"Stay there." He's already pulling a fresh pot from the cabinet. "I will finish."
I don't argue. I sit on the floor and watch Cole move through my kitchen—filling the pot, salting the water, finding the pasta in the cabinet where I left it. He doesn't rush. Doesn't fumble.
When the pasta is done, he drains it, adds the sauce, and plates two servings. Then he offers me his hand.
I take it. He pulls me up and doesn't stop—pulls me against his chest, arms locked around me.
I press my ear to his heartbeat. Steady. Slow. Mine tries to match it.
We stand there until the shaking stops.
We eat at the table. The pasta tastes like nothing. I eat it anyway.
After dinner, I curl up on the couch with the novel I've been reading for three weeks—same chapter, never making progress. Cole settles into the armchair across from me, phone in hand. The clock ticks past nine. Past ten. Past eleven.
I've read the same paragraph four times when his phone buzzes.
Cole reads the screen. His face goes still.
"What?"
He looks up.
"She left the hotel."
twenty-nine
Cole
Kade: Briefing in 20. Comms only.
The phone glows on the nightstand. I ease it toward me without shifting my weight—Angelina is finally asleep, her hand curled against my chest, fingers loose. Three hours of restless turning before exhaustion won.
I set the phone back. Watch her face in the gray morning light. The furrow between her brows that never fully smooths, even in sleep.
Somewhere in this city, Victoria Lockwood is waking up too. Or maybe she never slept.
No way to know until she moves.
Angelina stirs. Her eyes open slowly, finding mine in the dim room.
"Anything?"
"Not yet."
She nods once. Then she is untangling herself from the sheets, feet finding the floor, reaching for the robe on the chair without looking.
The bathroom door clicks shut. Water runs.
I sit up. Check the perimeter feeds on my phone—nothing on the street cameras, nothing at the property line. A jogger passes at the edge of the frame, earbuds in, oblivious.
The shower cuts off.
I pull on yesterday's jeans and head downstairs. Morning light slants through the kitchen window, catching dust motes in the air. I fill the reservoir on her coffee machine, measure the grounds the way she likes them, press the button. The machine gurgles to life, and the smell of dark roast fills the kitchen—the expensive beans she orders from a roaster in Oakland.
The comms device sits on the counter where I left it. I fit it into my ear, run the diagnostic. Green across the board.
"Channel check."