Silence settles over the table for a beat, heavy but resolved.
Sin glances around the room once, taking stock of every face like he always does when something matters. “That’s it,” he says. “Stay sharp. We move once we have answers.”
Chairs scrape back almost immediately. The tension doesn’t vanish, but it changes shape, breaking into smaller currents while the brothers stand and start filtering toward the door.
The meeting is over.
I stay in my position at the back of the room for a moment after the others push back from the table, letting the room rearrange itself around me. Deek is already telling Koa something about a detour he took home last week that somehow involved a chicken and a traffic cone. Koa’s expression suggests he deeply regrets asking.
Nitro pauses at the door, glances back at me with a look that takes maybe two seconds and communicates something I couldn’t put into words but understand perfectly.
Then he’s gone.
Twenty-onedays.
I set my hand against the wall beside me, palm flat, letting the rough surface anchor me in place.
I can do twenty-onedays.
The afternoon carries the texture of a clubhouse settling back toward ordinary after a night that wasn’t.
Victoria is on a cleaning crusade, mid-campaign. She’s been at it for two weeks now. It doesn’t have a name, but the mission is clear. Everything in the clubhouse will be reorganized according to Victoria-logic, and somehow, we are all supposed to act like this is reasonable.
Ro finds me in the hallway looking completely thrown off, staring at me with this weird mix of disbelief and careful respect, the kind people usually reserve for things capable of leveling buildings. “She’s redone the kitchen,” Ro whispers, dropping her voice to a register that suggests she doesn’t want to be overheard. “The whole thing. The spice rack is alphabetical now, Will.Alphabetical.I had a fucking system!”
“What was your system?”
“Vibes,” Ro says, without a trace of irony. “Contextual vibes. It worked perfectly for three damn years.”
From the main room, Victoria’s voice carries through bright and unapologetic, like she’s decided pregnancy isn’t going to make her any less present in the world. “Ro, did you find the extra dish towels? I need them in the second drawer, not the third, because the third drawer is going to be for—”
“She issuperpregnant,” Ro cuts in, somewhere behind me. “Where is this energy coming from? Ineedher to share it.”
I leave Ro to her fate and head toward the main room.
Victoria suddenly appears a second later, pushing out of the kitchen mid-thought, a dish towel still in her hand like she forgot she was holding it. She slows when she sees me, not stopping exactly, just shifting gears, her movement settling into that careful, deliberate rhythm she’s adopted over the past fewweeks as she adjusts to the new geometry of her body. She’s five months in now, and it shows, the curve of her belly visible beneath the soft fabric of her shirt, one hand coming up to rest there automatically, like she checks in without thinking.
She looks at me, and her expression shifts, warmth mingling with something sharper, her attention turning careful and deliberate. Victoria has always been more perceptive than she lets on, and time spent around Sin has only refined that edge.
“Hey, Will. You look like you slept about four hours.”
“Five,” I say.
“Riveting.” She flicks the dish towel onto the back of a chair and moves further into the room, gesturing loosely toward the sofa. “Sit down. You’re making the room look anxious.”
I drop onto the seat beside her, and she looks me over with the kind of sharp attention that tells me years of reading people for a living rewired something in her permanently. “She’s okay,” Victoria says, softly enough that it’s clearly for me. “I texted her this morning. She’s home, she slept, she’s fine.”
She’s clearly talking about Millie, and something loosens in my chest that I didn’t know was tight.
“I know she’s fine,” I say, which is only half a lie.
Victoria’s expression suggests she’s choosing to be gracious about this. She turns to the notepad in her lap that has magically appeared, where she seems to be making a list that has at least three columns. “Sin’s going to need the storage room cleared by next week,” she says conversationally. “For the baby things. I’ve been thinking about where everything should go.”
“I noticed.”
“The kitchen needed it. Don’t tell Ro I said so.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
