Page 166 of Pack Baby for the Silver Foxes

“She knows we’re here?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“And?”

Artem’s voice softened by a fraction. “She said no.”

I nodded because there were guards watching and because if I didn’t move my body in some civilized way, I might have stood there until the rain turned me into stone.

We left.

Now we were back in London, with the moon glistening over the Thames to end another day without her.

Lincoln sat in the chair by the glass wall with a tumbler of bourbon he hadn’t drunk much of. Neither had I. It was something to hold.

The penthouse had become too large. Mary’s mug by the sink. Her sketchbook was half-hidden under a cushion because she’d still been pretending her painting was casual. Her slippers near the bedroom door. The folded blanket on the sofa where she sat with her feet tucked under and insulted whichever one of us asked if she was comfortable.

Now the rooms stretched into glass, stone, river, and silence.

“God, I miss her,” I said, staring at the empty place she liked to sit. “Not just miss, I love her.”

Lincoln walked toward the window, the amber in his glass catching the city light. “Me too.”

“Good,” I said.

He took one swallow of bourbon, then set the glass down on the table. “We failed her.”

“I agree. We should’ve told Damien in Boston.”

“We should have at least told him before he reached the penthouse.” There was no anger in his voice.

For a while, the city moved below us in headlights and rain.

“I know I was scared of losing him,” Lincoln said. “Which is crazy because we lost him years ago.”

I closed my eyes. “I know.”

“We hesitated...” Lincoln murmured. “When he asked if she planned it. Planned the meeting with us to hurt him. We hesitated.”

I groaned. “I know.”

Damien’s voice had replayed itself in my mind until it became a wound with sound.

How do you know she never planned it to hurt me?

The question was absurd and impossible. And for half a second, I hadn’t answered. Not because I believed it, but because Damien was my son in every way that mattered except blood, and he had looked at me with his whole broken childhood in his face.

For half a second, I had seen two hurts and failed to defend the one that needed defending.

Mary had heard the silence. She heard everything we didn’t say.

“We chose wrong,” Lincoln said.

“We didn’t choose Damien.”

“No.” His voice roughened. “We chose hesitation.”

I took a sip of my bourbon, letting it burn my throat. “And she still wants us to help him before going to her.”