I didn't sleep the first night back.
Not really.
Noah was safe, warm, and curled against me like a heartbeat I'd been missing. His little fingers wrapped around the fabric of my shirt like I would vanish if he let go. I held him just as tightly as if holding him might keep the nightmares from us both.
But mine weren't dreams. They were memories. And they were wide awake.
I watched shadows move across the ceiling until dawn turned them soft and grey.
I didn't wake up.
Because I'd never gone to sleep.
The penthouse felt different.
Too quiet. Too clean. Like it didn't know what to do with us now. Like it was waiting to see if we'd unpack our trauma or carry it out in bags.
Rhyland was already up—if he'd slept at all. Standing at the kitchen counter, one hand around a coffee cup he hadn't even touched.
He was a mess.
But he looked like he felt it, too. And perhaps that's what made me hesitate.
Neither of us said anything for a long time.
He eventually spoke up.
"There's something about that symbol."
I looked up from the couch, where Noah was huddled in my lap watching cartoons that weren't even holding his gaze.
"What symbol?"
"The one on the note. From last night."
I frowned. "I thought it was random."
He shook his head and edged closer, paper clutched in his hand. "It's not."
He extended it. A circle, a triangle inside. A line straight down from top to bottom, splitting everything in half. Neat. Geometric. Cold.
"I've done this before," he told me. "Years and years ago. On a deal I made with some faceless investor."
"Faceless?"
"They laundered money through off-shore accounts. Never called themselves anything, just a holding company. I thought they were being just cautious. Now I think maybe they were hiding.".
I gazed back at the symbol.
"Are you telling me this is related to you?"
"I'm saying it could be."
"And someone left this knowing you'd know it."
He nodded slowly. "Yeah."
Noah shifted next to me and hid his face in my side.
"You promised to keep us safe," I whispered.
"I will."
"But you brought risk to our doorstep before you even met us."
His jaw clenched. "I know how to make it right."
"You don't even know what it is."
He glared at me then, unmoving and unyielding.
"Not yet. But I will."
My brother came over at lunchtime.
Didn't knock as a visitor. Just let himself in like already too tired to need to be invited.
Gazed at Rhyland, then at me, then at the sleeping infant in my lap.
Said nothing initially.
Then held out a small stuffed owl.
Noah's other favorite. The one he'd abandoned weeks prior.
I tied it around my chest and gave a silent nod of thanks.
He sat beside me.
"You okay?" he asked.
"No."
"Fair."
"I thought coming home with Noah would be waking up from a nightmare."
"And instead?"
"It feels like waking up in another one."
We sat there for a long time without speaking.
He finally looked at me, elbows on knees.
"You ever think about leaving?" he asked.
I blinked. "Leaving where?"
"This city. This mess. Taking Noah somewhere far away. New name. New life."
"Every damn day."
"Then why don't you?"
"Because running is what he did."
Caleb.
And I refused to be like him in any way.
That night, I went into Rhyland's office.
He was standing by the window, arms crossed, staring at nothing.
I didn't knock.
He turned when I stepped inside.
I didn't wait for an invitation.
"I don't want to talk about threats or notes or investigations," I said.
He nodded. "Okay."
"I want to talk about literally anything else."
He set aside his tablet. "How about dinner?"
I hesitated.
"Real dinner," he said. "No agendas. No drama. Just food."
My stomach growled in agreement.
"Fine. But I decide."
He smiled. "Chinese?"
"With extra egg rolls."
"Deal."
We ate on the floor.
Noah was huddled under the blankets, and for a single night, I let myself pretend that we were normal humans with normal problems. Two adults sitting cross-legged on the ground, eating dumplings and pretending that we didn't have scars stitched under our skin.
"You wanted to start a bakery, didn't you?" he asked.
I blinked. "How do you know that?"
You said it once. When you were ranting and furious at how your life went haywire.
"That sounds like me."
He smiled. "Still want to?"
"More than ever."
"You'd be good at it."
"You haven't even tried my baking."
"You did cinnamon rolls once and the whole floor smelled like heaven for two days. That's enough."
"It felt honest, my laughter.
"I used to want to change the world," he said, quieter. "Now I just want to keep one little piece of it safe."
"Is that piece… us?"
He looked at me with softness in his eyes.
It wasn't a smile he offered me. It wasn't a smirk. It was a soft-breaking thing.
"I want to say yes," he said. "But I know I don't deserve to."
"I don't want you to say it."
"Then what do you want?"
"To believe it."
We sat on the couch after dinner.
We didn't touch.
We didn't flirt.
We just sat.
And that was somehow more intimate than anything else we'd ever done.
"You still don't trust me," he said.
"No."
"Do you want to?"
"Maybe."
He took a deep breath. "That's enough. For now."
The morning came too soon.
A hard knock at the door roused me awake.
Rhyland opened it while I was rubbing the sleep from my eyes.
A white envelope was slipped into his hands by a deliveryman who wore a black sweatshirt.
No name. No address to return to.
Two words: For Noah.
My legs become too heavy as if I can't move.
He slowly opened it, extracting a folded piece of paper within.
There was a child's drawing. Red crayon stick figures. A man. A woman. A child. All standing under what looked like rain—or maybe wires. Dark scribble at the top. A storm?
On the back, i
n block letters:
"Time to come home."
And underneath that?
The symbol.
Again.
I could feel the air sucked out of the room.
Rhyland's grip on the paper tightened.
"They know where we are," I whispered.
He didn't respond.
Because we both knew.