Maceo's eyes flick to me.
I keep my hand on Rosalie's back and answer before the silence can make the word heavier than it already is. "Things people think are useful."
Samuel considers that, then looks at the cards in his hand. "My moons are assets."
"They are," Maceo says. "You've been using them aggressively."
Samuel beams and returns to cheating.
Luca's face twists for one second before he smooths it, but Blake catches it. He reaches across the space between theloveseat and the rug, and Luca leans forward enough to take his hand. Grayson shifts to make the reach easier. James keeps building at Blake's feet. Rosalie sleeps through all of it, warm and heavy against my chest.
This is what they don't get. Family's not an angle. It's not brand warmth, or narrative value, or a trust-building visual. It's the reason the line exists in the first place.
I take my phone from my pocket and scroll to Wilson's name. My thumb hovers there for one second while I think through what the call'll cost, how much we'll have to share, how many locked rooms we'll need to open for people we trust because people we don't trust are already trying to pick the doors.
Then Rosalie sighs in her sleep and tucks her face tighter against my chest.
I hit call.
Wilson answers on the fourth ring, voice rough and alert in the way of a man who's learned that late calls rarely bring small problems. "Luther?"
I look around the room while the call connects fully. Blake pale and furious on the floor with James beside him. Luca holding his hand from the loveseat. Grayson watching me like he already knows this is the moment the circle widens. Maceo with Samuel's cards in one hand and the corrected clause open on his tablet beside him. Rosalie asleep over my heart.
"We need help," I say.
Wilson's quiet for half a breath. "Tell me where to start."
I look at the marked draft on the coffee table, then at Luca, then at my daughter's small hand curled in my shirt. "Start with Ember House. Then I'll tell you about Victor Hale, Dorian, and the campaign they're trying to build out of my family."
21
Blake
The hallway outside the private conference rooms is too quiet for the number of people in the building. Most of the staff are still down in the main boardroom for the walk-through, and the upper floor's got the strange, polished silence of a place designed to make expensive decisions look clean. Glass walls. Gray carpet. Neutral art. A table of untouched coffee service near the elevators because someone decided hospitality made predatory contract language more palatable.
I'm late by three minutes, which is enough to irritate me and not enough to matter. My monitor's chirped twice since I left the office Maceo borrowed for document review, both times soft enough that I can pretend I didn't hear it. The pressure behind my ribs has been sitting there all morning, dull and contained, the kind of warning my body offers before it becomes less polite. I know what it means. I also know we've already lost too much ground to men who count on being able to outlast people with softer things to protect.
I adjust my jacket, press two fingers briefly beneath my collar where the monitor rests against my skin, and keep walking. My pace is steady because I make it steady. The corrected clause Maceo sent me is open on my phone, and I'm still thinking through the cleanest way to force Victor's counsel to acknowledge the exclusion language on record when I turn the corner and see Luca.
He's standing outside the smaller conference room with his back close to the glass wall.
Dorian's in front of him.
Nothing about the scene would look actionable to anyone who didn't know Luca. Dorian's not touching him. His posture's relaxed, his tablet angled between them, his expression arranged into professional concern. He's left enough space for plausible deniability and not enough for Luca to feel like he can pass without brushing him. That's the first thing I notice. The second is Luca's body.
His shoulders are locked. His hands are curled in the hem of his cream sweater. His chin's tipped down as though he's reading, but his eyes aren't moving across the screen anymore. He's gone still in the specific way he goes still when some old part of his body's decided motion might make things worse. His scent reaches me a second later, tight and sweet and wrong under the office air.
I don't need Dorian to say anything.
I cross the hallway before either of them turns. Dorian notices me first, of course he does, because men like him are always watching for the moment a room changes ownership. Luca doesn't look up until I'm close enough that my shoulder nearly touches his. I step between them without raising my voice, putting my body where Dorian's line of sight used to be, and the movement forces him back half a step unless he wants to make contact in front of a security camera.
"Blake," Dorian says, smooth enough that anyone hearing only his tone would think I'd interrupted a polite conversation. "Good. I was hoping to get your eyes on these before the broader review."
I keep my gaze on Luca for one second longer. His eyes lift to mine, too bright and too far away, and I reach back without looking down. He catches my hand immediately. His fingers are cold. I close mine around them once, firm enough to give him pressure, then turn toward the tablet.
"Give it to me," I say.
Dorian's smile changes by almost nothing. He offers the tablet as if this's been his intention all along, and I take it with my free hand while keeping Luca behind me. The screen shows a mockup deck, clean white margins, soft gold accents, the kind of tasteful restraint that usually means someone paid a branding firm too much money to make theft look like care.
