Mia watches my hands. Watching hands tells you everything—scarred, dirty hands that still know how to be gentle. She knows, in her marrow, that whoever I am I'm built to hold weight for other people. She knows how that looks to a court.
"Did you get anything?" she asks, practical and tight.
I pull the phone out. The CCTV clip is thirty seconds: the man, the alley, the van. I let her see it. She leans over my shoulder. Close enough that her breath brushes my ear. Her scent—citrus and something sweeter—hits me sharp. Fated isn't a flash for me. It's a low drum I first heard when she signed the contract, a pull that's more appetite than choice. I don't indulge it. I don't want her to feel obligated.
"License plate?" she asks.
"Obscured in the glare, but I got a still. Deli gave a receipt. Bus driver clocked the time. I pinged a cell that matched the area. It's a pattern. Not thin." My voice is even. I want her anchored, not frightened.
She swallows. "My ex could use anything to make me look...unstable," she says. "He's already playing lawyer games. If he says I left my son with a stranger?—"
"You didn't," I cut in before the sentence finishes. There's no judge in my voice, only fact. "You left him with someone who tracked a stranger who tracked you. That's not negligence. That's caution."
She laughs, a brittle sound. "That's not what the form letters say."
"I know." I rest my weight on the table. "That's why we do this right. Paper. Dated. Witnesses. And evidence—actual, traceable signs of harassment. I can give you all of that. I can make sure it's admissible."
She looks at me, really looks. For a beat, her eyes are not the exhausted woman who signed a handwritten guardianship last week. They're calculating, combing the terrain. I see her counting on one side and losing sleep on the other.
"You can protect us," she says like it's a test.
"I can make them pay attention," I say. Truth and half-truth live on the same street. I can make them pay attention by filing reports, calling in favors, getting camera footage logged. I canalso send men to shadow men who mess with children. The pack would do more. Much more. Break bones. Make lives miserable. I can do some of that without bringing the pack down on you.
Her pivot is visible. The name I won't say sits hot under my tongue. Pack. I can feel the ground shift as the idea moves toward her like thunder. I don't want to drag her into that storm without consent.
"Why won't you—" she begins, then stops. "Why won't you bring them in?"
"Because the pack shows up and people notice." My voice goes quiet, careful. "If a judge asks why there were men in the street, what do you say? That a contractor brought protection? That we moved you to a house in the county? People like stories simple enough for a headline. Complexity loses."
Her mouth presses into a hard line. "So you do it your way. Quiet. Without letting the court pin a supernatural label on my son or me."
"My way." I repeat it like a promise. "And I don't promise I can keep the whole world at bay. I promise I'll do the damnable, gritty work, and I'll do it without you waking up to men at your door unless it's absolutely necessary."
She laughs again, softer. "That's not comforting, Caleb."
"No." I lower my voice. "But it's honest."
She takes the folder I hand her. Inside: screenshots, printouts, a thumb drive labeled with the date, a log I wrote last night—times, places, a note: "Van seen idling near Mia's building 3:12 a.m." I don't pretend I did everything without help. Marginal initials—Vera's, Tanner's—mark the edges. Small flags that will hold up under cross-exam.
She flips through, fingers quick. Lines crease at her mouth. Leo tugs at a cereal box and hums off-key. All the normal domestic noise that should mean safety presses at my chest like proof I'm protecting something worth fighting for.
"Why are you doing this?" she asks finally, not about the evidence but about me. It's the real question, the one people in my line rarely get asked plainly. Most assume I need something—favor owed, payment, claim.
Because I can't stand the thought of a child looking at a van and not knowing whether the world is safe, I want to say. Instead I keep my answer tight.
"Because someone has to," I say. "Because you asked me to start with weekdays. Because he's good with kids and because I have skills you don't have to put in a court file. Because I don't like bullies."
Her eyes lift to mine. There's a shift, tiny and seismic. She slides the folder closer and breathes out. For a second she looks almost delicate. Then the reality claws back.
"If this goes to court," she says, "and my ex—if he twists any of this into something about me hiring strange men or putting Leo in danger?—"
"He'll have to answer questions no one in his orbit wants asked," I say. "If he tries to bring my name up, we'll have a witness list and a paper trail that shows this was about protecting a child from a stalker—not a secret society."
She snorts. "Secret society, huh."
"I didn't say society." I let the joke stand. There are lines I won't cross. There are truths I can't stop being true.
She chews at the inside of her cheek. "Will the police?—"
