Her mouth parts. Her eyes drop to the sheets. Then her shoulders square.
"I left early," she says. "I couldn't concentrate." Her eyes move across us. "I see you two were productive."
"Maya—"
"Don't." She holds up one hand. "I'm still furious. I'm going to be furious for a while. But I skipped the second half of my seminar because the professor was explaining information asymmetry and I sat there thinking about a man who sat across from his father and bought my safety with a leash around his own neck, and the irony was so precise I couldn't stay in the chair."
She crosses the room and sits on the edge of the bed, on top of the sheets, still dressed, her coat still on. Cole is on one side. I'm on the other. The three of us are on the bed in the daylight, two of us naked and one of us armored by wool and buttons and a bag still on the floor by the door.
"I'm going to let your family keep watching him," she says.
My breath stops.
"I haven't decided if I forgive you. Talia said something to me weeks ago about the carrying. She said the cost of carrying aloneis the thing that kills you. And I've been carrying my father for twenty-two years. Through a name change and a sealed record and four locks on every door and a breathing count that runs every night." She looks at me. "If your family watching him means I can sleep through the night without counting, then I'm going to let them do it. I'll hate that I'm letting it run. And I'm going to hate you a little bit for making that choice before I could. And I'm going to stay anyway."
"Maya—"
"I'm not finished." She turns to Cole. "You saw the text last night. You didn't tell me."
"You saw it too," Cole says. Carefully.
"I saw it. I'm asking why you didn't say anything."
"Because he was shaking on your shoulder and I made a judgment call about timing."
"A judgment call. Cole Maddox made a judgment call about when to share information." Her mouth curves without softening. "You never stop arranging the room, do you?"
"No," Cole says. "I don't. But you can see it now. That's new."
She looks between us, at the two of us naked and rumpled in the daylight, in the bed that smells like all three of us.
"Get dressed," she says. "We're going downstairs. I'm making dinner. And while I cook, Dante is going to tell me everything about that dinner. Every word his father said. Every word Marco said. The hockey money, the legal businesses, all of it."
She stands and walks to the door. Stops.
"And Dante."
"Yeah?"
"If Marco texts again, you show me the text before you read it. That's the new rule. Full visibility. No locked drawers. No sealed compartments. I've spent enough of my life being managed by men who think they know what's best for me."
She walks down the stairs. Her footsteps receding. The kitchen light clicking on.
Cole looks at me. Reaches for his clothes.
"Dante."
"Yeah?"
"Your father was wrong about one thing. Marco said the boy thinks he has a choice." He pulls his shirt over his head. "The boy chose us. Get dressed. She's waiting."
I get dressed. We go downstairs. Maya is at the stove with her coat still on, pulling pans from cabinets hard enough that metal knocks against metal.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out and turn it so Maya can see before I read the screen.
Marco.
Details pending. David Ashford remains in Briarcliff. Will update when positioning changes.
