The silence breaks like glass. Mia's hands shake. Leo hums the lullaby he learned the first night I watched them. The apartment feels suddenly exposed.
"If they're watching," she says, "then everything I do becomes proof. Everything I leave behind is evidence."
"That's the risk," I tell her. "And I'll bear as much of it as I can. But you have to tell me how much you want me to take on."
She closes her eyes and breathes. When she opens them again there is a new thing there—dangerous and fierce, a refusalto be pushed. "Show me the proof first," she demands. "If this is true, give me something concrete I can take to my lawyer."
I nod. It's already in the folder. CCTV. Receipt. phone ping. A pattern. Enough to make a judge listen. Enough to make a cop act. But not enough to spill the pack into a courtroom.
She slides the thumb drive into her pocket like a talisman. Her fingers hesitate, then curl around the folder. For the first time in weeks she lets the weight of something worse than day-to-day stop pushing her down.
Outside, something howls low and close, a sound that makes the hair at the back of my neck lift.
"I need to call my lawyer," she says.
"Do it," I tell her.
She stares at me, the last question burning through the fog of fear. "Are you—really—connected to a pack?"
I swallow. The answer is more than a word. It will change everything.
"I am," I tell her, and I watch the truth land.
4
MIA TORRES
“You have to tell me straight,” I said. There was no room for anything else—no pleading, no theatrics—just the raw question that had cost me months of sleep and every dollar I’d saved. “If the courts find out about…this, will I lose Leo?”
Caleb’s jaw ticked. He didn’t flinch. He looked like someone who took bad news in stride—expected it, absorbed it. His hands rested on the steering wheel, palms callused and scarred. Night clung to him in a scent of diesel and hay; the city clung to me with wet concrete and garbage. Between those two worlds we were trying to build something both practical and dangerous.
“No,” he said finally. “Not if we do it right.”
“How do you do a pack ‘right’ around a judge who already thinks single moms make bad choices?” My voice sounded smaller than I felt.
He met my eyes. His gaze was steady, plain. “We work through legal channels. We don’t parade anyone in. We don’t make claims public. Every step—every person who watches Leo—has names, records, accountability. A paper trail that points to contractors, not rituals. Your lawyer signs off. You sign what you want. The pack stays off the record unless you say otherwise.”
I let out something that might have been a laugh. “You say ‘pack,’ and my world shrinks to a courtroom taunting me with wolf stories.”
He let a laugh escape for me. “Then call them a team. Call them a security network. Call them whatever keeps Leo with you.”
Practical. Verifiable. Those were the words I needed. If this was going to work, it had to translate into legalese.
“I’m calling Ana now.” My phone felt heavy. Ana answered on the second ring—short, efficient, allergic to pity. I handed the phone to Caleb.
Her voice was clipped and professional. “Mia. We talked about contingency plans. If we’re bringing in non-state actors—contractors, security—you need written authorizations, clearly defined roles, limits. No vague language about ‘protection.’ I’ll need names, IDs, background checks. If anyone’s going to perform something a judge might see as ritual—don’t. Make it a documented guardianship with a time limit and a revocation clause. You keep final say.”
Caleb listened, jaw tight. When Ana asked who he was, he gave the name and license number he’d already handed me—contractor’s license, insurance certificate, two references who were not pack members. He offered a list of people who fit the contractor model: shift supervisors, night watchers, a nanny who lived three miles from the ranch.
Ana ran through a checklist. “Weeknights okay. We can draft a non-transferable temporary guardianship for weekdays only. You keep weekends, holidays, and all primary custody decisions. Any medical decisions remain yours unless you designate otherwise in writing. If you let anyone take him more than forty-eight hours consecutively, call me.” Her tone was brisk—exactly the anchor I needed.
I felt my shoulders loosen. Rules. Boundaries. Paper.
Caleb slid a thumb drive across his knee and a thin folder onto the console. “Everything you need: CCTV clips, time-stamped receipts, a GPS ping that shows a van following Leo last week. Hotel credit-card receipts tying people together—it’s messy, but it’s all on here. Names. Dates. We can present it as criminal harassment from your ex and an exploited vulnerability. The pack can provide what you need to secure Leo physically while your case progresses. Quietly. Legally admissible.”
He didn’t say the phrase I wanted to hear—“we’ll claim you”—and I didn’t ask. That line had been drawn in my head: I would not be claimed. Not now. Not ever, if I could help it. My son’s life depended on my staying sensible.
We went through terms, clause by clause. Caleb’s style was simple: no grand speeches, just details. Weeknights at the ranch until the custody hearing; a written, revocable guardianship naming Caleb and two approved guardians as emergency contacts; cameras at the apartment entry and along the school route; no public ceremonies; and only ceremonial, non-binding rituals—if any—witnessed by a neutral elder and documented as symbolic, with signed statements that they did not alter Mia’s legal standing.
