Page 246 of Triplet Babies for my Ex's Best Friend

“No. We don’t.”

“We need logs. Original backups. Access records. Engineering communication. Anything tied to legacy admin keys.”

The belief should be relief.

For now it’s the start of another crash, one that has been falling toward us for years.

This time, I intend to find the black box before anyone else dies in the wreckage.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Addy

By the timeEthan comes home, I've already had three separate emotional breakdowns and one argument with a saucepan.

The saucepan won.

So the sound of the elevator makes me jump.

The door opens, and Ethan steps inside.

He looks exhausted.

Beautiful, because apparently life is cruel, but exhausted. His suit jacket's open, his tie loosened, and his eyes go straight to me like the rest of the room is irrelevant.

For one second, my heart lifts.

Then his phone buzzes. He glances down. His jaw tightens at whatever he reads, and then his expression closes.

The familiar distance settles over his expression almost immediately.

“Everything okay?” I ask.

He looks up. “Yes.”

Lie.

Not a full lie, maybe. An Ethan lie. The kind where technically nobody is bleeding in front of him, so he classifies it as manageable.

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

Luci makes a choking sound.

Ethan’s gaze flicks to her.

She smiles brightly. “Pasta?”

“No, thank you.”

“Shame.”

I push myself off the stool. “Oliver’s asleep.”

“Good.”

“Captain stole Luci’s boot again.”