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“Now I feel it every time you walk into this room.” I press my palm flat against his chest, feeling his heartbeat steady beneath it, matching the same slow rhythm mine has finally settled into after weeks of racing. “I didn’t expect that. Not from you. Not from any of this.”

“Neither did I.” He covers my hand with his own, holding it there against his chest like he wants me to keep feeling exactly that for as long as I need to. “But I’m not questioning it anymore. Not after everything it took to get here.”

I close my eyes, letting myself sink fully into the quiet of the room, his hand warm over mine, his forehead still resting lightly against my temple.

Outside this room, I know there’s still recovery ahead of me, physical therapy for the parts of my body that haven’t fully healed yet, harder conversations still waiting about everything that happened in that warehouse. None of that touches this moment.

“Stay a little longer,” I murmur, already feeling sleep starting to pull at the edges of my thoughts.

“I’m not going anywhere.” He shifts slightly, careful not to jostle me, settling more comfortably into the chair beside my bed. “Sleep. I’ll be right here.”

I do sleep, faster and easier than I have in weeks, his presence beside me doing more for the ache in my chest than any medication the doctor’s prescribed.

When I wake hours later, just enough to register the room around me, he’s still there, exactly where he promised he’d be, his hand still loosely holding mine even in whatever quiet rest he’s finally allowed himself tonight.

I fall back asleep smiling, something I haven’t done in longer than I can easily remember, and for the first time since that warehouse, the quiet in this room feels like healing instead of just survival. I don’t know exactly when that shift happened, somewhere between the fear that used to live in every silence and the peace that’s settled into this one instead, but I recognize it clearly now that it’s here.

The morning light comes in softly through the curtains eventually, and I wake fully to find him still there, a crick in his neck from the chair he refused to leave, exhaustion written into every line of his face that he’d never admit to out loud.

I watch him for a moment before he wakes, memorizing the quiet. His stillness. The rhythm of his breathing. The simple, unremarkable fact of him being here, morning after morning, exactly where he said he would be.

He stirs eventually, blinking awake, and the first thing his eyes find is my face already watching him. “Morning,” he says, voice rough with sleep, a small smile already forming before he’s even fully awake.

“Morning.” I reach for his hand again, already missing the warmth of it even though it never actually left mine at all overnight. “Thank you for staying.”

“Always.” He presses a soft kiss to my knuckles, echoing the gentleness from the night before. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be, not this morning, not any morning after this one either.”

42

HARPER

Apparently, my own family drama now qualifies as a security matter, because I found out Caleb’s coming to visit from Yuri instead of from Artem, which feels like a special kind of insult I didn’t know I was signing up for.

I’m halfway through a piece of toast when he drops it into the conversation like it’s just another line item on his daily briefing.

“I called him last week,” Yuri says, like this is a perfectly normal thing to mention over breakfast. “Told him you were caught up in something with rival business associates of Artem’s. That you’re safe now; he wants to visit.”

“You called my brother.” I set the toast down, appetite suddenly competing with irritation for control of my morning. “Without asking me first.”

“Someone had to explain the gap in contact. Better it came from me than from you trying to find the right words for any of this.” He shrugs, entirely unbothered by the fact that he’s just informed me my own family reunion was arranged like a supply run. “He’s coming Thursday. His wife too.”

I stare at him for a long moment, torn between being annoyed and being weirdly grateful I don’t have to be the one who explains any of it. “Did you at least tell him something believable?”

“I told him enough to be believable without being anything close to true.” Yuri pours himself more coffee, entirely unfazed. “He didn’t push for details. Caleb rarely does, from what I understand.”

That lands with more accuracy than I’d like. I don’t say anything else, just let it sit there, because Yuri’s not wrong, and being not wrong is somehow worse than if he’d been cruel about it.

By the time Thursday actually arrives, I’ve talked myself through every possible way this visit could go, and none of those ways land anywhere close to hopeful.

I know my brother. I’ve known him my whole life, watched him love me in the specific, distracted way he loves everyone, generous with his time right up until something more interesting scrolls past.

They pull up a little after two, and I watch from the window as Caleb gets out of the car first, glancing up at the house with an expression I can’t quite read from this distance, something between awe and discomfort at the sheer size of the place.

His wife takes longer, smoothing her dress, checking her reflection in the side mirror before finally following him toward the door, her heels clicking hesitantly against the gravel like she isn’t fully committed to the walk yet.

I meet them in the sitting room, and the hug Caleb gives me is real enough, arms tight around me for a beat longer than I expect, and for one second, I let myself believe this might actually go somewhere honest today, that maybe this time the visit will be about me instead of about him managing his own guilt.

Then he pulls back, and I watch him do the math on how to fill the silence, the same calculation I’ve watched him run a hundred times before whenever a conversation threatens to get too real too fast.