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Fear sits there, yes. Clear, bright, pure.

There is something else layered under it I cannot name yet.

Rio straightens and scrubs a hand over his face. His fingers sink into his hair, then drop. He pulls his cell out of his pocket again, thumb swiping at the screen as if he can force it to bend to his will.

“I’ll text her,” he mutters. “Let her have tonight. She needs it. She needs to cool off.”

His eyes flick to me. For the first time today, his rage looks thinner, stretched over something softer. Worry. Hurt.

“We’ll give her this one day,” he says. “She goes home, locks her door, screams into her pillow, hates us. Fine. Tomorrow we’ll bring her back. We need her for Alessio’s discharge.”

I exhale through my nose. He’s not wrong. I hear the logic in his words.

“She didn’t pick up when you called earlier.” I remind him.

“She was probably still drugged,” Rio counters. “Or freaked out. Or both. She knows our number. She knows where we are. Once that panic settles, she’ll reach out. You know she will.”

He taps on the screen, typing fast. I watch the muscles in his forearm tense with every word.

Let her have this one day.

He latches onto the plan like a lifeline. A way to keep from tearing Morales’ office apart.

“We’ll give her a night,” he says again, firmer now. “We’ve tolerated worse. She earned the leeway.”

I hear something underneath. Pleading, almost. With himself, not me.

He presses Send. The message flies out into the digital void toward a cell Lana might not even have with her.

“I don’t like this,” I mutter.

“No one asked you to like it.”

“I mean I don’t trust this.” I gesture toward the frozen image of Lana in motion. “Morales’ story matches the footage too perfectly. Too neat. She gave us a script, and the cameras confirmed their part.”

“That’s what cameras do,” Rio snaps. “They show what happened.”

“They show what they see,” I correct. “Not the pieces outside their frame.”

“Fuck your riddles, Brox.”

“Something is wrong,” I state. The ache behind my eyes deepens, spreading down into my neck. “I’m not sure this woman on the screen is Lana.”

“She needs time,” Rio repeats, more quietly now. “If we go after her while she’s still seeing fog and needles, we’ll make it worse. Let her get home. Let her sleep. Let that shit wear off.”

“She may not have gone home,” I point out.

“Where else would she go?” His tone holds exasperation now. “She has her flat. Her things. Her routine. A proper life outside of the Boarpit.”

I don’t answer.

“You wanted her to keep her outside life, remember? So let her stay in it for one night.”

I stare at the screen.

My mind runs timelines. Routes through the city. The number of minutes between our back alley and Lana’s building. The time it would take her to call a cab, or walk, or flag a ride. The number of eyes who might have seen her in that state: disheveled, frightened, moving fast through the streets.

So many variables.