Toward the investigation. Toward the danger. Toward whatever comes next.
The ring weighs a hundred pounds with every step. Heavy. Wrong. Impossible to forget.
And behind us, Dimitri finally turns. Goes back inside. The door closes.
The safety is gone.
We’re alone again.
Alex’s hand finds mine as we walk. Our fingers lace together automatically. Fifteen years of this. Holding hands. Holding each other up. Holding on when everything else falls apart.
“That was harder than I thought,” she says quietly.
“Yeah.”
“Lying to them. Performing. The Winston thing was funny but?—”
“But we still lied about everything that matters.”
“Yeah.” She squeezes my hand. “Nikko knows something’s wrong.”
“They all know something’s wrong.” I look up at the Philadelphia sky. Stars barely visible through the light pollution. “We’re just lucky they love us enough to wait for us to tell them.”
“Are we going to tell them?”
“Not if we can help it.” I squeeze back. “Not if it keeps them safe.”
We reach the stop and lean against a rusted railing.
“When we solve this,” Alex says. Notif.When.“When we figure out who he is and what Dom’s done and we bring them both down—we’ll tell them then. Show them we were trying to protect them.”
“You think they’ll understand?”
“No,” She snorts. “But they’ll forgive us anyway. Because that’s what family does.”
Thirteen
The manon the stoop pinches a cigar between his yellowing teeth.
Same spot. Same nod when he sees me. I used to think he was just some retiree killing time.
Now when his eyes track me to the door, when he nods at precisely the same angle every morning, the possibility settles cold in my stomach—Dom likely pays him to watch.
I nod back. Normal Dylan things.
The revolving door at 17th and Walnut weighs the same as it did Friday night.
That specific corner where Center City bleeds into Rittenhouse, where the buildings still have their original brass fixtures and the partners still summer in the Hamptons. The same as when I first pushed through it five years ago, twenty-two and stupid enough to think this building would make me something.
Now I know what this building makes people.
11:45 a.m. Monday. Fifteen minutes early because Dylan Wells is always fifteen minutes early.
Dylan Wells who doesn’t know about bodies in alleys or rings tangled with blonde hair.
Dylan Wells who’s spent five years perfecting the performance of not noticing—because women who notice things in male-run law firms don’t last long enough to become senior paralegals.
Let alone a lawyer.
