Page 43 of What We Burn

“No problem, son. Have fun.”

Milo opens a door at the far end of the dining room, revealing a set of stairs descending into a well-lit basement. He starts down. Doesn’t look back.

The rest of us stand at the top of the stairs for a collective three seconds of silence before everyone tries to talk at once.

“What the fuck was—” Holden starts.

“Were those all—” Micah.

“Three separate—” Knox.

“How many dads do you have?” I ask, because someone has to say it.

“And why are they all wearing turtlenecks?” Eli asks.

Milo pauses halfway down the stairs and looks back up at us, genuinely confused. “What do you mean?”

“Milo. There are three different men in this house and you called all of them Dad.”

“Yeah. Those are my dads.”

He says it the way you’d say those are my shoes or that’s my car. Zero emphasis. Zero awareness that this requires further explanation.

“You have three fathers?” Holden repeats.

“Four, technically. I think Rodrigo’s at work.”

I watch this information land on each of them in sequence. Holden processes it first—I can see the detective brain filing it, cross-referencing it, slotting it into the mental profile he keeps on all of us. Micah’s face goes soft and knowing. Knox doesn’t react at all. And Eli laughs. It’s short and startled and sounds like it surprises him as much as it surprises me.

“That . . . actually explains a lot,” Micah says.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Milo asks.

“It means you were suspiciously cool about this whole arrangement from day one. Most guys would’ve had at least one existential crisis about sharing.”

Milo shrugs. “I was raised around men who understood their job was to show up for their woman. Cook, clean, be present. That’s what they do. That’s what I do.” He gestures vaguely at all of us. “You guys act like this is complicated. I’ve been training for this my whole life.”

He turns and continues down the stairs like that’s settled. And I suppose it is. But I don’t have time to think about it because we stop in front of a door with several locks on the outside.

Nine deadbolts and a biometric pad guard the server room. Milo unlocks each bolt in a rapid-fire sequence, then presses his thumb to the pad. The lock emits a joyful beep, and he flings the door wide with a little flourish, like a game show host revealing a prize.

Inside, it’s a refrigerated closet—icy, humming, lined wall-to-wall with rack servers and backup batteries and tangles of colored cable so dense it looks like the place was colonized by cybernetic snakes. In the center, on a rolling steel cart, sits a small, battered laptop with a cracked sticker that reads, MILO’S BRAIN.

THIRTEEN

SAGE

“Welcome to the nerve center,” Milo says, and I can hear the pride in his voice, like this is the one place in the world he feels unambiguously at home.

We step inside, one by one. The cold hits me instantly. Holden grunts and crosses his arms, gooseflesh rising on his forearms before he shoves his hands into his armpits.

“You built this?” Holden walks the perimeter, scoping it out.

“Piece by piece over the past six years. The racks are enterprise-grade. Encryption is multilayered—each server runs its own isolated environment. Nothing talks to the house’s network. There’s a separate power supply, separate internet line, the works.” Milo drops into his chair and it spins once before he catches himself on the desk. “The only reason I’m worried about a breach is because whoever’s texting Sage has skills. And skill means I have to verify rather than assume.”

He starts typing. Fast. His whole energy shifts down here—the jittery, joke-a-minute Milo is replaced by a sharper, more focused version.

Knox stands by the server racks, arms folded, staring at them like they might attack. Micah settles into a chair near the workstation and watches Milo’s screens. Eli leans against the wall, the split cheekbone darkening, posture careful. Holden opens a panel on one of the racks and inspects the cabling inside.