"That, I'm also not telling you." He says it gently, but it's a closed door, and we both hear it close. "Not the locations. Not the dates. Not who's moving them or what roads they're taking. You know why."
I do know why.The more I carry, the more I'm worth to anyone who would open me up to get at it.
"Then tell me one thing." I keep my voice level. "If the warrant doesn't come. If it's day six and you move anyway. What's the part you're most afraid of?”
He doesn't answer right away. His hand stays flat on the page.
"That I get all nine of them out," he says finally, "and it still isn't enough to put Talbot in a cell. That I save the people and lose the case. And then we spend the rest of our lives watching Kline do it again to hundreds more, under a new name, in a new state, because we moved a week too early." He looks at me. "The only thing in question is whether the law is standing next to me when it happens. Everything else, I already know how to do."
My eyes go to my hands in my lap and I try to swallow back the smile growing.
"You didn't have to do that," I say. "You could've heard me in the hallway and shut the door and told me it was handled. That's what Atlas would've done. That's what you would have done six months ago." I look at him. "What changed?"
He's quiet for a moment.
"You did," he says. "You walked into this house flinching at every door that opened. I watched you teach yourself how to be a person in real time. And somewhere in there it stopped being protective to keep things from you and started being something closer to an insult." His hand finally lifts off the page. "I'm not going to insult you, Maxie. Not anymore."
"...Bane."
He pushes the chair back from the desk. Crooks one finger at me—come here—and there is enough quiet certainty in it that I am up and crossing the room before I've decided to.
He guides me down into his lap. One arm settles low around my back. I fit there. I have learned, this year, that I fit there.
I feel like I fit anywhere the brothers are.
"Listen to me," he says, quiet, his mouth near my temple as I lay onto his chest. "When Atlas gets home, he's going to find out I told you, and he's going to bedispleased. Not at you. At me. Let him be. That's mine to carry, not yours."
"Bane—"
"But hear the rest of it." He tips my chin up with two fingers so I have to look at him. "I don't want a single secret standing between us. Not one. I have spent my whole life keeping the worst things to myself because there was no one to set them down in front of. I waited a long time for a person I could hand my whole life to." His thumb moves along my jaw. "You're him. So you don't get the careful version anymore. You get all of it. Even the parts that frighten you. Especially those."
The bond between us goes so wide and bright I have to breathe through it. Like a massive anchor in my chest dragging me closer and closer to him andGod,I can’t get enough of him. "...okay," I manage. "Okay."
Then I think of the time, and the dinner, and the girl down the hall.
"Shit. We should get down there," I say. "If we leave Zero alone with Wren he's going to scare her off with a knife trick or a war story."
Bane huffs a laugh. "He wouldn't."
"He absolutely would. He'd think it was charming." I press my palm flat to his chest. "She likes you, you know. Youmake her calm. Keep that in mind tonight. She'll do better if you're close."
Something crosses his face—soft, and a little stunned, like he could have never imagined his presence would begoodfor someone.
He doesn’t know how damn good he’s been for me.
"Then I'll stay close to both of you," he says. "I can take care of two people at one dinner table. I've been wanting the chance."
He kisses me. Unhurried, certain, his hand warm at the back of my neck—a kiss with no question in it at all. Then he sets me on my feet, smooths the collar of my shirt with both hands like he's putting me back together for company, and stands.
"Come on," he says. "Before your friend forms a permanent opinion of this family based solely on Zero."
I shiver. “Oh,God.”
Bane chuckles and we go out into the hall and downstairs.
Wren is just stepping out of the powder room. She has fixed her hair. She has reapplied a small amount of lip color. She looks at the two of us coming down the hallway side by side and something in my chest goes pleased and warm at the sight of her looking at me.
Then she sees Bane, and her whole face changes. She wouldn’t admit it, but she lights up when she sees him and something inside me loves that he’s kind of like her night in shining armour.
