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“Well, I think I’m going to find Grey and check on him. Maybe grab a coffee for myself.” Lexi starts to stand.

“You haven’t seen Mia around, have you?” I ask.

“No. She had an errand, I think.”

“Seems like a long time to run an errand,” I say.

She smiles ruefully. “In all the time I’ve known Mia, I’ve never once had to worry about her.”

I decide not to tell her that all I’ve done today is worry. And wonder. And try to reason out why she’d kiss me like she did last night and then ghost me today. It’s not just her errand. She still hasn’t texted me back, and this feels like more than just a busy day. It feels like she’s trying to close a door between us.

My wolf refuses to let her.

Rather than say any of that, I check my phone again.

No messages.

Lexi sits again. “Grey told me,” she says without preamble. “What he found when he was in your head.”

Well, damn. We were going there. “I assumed he would.”

“We don’t keep things from each other. The bond makes secrets—” She pauses. “Complicated.”

“I understand.” Or I did in theory anyway.

“I’m not asking you to explain yourself.” She leans forward slightly. “I just want you to know that I know. And that I’m glad. If it goes the way I hope.” She holds my gaze. “She’s been alone for a long time. It’s taken a toll in ways most people can’t see because she’s so good at making it look like a choice.”

“She doesn’t prefer it,” I say quietly. “Being alone.”

“No. She’s just terrified of what it costs to not be.” There’s a fondness in her expression as she adds, “She’ll fight it, though. Probably come up with seventeen strategic reasons why it’s a bad idea.”

I snort. “She’s already found at least that many, if not more.”

“You’ll have to really want her,” Lexi warns.

When I look over at her, I see the question in her eyes. She wants to know if I’m willing to put in the work. But if Grey really did share what he found in my head, they both already know the answer to that.

I look at the table. Think about the drive home from the stakeout. Mia’s hands unsteady on the wheel. The walls going up so fast and so clean that watching it happen felt like watching someone close a door on themselves from the inside.

It wasn’t nothing for me either.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I say.

Lexi nods like she already knew that’s what I’d say. “Stand beside her,” she says. “Not in front. Not behind. She needs beside.”

“I know.”

“Good.” She straightens. Back to business as cleanly as if the last five minutes hadn’t happened. “Then we understand each other.”

She stands when the door opens.

Marcus.

He reads the room in approximately one second—Lexi standing, me sitting with my hands around a now-cold coffee, the particular atmosphere of something personal recently concluded—and doesn’t comment on any of it. He just closes the door behind him and sets a folder on the table between us.

“I think I found something,” he says.

“What’s up?” I ask, nodding for him to go ahead.