to face his family on his own terms."
"And you two?"
The question was quiet. Non-judgmental.
"Yeah," I said. "We're together."
Ronan was silent for a long moment. Then he stood up.
"I'm not going to tell anyone."
"Ronan—"
"Because you're my friend." He walked to the door, paused with his hand on the handle. "And because I understand what it's like to need protection from the people who are supposed to love you."
Something flickered across his face. Something old and personal, quickly hidden.
"Thank you," I said.
"Just be careful." He opened the door. "And if you need anything—backup, an alibi, whatever—I'm here."
He left.
I sat in the silence of my office, staring at the closed door.
I'd just bet my entire career on Ronan's loyalty. Fifteen years of building a reputation, handed over on trust.
It should have felt terrifying.
Instead, it felt like breathing for the first time in months.
That evening, I came home to find Tobias at the kitchen table, staring at a cold cup of coffee.
He hadn't touched it in twenty minutes.
His shoulders had lost that hunched quality—the defensive curl I'd grown accustomed to seeing. But whatever had replaced it wasn't peace. More like the stillness before a storm.
"You're a thousand miles away," I said from the doorway.
He blinked, looked up. The smile he gave me was small but genuine. "Sorry. Still processing."
"The Tristan thing?"
"All of it." He finally lifted the mug, took a sip, and grimaced at the cold coffee. "My brother knew where I was the entire time. He was protecting me. Misdirecting the investigators, keeping my parents from finding me too soon." A breath. "He waited for me to reach out. Trusted me to figure it out on my own."
I crossed the kitchen and pulled out the chair across from him. "Does that bother you?"
