For the first time all day, I was alone.
I set Grace in the bassinet, watched her squirm and roll and finally go soft, her body relaxing in the way only infants or the terminally exhausted ever manage. I sat on the edge of the bed, hands braced on my knees, and did the math.
Forty-eight hours ago, I’d been a guy who avoided birthdays, holidays, and any excuse for a group photo. Now I was holed up in a wolf’s den, responsible for a baby who would literally die if I tried to leave. Two people were dead. Someone wanted this kid enough to send professionals. And Wolfe, the man whocould have replaced me with anyone in the city, wanted me here specifically.
I did not like the arithmetic, but I had to respect the logic.
The room was too quiet. For a second, I missed my apartment, the chaos of it, the noise and the comfort of never having to explain myself to anyone.
But, as I looked at the bassinet, watched Grace breathe, and couldn’t imagine leaving.
When the night got late enough, I lay back on the bed, jacket still on, boots off, and counted the seconds between her breaths. I stared at the ceiling, then the door, then the ceiling again. The lollipop had dissolved to nothing, leaving my mouth dry.
I thought about the Dalys. About the urgent message, the double-cross, the impossible odds against them. I thought about the bikes, the alley, the way every moment since had felt like a net tightening around my neck.
Mostly, I thought about Braham’s face, the second he said, “You’re not disposable.” Like maybe it was the first time he’d had to say it out loud, and wasn’t sure the world would allow it.
I let my mind run until it circled back to the one problem I hadn’t solved: someone had breached the comms. Someone had known to intercept the Dalys before they even got close. That meant the real threat wasn’t outside the walls. It was inside.
And now, so was I.
I closed my eyes, listened to Grace’s steady breath, and promised myself I wouldn’t sleep.
I did, anyway.
Chapter Six
~ Braham ~
I was awake before the baby started screaming. Not a full hour before, but enough to count. Three a.m. by the Patek on my nightstand, and I’d been watching the city’s lights crawl the length of the river for a long, unbroken stretch.
Insomnia had stopped being a problem decades ago. Now it was more of a condition, like being left-handed or taller than average, something you accepted and weaponized when the rest of the world chose to sleep.
The suite was silent except for the pressure-differential hush from the window and the soft, irregular breathing of an infant. She hadn’t made a sound in six hours. That was an outlier worth noting. I mentally revised the predicted interval for next feeding: plus or minus twelve minutes.
The hunger-cry, when it came, hit like a round cracking off a frozen surface. One second the penthouse was the usual mausoleum of quiet luxury; the next, every cubic foot vibrated with need. It was the kind of wail designed to ensure the entire evolutionary chain snapped to attention.
I waited. Not out of laziness—out of respect. Thirty seconds and the next sound was the light, almost theatrical thump of bare feet to hardwood in the suite next door.
I tracked the route in my head: left, past the linen cabinet, quick detour to the bathroom for a warm wash cloth, then the direct line to the nursery niche. A beat later, the baby’s cry dropped to a half-volume complaint, punctuated by the little “heh” sound Grace made when air hit the back of her throat.
Jai’s voice followed, not even pretending to whisper, “Okay. I hear you, bean. Give me a second.”
I let it play out. Counted another thirty. Sometimes, the best way to measure a man was to see how he handled waking crisis with no audience and no margin for error.
He never once raised his voice.
I threw on sleep pants, pulled my hair back, and stepped into the hallway just as Grace let out a second, more indignant wail. I tracked them by scent: powder, sweat, cherry blossom, and under it, the dense, animal certainty of a newborn in full distress.
The penthouse at this hour ran on two frequencies—blue and amber. The city side was all dark glass and the sodium grid of streetlamps spiking up through the rain; the interior was low-lit, one cone of hood light illuminating the kitchen island in the far corner. The rest was shadow, every detail rendered down to the high-gloss of the walnut and the matte of the tile.
Jai was already at the counter, Grace tucked in the crook of his left arm, her cheek mashed against the fabric of a cutoff Army t-shirt. His other hand worked the formula scoop, measured and flat, into the bottle with the kind of precision I’d only ever seen in surgeons or bomb techs. His movements were so clean that if you squinted, you could almost believe this was his hundredth baby, not his first.
She had one fist balled tight around his thumb, the other tangled in the collar of his shirt, and she kept up a steady, rhythmic fuss, undistracted by anything except the delay in her feeding schedule.
I watched from the doorway, leaning one shoulder to the frame, not making a sound. The floor under my bare feet was cold, but I didn’t mind it. The cold reminded me I was here, now, in a room where nothing could ever possibly surprise me again.
Jai didn’t turn. He never needed to look to know who was in the room. “You can come in. You breathe louder than you thinkyou do,” he said, even, eyes fixed on the level of the bottle as he gave it one last, careful shake.
