Ruth had stopped trying to say anything. Daniel had completely forgotten about his drink. Even the people who had followed outside without a clear reason were now fully invested in whatever was unfolding in front of them."That's actually Liam Torres," someone said from the back of the group. Not a question. A confirmation, the voice of someone who had just finished being certain.The murmur that moved through the crowd was immediate."Torres? The Liam Torres?""Senior government. Yes. That one.""What is he doing here?""More importantly, what is he doing talking to Logan Mitchell?"Ruth turned her head slowly toward the person beside her. "You know him?""Everyone in certain circles knows Liam Torres." The man kept his voice low. "He doesn't attend things like this. He doesn't show up at reunion events for people he doesn't know." He paused. "So why is he here and why is he standing like that?""Like what?"The man nodded toward the two figures. "Look at his posture. Look at how he'

Logan chuckled, low and easy."That's a secret," he said. "Nobody needs to know that yet. At least not for now."Alvin looked at him for a moment, then let out a short breath that was almost a laugh. "Of course it is." He shook his head slowly and turned back toward the window. "Of course."They rode in comfortable silence for a stretch, the city moving past outside, the lights of the road casting intermittent brightness through the glass. Alvin watched it without really seeing it, something working behind his eyes that hadn't fully surfaced yet.Then he exhaled slowly and shifted in his seat."Logan." His voice had changed. The lightness from earlier was still there at the edges but something quieter had moved underneath it. "I need to say something and I need you to actually let me say it this time without deflecting."Logan glanced at him briefly. "Go ahead."Alvin looked down at his hands for a moment, gathering it. "I wasn't in a good place when I walked into that venue tonight.

Alvin didn't respond right away.Logan hadn't expected him to. He kept his eyes on the road and his hand steady on the wheel and gave the silence whatever room it needed.Then he heard it. Soft at first, the kind of sound a person made when they had been holding something for so long that the release came quietly and without warning. Alvin's shoulders dropped. His head bowed slightly. And then he was crying, not dramatically, not with any performance in it, just the honest, unguarded weeping of someone whose defenses had finally run out of the energy required to stay up.He nodded as he cried, as if confirming something to himself that he had been refusing to confirm for a long time.Logan said nothing. He didn't reach over or offer words or do any of the things people reflexively did when someone cried beside them. He simply drove, steady and unhurried, and let Alvin have the moment completely.It went on for a little while. The city moved past outside, indifferent and ongoing, and i

Logan set his phone on the passenger seat and turned the engine over. The road ahead was quiet, the kind of quiet that only came late at night when the city had stopped performing and was just existing.He pulled out and drove.His mind had already moved on from the call with Scott, from Torres, from Alex Smith, from the reunion and everything it had contained. All of that was filed and settled, each piece in its place, nothing requiring his attention until morning.Right now there was only one thing on his mind.He and Ava had made a deal before they got into separate cars outside the hotel. She had leaned close to him in the cool night air with her lips near his ear and made herself very clear about what she expected when they got home. He had not forgotten a single word of it.He pressed the accelerator.The drive home was smooth and unhurried in the way that late night roads allowed, traffic thin, lights mostly green, the city scrolling past his windows in quiet amber and white. H

Ava was completely spent and drifting off while Logan was still very much awake and aroused. His phone rang. It was Scott. Logan stepped away and asked immediately if Scott had already gathered the information on the Bright family.He reached for it quickly, moving away from the bed so the sound wouldn't pull Ava back from wherever she was already drifting toward. He checked the screen as he stepped into the hallway and pulled the door almost closed behind him.Scott.He answered immediately, keeping his voice low. “Scott.”“It’s me.” The flat, even quality was back, the brief warmth from their earlier call tucked away again. Scott operated in two registers these days, business and silence, and right now it was business. “You asked me to call when I had something.”Logan straightened slightly, his focus sharpening. “I said give it a few days.”“I know what you said.”“It’s been three hours.”“I work fast when something interests me.” A short pause. “Do you want what I have or do you w