The house became a prison no one admitted was locked.

Leander's guards searched rooms, cars, phones, and employees. Celeste moved through them with a tablet and a smile that made grown men confess to minor crimes.

Adrian remained in the east guest suite under "protection."

I remained in Leander's bedroom by choice.

That distinction mattered enough to keep me awake.

At three in the morning, Leander sat on the bathroom counter while I changed his bandage. The wound had reopened during the attack.

"You should see a doctor," I said.

"One is coming."

"A real doctor."

"She has a medical degree."

"From a country that still exists?"

"Mostly."

He watched my hands.

"Stop doing that."

"Doing what?"

"Looking at me like I'm about to disappear."

His gaze rose to my face. "Are you?"

I tied the gauze. "Not tonight."

The answer loosened something in his shoulders.

I hated that I noticed.

He reached for my wrist, then stopped before touching. "May I?"

No one asked Nocturne permission.

I turned my hand over.

His fingers closed around mine.

"New terms," he said. "No surveillance. No secrets that place you in danger. No using the contract to keep you here."

"Payments continue."

"Naturally."

"Excellent. I choose emotional authenticity and direct deposit."

His laugh broke against my shoulder.

I let him stay there.

In the morning, Luca arrived in a green suit embroidered with black lotus flowers. He carried a laptop, two pistols, and a bakery box.

"I came to rescue you," he announced.

I opened the box. "Croissants?"

"Rescue requires carbohydrates."

Leander entered with Celeste.

Luca looked him up and down. "So this is the man who stole my best operative."

Leander glanced at the suit. "You must be Luca."

"He talks about me?"

"Mostly the flamethrower."

"Good. I paid too much for it."

Celeste took a croissant. "I'm beginning to see the appeal."

We moved to the library.

Luca connected his laptop to a screen and opened the manifests from Kane's estate.

"Acheron uses legitimate shelters as collection points," he said. "Runaways go in. New identities come out. Some become couriers. The useful ones become weapons."

Leander stood behind my chair.

His hand rested on the wood, not on me.

"Current locations?" I asked.

"Three possibilities. One in Indiana, one beneath a Cross warehouse near the river, one unknown."

Celeste swore.

"The river warehouse belongs to Adrian's division," she said.

"Then we start there."

Leander shook his head. "We start by confirming which guards answer to him."

"Children may be inside."

"Which is why we don't storm it blind."

I stood. "You don't get to order me."

"I'm not."

"It sounds familiar."

He stepped back from the chair.

"You are free to go," he said. "You are also free to walk into a trap. I'm asking for six hours to build a route that brings you back."

Luca studied him.

The jokes left his face.

"Can he go?" he asked.

Leander looked at me. "Yes."

No threat. No performance.

I reached beneath the table and caught his fingers.

"Six hours."

The answer surprised all four of us.

We planned until evening.

At eight, Celeste intercepted a message from Adrian's phone. Three words.

Move the assets.

"He knows," she said.

The house alarms began.

Smoke rolled from the east corridor.

Adrian's suite stood empty.

His guard lay unconscious beside an open service door.

On the wall, written in soot, waited a single sentence.

BRING NOCTURNE HOME.

Leander read it over my shoulder.

"You are home," he said.

I looked at the black letters.

"They disagree."

We found Adrian's burned phone beneath the service stairs.

Luca rebuilt half the message history before breakfast. Most of it concerned freight schedules, political donations, and a woman named Denise who charged too much for orchids.

One thread had no name.

A: He recognized the candy.

UNKNOWN: Then memory remains viable.

A: Cross is attached.

UNKNOWN: Attachment is the leash.

The final message arrived three minutes before the fire.

UNKNOWN: Bring both if possible. Break one if necessary.

Leander read the screen without blinking.

I took the phone from Luca and scrolled backward. The earliest exchange dated four years before Prague.

Four years.

Before Leander found me. Before the contract. Before either of us knew Acheron had survived.

"They were watching you first," I said.

"My father stole from them before he died."

Celeste leaned against the desk. "He stole from everyone."

"What did he take?"

Leander crossed to the window. Dawn cut his reflection into pale pieces.

"A list of buyers."

"Where is it?"

"If I knew, Adrian would not have spent four years searching my house."

Mrs. Alvarez entered with coffee.

Every eye turned toward her.

She stopped. "Why are you looking at me?"

Leander's gaze fell to the silver cross at her throat.

His father had given it to her after Leander's mother died.

Mrs. Alvarez covered the pendant with one hand.

"Your mother gave me this," she said.

"May I see it?"

She studied him, then removed the chain.

The cross opened beneath pressure from the peppermint Leander carried in his pocket. Inside rested a wafer-thin memory card.

Luca made a reverent sound.

"Your family," I said, "has exhausting jewelry."

The card held forty-three names.

Judges. Executives. Two ambassadors. One dead senator.

At the bottom waited a location and a date.

TRANSFER: TWELVE ASSETS. CROSS TERMINAL 9.

Tomorrow.

Leander looked at me across the screen.

The six hours I had given him disappeared.

"We go tonight," he said.

For once, I did not argue.

Cross Terminal Nine had been closed for eighteen years.

Before the fire, we spent the afternoon studying plans.

The public structure held warehouses and loading docks. The private plans showed nothing beneath the lake wall. Luca found electrical consumption for four underground levels.

"Someone is paying to cool a server farm," he said.

"Or preserve bodies," Celeste replied.

Eli's face remained frozen on the library screen.

I enlarged the image.

The bruise around his eye was real. The gun at his temple was real. His posture was not.

His right shoulder sat lower. Three fingers curled against his thigh.

"He's signaling," I said.

Luca leaned closer. "Meridian?"

"Yes."

I tapped the fingers on the desk.

Three. One. Two.

"Third floor. One guard. Two exits."

Leander studied the old plans. "The monastery has only two floors."

"Aboveground."

Luca rotated the blueprint.

The foundation plan revealed a buried crypt.

"Third level," he said.

Celeste marked access routes. "We breach here and here. Cross team on the chapel. Luca cuts power. Rowan enters through the north wall."

"No," I said.

Three faces turned toward me.

"They know my habits. The north wall is where I would enter."

Leander pointed to the bell tower. "Then there."

"Exposed approach."

"Not from above."

He pulled up a weather report.

A storm would cross the monastery at midnight. Wind from the west. Low visibility.

"Helicopter?" Luca asked.

"Too loud."

Leander looked at me.

"Paraglider."

Celeste stared. "He is not jumping into a thunderstorm."

I smiled.

"I like him."

The plan required four hours and several crimes against aviation regulations.

During the final equipment check, Leander found me alone in the garage.

He held out a black climbing harness.

"You changed the buckles."

"The originals catch under load."

"You know climbing equipment?"

"I know procurement."

"That is the least romantic answer available."

His hands settled around the straps at my waist. He pulled each one tight, then tested the release.

"Too close?" he asked.

"For the harness?"

"For me."

I looked at his lowered head.

"Not yet."

His fingers paused.

"After tonight, the contract changes."

"You keep saying that."

"After tonight, no payment for your time. No appearances. Nothing that can make staying feel purchased."

"I may miss the money."

"I'll hire your security company at an obscene rate."

"I don't have a security company."

"You will."

"You've planned my next career?"

"I prepared paperwork. You may burn it."

I caught his chin and made him look at me.

"You cannot build a life around me before asking whether I want it."

"I know."

"Stop saying that."

"Then answer."

The garage lights flickered as the storm reached the city.

"Ask after," I said.

"After?"

"After we bring the boy home."

His hand rose to the back of my neck.

He waited.

I kissed him once.

Not camouflage. Not anger. A promise neither of us trusted enough to speak.

Then I stepped into the storm.