Page 30 of Wicked Brutal

“No. If she takes Tobias without something legal behind her, Roman reports it — adult daughter walks off with a six-year-old who isn’t legally hers. We don’t know what Jane does, whether she backs Ally or Roman. There’s no custody order, no documented history involving Tobias that tells us how a judge lands. We’d be handing Roman a clean legal road to take him straight back.”

Iz’s face tightens. “So you wanted enough to get Tobias before you ever started the machine.”

“Yeah.”

Kaiden studies me. “And did you get it?”

“No.” I hate saying it out loud. “Not yet.”

“But she’s starting to show,” Xander says.

“Yeah.”

“And Tremblay’s expecting a virgin,” Danny adds quietly.

“Yeah.”

“So your clock ran out.”

“Pretty much on the nose.”

Kaiden pushes away from the table. “We’re involved now. All of us. That’s not a thing you get to talk us out of.”

“I know.”

“No,” he says, and his voice is calm, which somehow makes it land harder. “I don’t think you do. You don’t have to hand us a solved case, Ryan. You did the same thing Cat did, and Penny, and Becca — every single time, one of us decides we’re protecting everybody by carrying something alone until it’s almost too fucking late to fix.”

Xander grimaces. “He’s got you there, man.”

“You’re not special enough to reinvent the same stupid mistake we’ve all already made,” Kaiden says.

“Fuck you.”

“There he is.” Then his expression softens, barely. “We’re involved now. Say it back so I know you heard it.”

“You’re involved now.”

Iz picks up his phone and looks at me with the patience of a man who has waited his entire life for this moment. “Now can I call my dad?”

“No.”

“For the love of God.”

“We tell Ally the boys know. Then the girls. Then my parents. Then Arthur. In that order, so nobody in the middle of it feels like the last to find out about their own life.”

Kaiden looks at me. “Your parents don’t know?”

“No.”

Iz stares. “You’ve known for a month and you haven’t told Walter and Cassandra they’re about to be grandparents?”

“I’ve been busy.”

“Doing what?” I gesture at the laptop. “Oh, right,” Iz says. “Cyberstalking your future father-in-law. Wholesome.”

“Don’t call him that.”

“Noted. Deeply noted.”