Page 251 of What We Burn

Milo’s arms tighten around my waist. “I love this,” he says quietly. Into my hair, so only I hear it.

“The breakfast?”

“Everything. All of it. Them. You. The messy kitchen.”

I turn my head and kiss his jaw. “Me too.”

Everyone takes their seat. Milo refuses to let me off his lap, so I eat with my plate on the table and his chin on my shoulder and his arms around my middle, which is logistically challenging but emotionally nonnegotiable.

For a while, nobody talks. Just the sound of forks and chewing and Milo making obscene noises about the bacon. Holden keeps putting food on his plate until he’s eaten enough protein to satisfy Gloria, then lets him have the pancakes and butt-ton of syrup.

The morning light fills the kitchen. The coffee is hot. The food is good. And for a brief, fragile window, it almost feels normal.

By the time I set my fork down, the plates are mostly empty and some of Milo’s color has returned.

“So,” I start. “The fourteen men last night. How confident are we that one of them was Stephen?”

“Tyler was Stephen,” Milo snaps immediately, and I feel his pulse quicken where his body is pressed into my side.

Forks pause midair. Holden and Eli exchange a look. Knox stops chewing.

Holden sets down his coffee. “Knox got the devices to Odin before he came home. The local yard went dark while you were sleeping.”

“Already?”

“Twelve members answered the same invitation and didn’t report in,” Eli says. “Their admin noticed.”

“So Fenrir lost them?”

“He lost access to the local yard,” Holden says. “He still has everything he pulled before they terminated that group. The recovered devices should give him new threads to pull.”

“But the other twenty-four local accounts are gone?”

“For now. But the wider platform is still active, and Fenrir still has access to the public areas.”

“But we can’t see the other accounts?”

“Not anymore. Not until a new yard is established.”

The words come out flat. “Great. Love that for us.”

Milo shifts beneath me. “Fenrir’s good. He’s the best. If there’s a thread, he’ll pull it. He pulled my threads once, and I’m basically a ghost with better hair.”

Nobody laughs.

He deflates a fraction, and I squeeze the forearm banded across my middle.

“And Stephen?” I ask. The name tastes like copper. “If Tyler was Stephen, and Tyler’s dead, then⁠—”

“Tyler’s known Kennel profile wasn’t SMAN69,” Holden says. “You know that.”

“I know.” Milo’s fingers tighten against my waist. “That doesn’t mean he wasn’t running both. At Pinecrest, Tyler touched his phone and Stephen lit up Brock’s cloned one. The timing matched. Then Tyler came back for Sage the one time she was alone with Amy. He knew she was there, had access, motive, and the same fucking pattern.”

“It’s strong evidence,” Holden says. “It isn’t proof that the same man controlled both accounts. SMAN69 could have belonged to one of the twelve members who came last night. Or someone who never came.”

Milo goes rigid beneath me.

“What if Stephen’s still out there?” His breathing turns shallow and fast against my back. “What if I killed fourteen guys and none of them were the guy? What was the point, kitten? What was the point of any of⁠—”