He looked up. The left corner of his mouth quirked, then vanished. “What’s up, Hoop?”
I took the printout from my shirt and held it up, waving it once. “I need you to put the word out,” I said. “If Liam’s on the move, we need to find him before these guys do.”
Rawley’s eyes narrowed, but his voice stayed level. “Already did.”
“Good,” I said. “Just wanted to hear you say it.”
He studied me for a second, then leaned back in the chair, arms crossed. “You all right?”
I shrugged. “Not really, but I will be.”
He nodded, slow and careful, the way he did when something mattered and he wasn’t sure if saying it would help. Then he said, “You did the right thing, bringing him here.”
I didn’t answer. There wasn’t one.
The silence in the office was a comfortable one. You could stack a hundred pounds of need or regret on top of it, and the chair wouldn’t creak.
Rawley didn’t move, didn’t blink, just watched as I folded the paper in half, then quarters, then shoved it in my pocket like it was scrap.
“If he calls,” I said, “tell him to use the back channel. The old one.”
Rawley nodded. “He knows.”
I stood there another second, then turned to go. Just as I hit the door, he called after me: “Hoop.”
“Yeah?”
He didn’t look up from the laptop. “You’re not alone, you know.”
It was the kind of thing that could have sounded like pity from anyone else, but Rawley said it like he was stating the wind speed or the price of diesel. Just a fact, neutral as gravity.
I nodded, once, and left the office.
The kitchen was still warm, still yellow and bright, still smelling of steamed formula and baby skin and the faint, fresh chemical of new beginnings.
I looked at Emilio, asleep in the basket, breathing deep and even. I wanted to tell him it would be okay, but I wasn’t sure I believed it yet.
Instead, I sat at the kitchen table, turned the chair so I could see the window, and let the condensation blur the world outside into a soft, forgiving blue.
The house was quiet. The baby was fed. The night was coming, but for the first time in weeks, I wasn’t afraid of it.
* * * *
The nursery was a box of borrowed quiet, wrapped in the kind of shadow that only came from a night without stars. The crib was set up under the window, where the moon could run a single white stripe across the baby’s head. The floorboards picked up every footstep, every time the chair creaked, every whisper of flannel on cotton. There was a green dot blinking on the baby monitor, steady as a heartbeat.
I sat with my boots planted, arms braced on my knees, close enough to rest a hand on the edge of Emilio’s crib. He’d been asleep for almost an hour, his breath coming in ragged but rhythmic pulses, eyelids flickering with whatever his brain was sorting through.
I tried not to stare, but every time I looked away, the universe found a new way to draw my attention back—his hand clenching, a whimper in his throat, the shiver of a muscle under his jaw.
I didn’t blame him. The night had that effect.
The house had wound itself down for the evening—Rawley and Jojo in their own wing, Jasper back in his place, the old pipes finally settling after their last complaint. I had themonitors set to max, and I could hear the house breathing—every tick, every sigh, every rumor of wind that prowled the eaves.
I should have been asleep. I should have at least been pretending. But after three tours, two break-ins, and one exceptionally weird childhood, my body didn’t trust a peace this deep. It waited for the next thing, and it knew the next thing was always coming.
Around one-thirty, the headlights found us. At first just a pale flicker in the glass, nothing a civilian would notice. Then, slow as rumor, the beams swept the window in a measured arc, painting the whole room in a sick blue daylight.
I didn’t move, not at first. I just let my hand drift to the window frame, fingers curling over the sill. The cold bled through the wood, straight into my bones.
