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Nikolai considered the canvas again.

“It still looks crooked,” he smirked.

Aleksei rested his hand over Amy’s and gave Nikolai a darkly amused smile. “This is why no one allows you near the gallery without supervision.”

“I know what I like.”

“You like paintings with horses.”

“Horses look like horses,” Nikolai smirked.

Amy laughed, leaning into Aleksei when he pressed a kiss against her temple. My youngest brother’s expression softened in a way it never did for anyone else. He had once treated affection like another luxury object to acquire, admire, and keep behind glass. Amy had changed all that.

Across from them, Sloane was telling Kit why the motion alert outside the guest rooms needed to be disabled.

“It sends a notification every time I open the window,” Sloane complained. “I shouldn’t need security clearance to get fresh air.”

“You once climbed out of a third-story window to attend an illegal fight night,” Kit replied.

“That was a different house,” Sloane told her.

“It was still a third-story window.”

“And I was perfectly safe.”

Nikolai turned his head slowly toward his wife.

Sloane paused. “Mostly safe,” she corrected, with a smirk.

“You fell into a rosebush,” he reminded her.

“Which was part of the exit strategy, obviously.”

“That was the strategy of gravity, my love.”

Kit folded her arms with visible satisfaction. “The alert stays.”

“The alert is annoying,” Sloane whined.

“Alerts are supposed to be annoying. That is how they get your attention,” Kit replied.

“Not if I start ignoring it because it goes off every time I want some air.”

Sloane had a point. It wasn’t one I quite expected from her, but a valid one. The fastest way to make a warning useless was to let it sound for harmless reasons. People stopped responding. They silenced notifications, dismissed alarms without checking them, and taught themselves that the noise meant nothing, when eventually it could mean something.

“I’ll separate the window sensor from the exterior motion alarm and widen the opening threshold,” I said. “You’ll receive one silent notification when it opens. Security will only be alerted if the window remains open after the system is armed or is opened too far.”

Sloane smiled triumphantly. “See?”

Kit looked at me. “It still needs a manual confirmation.”

“It will have one.”

“Fine.”

Sloane reached across and stole a roasted potato from Kit’s plate. Kit slapped her hand away too late. Ivan picked up his phone again. Kit took it from him without looking and tucked it beneath her thigh. My brother just stared at her like she’d told him no cookies before dinner.

“No work during dinner,” she intoned with a slightly haughty tone.