"I need you to keep your hand away from your phone."
"You don't know what I'm about to do."
"You're going to call Marco," Cole says. "By Friday, David Ashford will be having the worst week of his life, and your jaw does that thing when you're deciding whether to use your family or the system."
The accuracy knocks the air out of my chest.
"That's not how we do this," Cole says.
"How do we do it?"
"We talk to Richard. We go through the parole board. We file the violation. He's breaching a protection order. The legal route."
"The legal route let him out."
"I know."
"It gave him good behavior and a release date, and now he's standing outside her door with her dead name on an envelope."
"I know, Dante."
"So tell me why the legal route deserves another chance."
Cole uncrosses his arms and puts his hands flat on the counter.
"Because if you use your family's resources, she will find out. Then she'll look at you and see another man deciding what happens to her before she gets a choice."
"That's not the same thing."
"You know it's not. I know it's not." Cole's voice cracks on the next breath, and he pulls it back under control. "Her body won't hear the difference."
I stare at him. He stares back. His eyes are still wet.
"The legal route," I say.
"The legal route."
"And if the legal route fails?"
"Then we figure it out." His hands press harder against the counter. "Together."
My hand leaves the counter and goes into my pocket. The phone is right there. Marco is a text away. The infrastructure that could locate one paroled man in Western Massachusetts is a single phone call and forty-eight hours away, and pretending I will never use it would make me a fucking liar.
I take my hand out of my pocket. Empty.
"I'll talk to Richard," I say. "Today."
"We'll talk to Richard. Both of us."
"She's going to be angry at you for telling me."
"I'll handle it."
"Cole." His eyes meet mine. "You sat next to me for four days knowing this."
"I've been sitting next to you knowing things about Maya for nine years, D. Four days is nothing."
Nine years. The number scrapes on the way down. Nine years of watching Maya flinch and managing the room around the flinch, of knowing why the door bar exists and why the breathing count runs at 2 a.m. He has been carrying this since he was thirteen.
