I didn’t push it back down.
Rafe came back inside with two fresh mugs of coffee and set one in front of me without asking. I’d stopped being surprised by his particular brand of attention — the way he registered things before they were requests, the way he made the right call and didn’t announce it.
“Tell me something about your life,” I said. “Before all this.”
He sat down across from me and wrapped both hands around his mug. “That’s a broad question.”
“I know. I’m giving you room to maneuver.”
A corner of his mouth moved. He looked at the table for a moment, then back at me. “Before I came out here, I was at an agency in LA. Executive protection, high-end clients. I was good at it.”
“But?”
“But LA wasn’t the right fit anymore.” The same words he’d said in the truck outside Ridgecrest, the door no more open now than it had been then. He wasn’t giving me the full sentence yet. I could see the door. It wasn’t open.
“And building your own operation was?”
“The answer to that.” He paused. “The work I do now — I take the clients I choose. I account for the situation myself. No one else’s read on it, no one else’s call to make.” He turned the mug in his hands. “I got to a point where I needed that. My own operation or nothing.”
I watched him. There was more behind it — I could feel the shape of it without being able to see it — but he wasn’t handing it over and I didn’t push. He’d answered me honestly with what he was ready to give. That was more than most people managed.
“Do you miss it?” I said. “The agency work?”
“Not the agency.” He met my eyes. “Some of the work. The part where the job matters and you can feel it.” A beat. “This job matters.”
I looked at my coffee and thought: nobody had ever said that to me about keeping me safe. They’d talked about the liability. About the optics. About managing the situation.
Rafe stepped outside around eleven — door open, not out of sight, his standard configuration when he wasn’t in the room with me. His phone was on the table.
The screen lit up.
WELLS.
I looked at the door. I looked at the phone. I picked it up before I’d decided to.
“Wells.”
A half-second pause. Then: “London? Oh thank God. Are you okay? I’ve been — okay, I know Rafe said no contact but I had to — are you actually okay?”
“I’m fine. I’m in a cabin in Idaho eating crackers.”
“Crackers.” He exhaled. “Okay. That’s — okay, that’s fine. The situation is almost clear on our end, by the way. Dad’s team has the operative fully identified, they’re moving on it today.” He was talking fast the way he always did when he was relieved and processing at the same time. “Honestly, I cannot believe Rafe got you out when he did. He told Dad the escalation was already past containment before he walked through your door — like, it was already beyond PR management and into actual threat territory when he took the job. The Harrington people were that far in. If you’d stayed in the building another week—”
He kept talking.
I stopped hearing the words.
Past containment before he walked through your door.
Already beyond PR management.
When he took the job.
“Wells,” I said. “Stop.”
“What? Are you—”
“I’m fine. I’ll call you back.”
