THE MAFIA BOSS LEFT HIS OWN SUMMIT FOR HIS EX—THEN THE NURSE ASKED, “WHO’S THE FATHER?”

Marco recovered fast. That was one of the reasons Adrien had trusted him for sixteen years.

He closed the hospital door softly behind him and looked at the monitor, the bassinet, Elena's exhausted face. Only then did he seem to remember that this was a maternity room and not a warehouse with a body on the floor.

"I called you nine times," Marco said.

Adrien's voice stayed flat. "You found me."

"The summit broke apart. Rinaldi walked. D'Amico says the eastern crews won't wait until morning."

"Then they can learn patience."

Marco stared at him. "Adrien."

It was the old warning. The one he used when Adrien was about to make a choice that could not be taken back.

Elena shifted the baby against her chest.

Marco's attention moved before he could stop it.

Not curiosity.

Recognition.

Adrien saw it.

Elena saw Adrien see it.

"You knew," Adrien said.

Marco's jaw tightened.

"Knew what?"

"Don't insult me tonight."

Dr. Patel returned before Marco could answer. She took one look at the three adults and the atmosphere between them and focused entirely on her patient.

"Mom and baby are doing well. But she needs rest. One visitor at a time from here on."

"He's leaving," Elena said.

Adrien expected her to mean Marco.

She meant him.

He looked at her.

"Elena."

"Please."

The word stopped him in a way a command never could.

He moved closer to the bed, lowering his voice. "You just got threatened."

"And you brought a man from your world into my room."

"Marco is—"

"Exactly."

That single word carried eight months in it.

Adrien stepped back.

It cost him more than he wanted anyone to know.

"I'm putting two men outside the floor."

"No."

"I'm not asking."

"Then nothing has changed."

He went still.

Elena looked at him with the baby between them.

"You still think protection means making every decision for everyone else."

Marco looked away.

Adrien could have argued. He had facts. Threats. Enemies. An unknown number. A summit that had detonated the minute he walked out.

But he also had a memory of Elena standing in his kitchen nine months earlier, saying, I can't live in a house where every locked door belongs to somebody else.

At the time, he had called it fear.

Now he wondered if she had been describing him.

"One man," he said. "Plain clothes. Downstairs lobby. You won't see him unless you need him."

Elena's eyes narrowed.

"And you leave."

"For now."

She hated the qualification but was too tired to fight it.

Adrien turned to Marco. "Hallway."

Marco followed him out.

The door clicked shut.

For several seconds neither man spoke.

A janitor pushed a yellow cart past them. Somewhere farther down the corridor, a vending machine dropped a bottle with a hollow thud.

Adrien leaned one shoulder against the wall and held out his hand.

"Your phone."

Marco did not move.

"Why?"

"Because I'm about to ask you a question and I don't want you warning anyone before you answer it."

Something flickered in Marco's face.

Adrien felt that cold place inside him deepen.

"Phone."

Marco handed it over.

Adrien powered it off and slipped it into his own pocket.

"Did you know Elena was pregnant?"

Marco rubbed a thumb over the side of his index finger, a nervous habit he had had since they were teenagers.

"I suspected."

"When?"

"Eight months ago."

Adrien waited.

Marco exhaled. "The night she left."

The corridor seemed to sharpen around the edges.

"You saw her?"

"Yes."

"You talked to her?"

"Yes."

Adrien straightened.

"And you let me spend eight months believing she walked out without a word."

Marco looked him in the eye. "She asked me to."

That hurt in a place Adrien had not prepared to defend.

"Why?"

"Because she was scared."

"Of me?"

Marco hesitated.

It was answer enough to make Adrien's stomach turn.

"Not exactly," Marco said.

"There is no 'not exactly' tonight."

Marco lowered his voice. "She came to me because someone had approached her outside St. Catherine's clinic. A man she didn't know. He told her he knew she was pregnant before she had told you. He told her the child would become leverage the second you knew about it."

Adrien's hands curled.

"What man?"

"She never got a name."

"And you didn't find him?"

"I tried."

"You fail often without telling me?"

Marco's temper finally flashed. "I was trying to keep her alive."

The words bounced off the pale hospital walls.

A nurse at the station glanced over.

Marco lowered his voice again.

"She said if you knew about the baby, you'd lock her in one of your houses, put six men around her, and start a war to find out who had spoken to her."

Adrien said nothing.

Because it was true.

Marco saw that land.

"She wanted time. I gave her cash. A car. A contact in Pittsburgh who owed me a favor. She promised she'd call when she was settled."

"And did she?"

"Once. Then she disappeared from me too."

Adrien looked toward the closed hospital door.

"The messages started before she left?"

"I don't know."

"You knew enough to help her run."

Marco's face tightened. "I knew enough to know that somebody inside our circle had information they should not have had."

Adrien looked back at him.

"Inside."

Marco nodded.

That should have been the important word.

Instead Adrien heard Elena again.

Nothing has changed.

He had spent his adult life building a system in which the people closest to him hid danger from him because they feared what he would do with the truth.

His phone vibrated.

Not Marco's. His own.

A message from his mother.

COME HOME BEFORE YOU DESTROY WHAT YOUR FATHER BUILT.

Adrien read it twice.

Then he looked through the narrow window in Elena's door.

She was awake, watching the baby sleep.

He typed back with one thumb.

I'M STAYING AT THE HOSPITAL.

Three dots appeared almost immediately.

Then disappeared.

Then appeared again.