15. Miles
Chapter fifteen
Miles
M y knee kept knocking the underside of Matthew's table. The only other sounds: a vent's low whirr and Charlie breathing against my knee. The air smelled like warm yeast and rosemary crushed under a knife.
Matthew worked his dough with both hands, his shoulders set, and his jaw tight.
He wasn't kneading anymore so much as arguing with it—fold, press, quarter turn, repeat—leaving clean crescents from his knuckles pressed in the surface.
Olive oil pooled in a shallow bowl beside him, a sprig of rosemary already bruised and waiting.
Dorian sat in a corner with his bank of computer monitors, a watchman in a blue glow. Every twelve minutes, he tapped a key, and the feeds cycled: curb views, alley angles, and the slow river of cars on the cross street.
Charlie nosed my calf and parked his chin on my foot, a heavy, deliberate weight. I ran my fingers along the groove between his ears and tried to match his quiet breathing. It held for three breaths, maybe four. Then my leg started up again.
"We don't have to watch the clock," Matthew said. Flour dusted his forearms. "The time will pass without our help."
Rowan and I agreed to a seventy-two-hour cooldown at the family's planning session: no new contacts, and no improvisation.
Rowan had nodded, jaw tight, mouth a straight line that meant he hated it but would try anyway.
He gave me a heads-up, but I couldn't stop him from leaving this morning, and the look he gave said he'd found a loophole his ethics could live with.
My phone buzzed on the table.
"Miles."
Road noise bled through—wipers and wet tires. Rowan's voice was edgy.
"She's in custody."
My fingers tightened around the phone. "Patricia?"
"Three agents. Bad suits, better timing." He drew a low, slow breath. "Walked in like they owned the place."
"Were you—"
"They warned me." The words were flat, efficient. "Generic threat and told to stay available. I'm twenty-five minutes from the warehouse."
Dorian's chair creaked once as he shifted to try to listen without making it obvious.
"Rowan." I kept my voice low, for me more than him. "Did they follow you?"
"I don't think so. They were there for her. Not me."
FBI on Patricia made sense. She was the one running an internal case under a public job title; if anyone in that building tripped a sensor, it would be her.
"Even if they were on her," I said, "you were a person of interest by default if they scraped her meeting records. Today only compounded that."
"I know." It was a ragged admission. "She handed me a drive before they put their hands on her. And—"
He stopped.
"And?"
"She smiled when they led her out," he said. "Not at me. Past me. Like she'd finally arrived at a destination only she could see."
My mouth went dry. "What's on the drive?"
"Three years of everything. Financials, compliance reports, and patient files. Notes in her own hand." He spit out the next point in a lower tone. "David isn't her nephew. He's her son."
"Fuck. I didn't see that coming. And Rook? Any more about him?" I asked.
"She's been in love with him for two years," Rowan said. "Protecting him while building a case against the same people who destroyed her kid."
He'd delivered the key points of the meeting, and I focused on him.
"Are you safe?" The question scraped my throat raw. If they'd arrested Patricia for helping us, what stopped them from deciding Rowan was worth eliminating?
"I'm coming to you." His voice softened on those four words, and I heard what he couldn't say: that coming to me meant more than tactical regrouping.
"Please tell them before I get there. I can't walk into that room and watch them decide I'm too dangerous to keep around."
That's what this was really about—not only Patricia's arrest, but the growing certainty that everyone who helped him became a target, including me.
"Okay. Drive safe."
"Always," he said. The connection ended.
I looked down and realized I was gripping a tuft of Charlie's fur. He shifted, leaned heavier, and made an approving grunt as if I'd finally done something right.
"Rowan?" Matthew asked without looking away from the dough.
"Twenty-five minutes," I said. "Patricia is in custody. Picked her up in the diner. He thinks they were there for her, not him, but anyone with access to her records could tag him—us. He has a drive."
Dorian scanned his feeds. "We'll assume her systems were compromised."
Matthew exhaled, gathered the dough, and flipped it into a new shape. Flour dust floated and settled on the cutting board in a pale drift. He wiped his palms on a towel he'd already ruined and shook his head once, hard.
"Tell me the part that made you go quiet," he said.
"David is her son. Rook is… not just an asset."
Dorian typed something I couldn't see, and something else in the room hummed to life, a fan maybe, barely audible.
"They'll want that evidence back," Dorian said. "If the drive holds anything real, it's a liability on top of being a lifeline."
"I know." I scratched between Charlie's ears. "He asked me to tell you before he walks in. He doesn't want to watch it land."
Charlie got up, stretched, and thumped his tail against my shin twice. I stood, the chair feet scraping against the floor.
When a knock came minutes later, and the lock clicked open, I knew Dorian had called the troops in. Marcus didn't wait for an invitation—he moved through the doorway with a legal pad in his hand.
"What happened?" No hello.
I didn't hold back. "Patricia's in custody. Picked up at the diner. Rowan's twenty minutes out."
Dorian gave Marcus a quick version in fewer words than I'd used, tapping his screen like punctuation.
"Inside source eliminated," Marcus summarized, voice legal-brief crisp. "Chain of evidence now compromised. And Rowan—" he stopped, looking at me— "was alone?"
"Yes," I admitted. "He broke the cooldown."
Marcus scribbled something on his pad. "So we're exposed on two fronts: compromised federal attention and family noncompliance."
"Noncompliance?" Matthew snapped. "He's not an employee. He's—"
"He's in danger," Marcus sharpened his tone. "And dragging Miles there, too."
The door lock disengaged again before I could answer. Rowan stepped through, shoulders hunched, rain plastering hair across his forehead.
Marcus turned on him instantly. "Sit down. Debrief."
Rowan blinked at the command but obeyed, shedding his coat on the back of a chair. His hands were empty except for the drive he set on the table—black plastic, no label.
"They walked in without warning," he said. His voice dropped an octave. "Patricia wasn't surprised. She gave me this, then smiled when they led her out."
"Smiled?" Dorian asked.
"I think it was relief," Rowan said. "I think she'd been carrying the weight too long."
Marcus grunted. "You went rogue and decided to meet her, knowing damn well what it could cost."
Rowan met his stare without blinking. "Yes. Sometimes agreements are luxuries. If I'd waited three days, we'd have nothing."
"And now you've painted a target across your back." Marcus's pen tapped once.
Rowan didn't flinch. He slid the drive closer. "Her son. Not her nephew. And Rook is more than a fugitive. She was protecting her lover."
Matthew finally spoke, his voice cracked with emotion. "She was trying to fight from inside."
"She was trying to love two people in opposite directions," Rowan corrected. "Her son and the man the government wants erased. Neither position is survivable."
Quiet fell over the room. "This proves it's too dangerous," Marcus said finally. "We should end this before federal heat or the adversaries land here."
"And abandon her work?" I asked. "Abandon the people still trapped?"
"It's not abandoning," Marcus said. "It's recognizing operational futility."
Charlie shifted, flicking his ears. Rain tapped against the windows like drumming fingers.
Dorian's voice was calm. "We don't know what's on the drive. Until we do, arguments are premature."
"Fine," Marcus said, making another note. "But I want Michael's eyes on this before anything moves forward."
Rowan leaned back in his chair, rain still clinging to him. I knew we were only in the first round of a tribunal that would keep dragging us back into the witness box until we broke or proved ourselves indispensable.
After one more cycling of the lock, Michael opened the door. Alex followed, rain on his jacket shoulders, one hand steady on the leash of a golden-brown shepherd mix who held back at his heels.
Luna's nose was up, her tail twitching low. Charlie rose immediately, padding over with careful interest, tail wagging in a slow, diplomatic arc. The dogs circled once, sniffing the air. Luna then retreated half a step toward Alex's leg.
"She's still shy," Alex said, crouching to reassure her. "But she's over her carsickness."
Michael's gaze swept over the room, registering positions: Rowan at the table, Marcus with his pen, and Dorian wearing nitrile gloves beside the flash drive. Michael locked his focus on Rowan. "Tell me you didn't go alone."
"I went alone."
Michael's nostrils flared. "We agreed—seventy-two hours. No field meetings. No exceptions."
"She would've been gone if I'd waited," Rowan said. "The drive exists because I went. I'll hand Dorian my burner rotations and contact protocols—audit anything you want."
"You gambled with exposure. You gambled with Miles." Michael growled under his words. "That's not fieldcraft, it's arrogance."
"Enough," I snapped. "He made a call. If he hadn't, we'd have nothing. Patricia chose to hand it over. She trusted him."
Michael's eyes cut toward me, then back to Rowan. "And now she's in custody."
"Because the Bureau was already watching her," I said, louder. "Not because of him."
Matthew lifted a flour-coated hand, palm out, attempting to referee. "It happened. Let's move forward."