"Thank you," I said, and meant it just as much.
Micah nodded once, processing, then shifted gears with the efficiency of someone who knew when to sit with grief and when to move forward.
"What's next for you?" he asked. "Back to the CIA? The Teams?"
It was the question I'd been expecting. The logical next step. Return to service. Resume operations. Go back to being the weapon I'd been trained to be—first by St. Paul's, then refined by the military into something more precise.
But before I could answer, Micah and Ellsworth exchanged a look.
Something passed between them. Quick. Subtle. A decision already made, just waiting for the right moment to be spoken aloud.
"Your friends are still out there," Micah said, bringing his attention back to me. "All eight of them. Hiding. Running. Scattered across God knows how many countries, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Living like fugitives even though they've done nothing wrong except survive."
I straightened slightly, feeling the shift in the conversation.
"We'd like you to stay in Paris," Micah continued, his tone measured but certain. "Coordinate from here. As we find them—one by one—we bring them in. Protect them. Give them what you've got here. Safety. Resources. A chance to stop running."
"And then what?" I asked, needing to understand the full picture.
"Then we figure out who's behind the expanded network," Micah said. "The organization St. Paul's became part of. The people pulling the strings now that the headmaster is dead. Because this didn't end with Merrick. You know that."
I did. Had known it the moment Merrick said the old gang had gotten bigger.
Micah leaned back, hands folded on the table, the gesture somehow making him look more dangerous rather than less.
"You and whichever of your friends make it to safety will have full use of any and all resources from Dominion Hall,"he said. "Intelligence networks. Field assets. Funding. Whatever you need to hunt down the people who destroyed your lives and make sure they can't do it to anyone else."
My chest tightened. Not from fear or pressure. From something else entirely.
Hope, maybe. Or purpose. Or the strange, unfamiliar feeling of being supported instead of abandoned.
"The Sanctuary initiative is working," Micah added, glancing at Ellsworth. "You're proof of concept. Maybe at some point we expand to other cities—London, Monte Carlo, Tokyo. Create a real network. But that comes later. For now, Dominion Hall will help you find your friends. And you'll be the one who brings them in. They'll trust you. They won't trust us."
It made sense. Perfect sense. My brothers wouldn't come in for strangers, no matter how well-resourced. But for me? For one of the nine?
They'd come.
I looked at Ellsworth. "And you?"
The older man's expression was calm but there was something warm underneath it. Something that hadn't been there when we first met.
"I'd like to stick around," he said, the British understatement somehow making it more meaningful. "For the duration, as they like to say during wartime."
I stood and extended my hand across the table.
Ellsworth took it without hesitation, his grip firm. Solid. The handshake of a man who meant what he said.
"It would be an honor," I said.
Something flickered in his eyes—relief, maybe. Like he hadn't been entirely sure I'd agree. Like my acceptance meant more than he'd let on. Like maybe he'd been waiting for someone to give him permission to be more than a butler playing at being useful.
Now there was absolute satisfaction in the old warrior's face.
The kind that came from finding purpose again after thinking it was gone forever.
I was about to sit back down when something clicked in my memory. A detail from days ago that suddenly felt important.
I snapped my fingers. "Your weapons guy. The gunsmith. What's his name?"
