The message preview expanded under my gaze.
Missing. Possible abduction. Family fears foul play.
My jaw set before I could stop it. Something sharp settled behind my ribs as I took in the rest—timestamps and forwarded links, language dressed up to sound informative while feeding something uglier underneath.
“Does she send commentary with them or just the articles?”
His throat moved. “Sometimes a text. Sometimes… nothing.”
Nothing.
Silence wasn’t neutral in situations like this. It was expectation—a question left open long enough that it stopped being a question at all.
“It just… doesn’t stop. My head gets so loud and it takes days for me to turn it off.”
Another sharp pull hit beneath my ribs, tightening and dragging me forward, instinct taking over with brutal clarity.
Protect. Protect. Protect.
The tips of my shoes touched the edges of his, but he didn’t seem to notice as I lowered into a crouch beside him. The floor took my weight as the distance between us folded inward. I braced one hand against the back of the chair, fingers curling along the wooden edge.
“Archie, baby.”
I was close enough to him now to feel the warmth coming off his body in soft waves—to hear the uneven pull of his breathing before it steadied.
“Henry.”
A quiet exhale burst from between his lips, and then his shoulders followed, loosening and drifting forward until his forehead met my chest with a careful press.
Like he wasn’t sure he was allowed to take the space.
The fabric of my shirt shifted faintly under the weight of him, heat seeping through, his breath catching there—warm, shallow, and brushing through the cotton in uneven bursts.
“She started after Abel. My brother,” he murmured, the words pressed into the fabric between us instead of spoken into the room. “After he—fuck.”
His breath hitched once against my chest. “After he went missing.”
I’d known there was a brother. Jackson Randolph had been stupid enough to drag the wound into the open in the middle of a hallway. I hadn’t pushed for the rest. There were lines I was trying—against my better instincts—to let Archie cross in his own time.
That restraint was being tested.
Sliding my hand from the chair to him, I rubbed circles against his back, fingers spreading between his shoulder blades.
The movement pulled him out of the space he’d folded into, his forehead dragging lightly against my chest as he followed, breath catching mid-motion as his face tilted toward mine.
“There’s my rabbit.”
Eyes met mine, unfocused for half a second before sharpening, something fragile flickering through them before it could be hidden again.
A tremor moved through him, starting high in his shoulders, slipping down his spine in a slow, involuntary shudder that didn’t belong to control or thought.
His body knew.
Even if he didn’t want it to.
My thumb shifted to his jawline, stroking up and down.
“Talk to me, sweetheart.”
