Page 120 of Twins for Three Bad Boys

“But.”

He exhales slowly. “He’s my son.”

I nod.

If I had a kid, I’d burn down the world for them too.

“I’m not worried about her,” I say. “I’m worried about whoever sent it.”

Wayne’s gaze sharpens at that.

“Someone wants you to doubt her,” I continue. “Timing’s not accidental.”

He drags a hand through his hair. “She thinks it might be her ex.”

That tracks.

“What do we know about him?” I ask.

“Not enough.”

That’s one problem. But this isn’t just about the email. It’s about everything being up in the air. We don’t have a blueprint for this. For sharing her. For navigating jealousy without letting it rot us from the inside. For figuring out how to build something that doesn’t collapse under its own weight.

Wayne’s already fighting himself.

This is only going to make it worse.

“I’ll help,” I say.

Wayne studies me. “I know.”

He doesn’t say more.

But I see the fear he won’t name.

Not just of June being a risk, of losing her, of opening up and having it ripped away again. He lost once. That kind of loss rewires a man. Makes him treat hope as a liability. And now we’re asking him to share it.

If this email pushes him back behind those walls, we might not get him out again.

I straighten.

“I’m going to talk to Pike,” I say. “He’s the resident tech guy in this town. He knows how to dig into shit like this.”

Wayne’s brow lifts slightly. “You trust him with this?”

“With information?” I shrug. “He lives for puzzles.”

Pike Hill always looks like the kind of man who’d accidentally start a cyber war while trying to fix his Wi-Fi. Long limbs. Perpetually rumpled flannel. Dry humor sharp enough to shave with.

He lives in a workshop full of dismantled laptops and half-finished espresso machines he swears he’s going to “optimize.”

He owes me a favor.

I find him in the back of his shop, illuminated by three monitors and what I’m fairly certain is a soldering iron too close to a mug that says World’s Okayest Human.

“You look like trouble,” he says without turning around. “Please tell me this is the fun kind and not the felony kind.”

“I need quiet,” I reply.