I settle onto the leather couch across from the desk and pick up a book I've been reading, a history of botanical gardens in Eastern Europe that Persia found at a secondhand shop and sent over with a note that saidFor the Beast and his roses.I open it to where I left off and let the quiet settle between us, the comfortable silence of two people sharing a space without needing to fill it.
Her keyboard clicks in steady bursts while I flip pages. Fresh coffee cools between us and The Foundry hums its low mechanical lullaby around us both.
Twenty minutes pass before she closes the laptop.
"Kon."
I look up. The scowl is gone. In its place is an expression I've learned to recognize over the past month: the face she wears when she's about to deliver a truth that costs her. Chin slightly lifted, shoulders squared, blue eyes direct and unblinking. The journalist bracing for the hard question, except this time she's asking it of herself.
"I need to tell you something. And I need you to not react until I'm finished."
I set the book down. Give her my full attention.
"I kept a file on your family." She says it straight, no humor or deflection. Her blue eyes lock on mine. "On my laptop. Intel on Rafael, Drake, Luca, you. Operational details. Real information that could have damaged the Syndicate if it ended up in the wrong hands."
She pauses.
"I started it my first week here. When I was still telling myself you were the enemy and I needed insurance." Her fingers twist in the hem of my henley, the one tell she can't seem to control. "I stopped adding to it weeks ago. I tried to write damning things about the brothers and all I could see was Rafael making airplane noises and Drake kissing his wife and Luca's daughter pulling his hair." Her voice thickens. "But I didn't delete it. I should have. I meant to. I kept putting it off because some broken part of me couldn't let go of the safety net."
She meets my eyes again.
"I deleted it the night of the attack. Before Brennan came through the door. And right before the glass shattered, you sawit on my screen. I know you did. I watched your jaw tighten." She takes a breath. "So I need you to know the full truth. It existed. I wrote it. And I deleted it. No more secrets between us. Not ever."
The silence sits between us for a long moment. The coffee steams. The ventilation hums. Her fingers grip the henley hem tight enough to whiten her knuckles.
"I know," I say.
Her eyes widen. "You know?"
"The folder name was right there on your screen. SYNDICATE RESEARCH. Right before the world ended." I hold her gaze, steady, even. "I filed it. The way I file everything. A data point to process later, when the woman I love wasn't bleeding on my rooftop."
"And you didn't say anything? Two weeks and you just sat on it?"
"I was waiting for you to tell me." My voice is low, unhurried. "I wanted you to choose honesty. Not because you got caught. Because you wanted to."
"And if I hadn't told you?"
"You would have." The corner of my mouth pulls. "The woman who deleted those files before walking into a firefight was never going to keep that secret forever. I know you, Onyx. Better than you think."
She stares at me from across the desk, her blue eyes bright, the scar on her temple catching the light, her lower lip trembling in a way she'd deny if I pointed it out.
"You trusted me to do the right thing."
"Da." I lean forward, my elbows on my knees. "And you did."
She unfolds from the chair. Crosses the office in four barefoot strides and climbs into my lap on the couch, her knees bracketing my hips, her hands gripping my face the way she always does when she needs me to hear what she's about to say with more than my ears.
"I love you. I love you and I'm done keeping insurance against the best thing that's ever happened to me."
"Good." I pull her closer, my hands settling on her hips, her weight warm and solid against my chest. "Because I have something I want to ask you and I'd prefer you not be guarded when I do."
Her eyebrows climb. "What?"
I reach behind me to the side table drawer and for the first time in forty-four years my pulse kicks up for a reason that has nothing to do with violence. The ring has been in there for a week, tucked inside a velvet box. I pull it out and hold it between us.
Her eyes drop to the box. Back to my face. Back to the box.
"Kon."
