Page 102 of Secret Baby Daddy

“He made himself a liability.”

The phrase hits me harder than anything else.

Not because it’s new.

Because it isn’t.

I hear the rainy alley.

Jonah’s shaking hands.

Roman’s voice twelve years ago.

He’s a liability.

I understand now that Roman wasn’t offering an assessment.

He was delivering a sentence.

“You knew,” I say.

Roman looks almost bored.

“I knew he was going to make a very complicated situation considerably worse.”

“The fire?”

A pause.

Small.

But there.

I let it widen.

“You were in this archive four days before Jonah came to me. Northbridge’s predecessor entities were moving money through Merrick contractors before Mara Reyes died. Jonah found it.”

“You’re assembling unrelated facts into a story because Piper Vale has finally taught you how.”

“No.”

I look at him.

“She taught me that facts without context can be manipulated.”

I gesture toward the cameras he still hasn’t located.

“And you taught me exactly how a man behaves when he’s terrified of the full context.”

Roman’s gaze moves over the room.

Then his hand goes into his coat.

I move before I consciously decide to.

One step.

His wrist in my hand.