CHAPTER 3 NORA #2
I stared at the back of his head. "Is that a promise or a management strategy?"
"A promise."
"Those better be expensive around here."
"They cost more than threats."
Isabella made a small sound beside me, almost a laugh and almost a sob. My hand squeezed hers before pride could stop me.
The Stone townhouse looked wrong in daylight.
Last time I had seen it, my sister's life had already turned into something larger than mine, guarded by men who knew her name and doors that opened before she touched them.
Morning made the place warmer, which annoyed me.
Soft lamps glowed behind tall windows. Wet stone steps led to a front door polished so dark it reflected the cars pulling up.
Declan opened my side before I reached for the handle.
"I can open a door," I said.
"I know."
"Then why are you doing it?"
His eyes held mine. Rain clung to his lashes. "Because I got there first."
A stupid answer. A simple answer. Better than most answers men had given me since last night. I stepped out with Dad's box against my ribs and refused his offered hand.
His fingers closed once around empty air, then dropped.
Inside, the house smelled like coffee, polished wood, and something buttery coming from a kitchen I could not see.
It was unfair for danger to have good lighting.
A woman in a black dress took Isabella's coat.
A guard nodded to Gabriel. Nobody stared at me outright.
Worse. They all knew how to pretend they were not measuring the new problem Isabella had brought home.
Declan stayed at my left shoulder.
"Do you always stand this close?" I asked under my breath.
"Only when someone is trying to scare you."
"So romantic."
"Didn't say it was romantic."
My face heated before I could stop it, and his eyes dropped to my mouth for one fast, brutal second.
The study doors opened before either of us reached them.
Cormac stood inside with a leather folder, a yellow legal pad, and a pen that probably had its own insurance policy.
Maeve Stone waited near the window in dark green, hair sleek, expression so calm I wanted to spill coffee on her on principle. She looked from Dad's box to my face.
"Miss Brooks," she said.
"Maeve."
One eyebrow lifted.
"I am tired," I said. "Titles will have to earn their keep today."
Isabella coughed into her hand. Declan looked at the bookshelves. Cormac's pen moved once, though he had not started writing.
Gabriel took the chair behind his desk and remained standing instead of sitting. "Nora wants terms."
"Nora wants to be spoken to while she is in the room," I said.
Gabriel looked at me. "Then speak."
My heart jumped hard, because rooms like this were not built for women like me to make lists.
Dark shelves. Heavy desk. Men with money and guns and files.
My father had never sat in a room like this while someone decided whether his pain counted.
Maybe that was why I walked to the chair nearest the door, set Dad's box on my lap, and lifted my chin until my neck hurt.
"First term," I said. "No one lies to me for my safety. If you do not know something, say that. If you know and cannot tell me, say why. But I am finished with men using my own protection as a blindfold."
Cormac wrote it down.
"Second," I continued. "My phone stays with me unless there is an active weapon in the room or I am physically unable to hold it. The contacts stay visible, the calls stay open, and any tracking app gets discussed before it touches my phone."
Declan's face gave nothing away.
"Third. I am not moved anywhere without being told where I am going and why. Emergency means you explain in the car, not after I wake up in some basement with better towels."
"Our safehouses have terrible towels," Declan said.
I glanced at him. "Then I add towels to the negotiation."
Cormac's pen paused.
"Do not write that," I said.
"I was considering it," he said.
A laugh tried to rise in my throat and came out thinner than I wanted. Isabella's hand rested on the back of my chair. Gabriel watched the exchange, unreadable.
"Fourth," I said. "If this involves my father, I get access. Files. Names. Whatever Cormac finds. Dad was not only Isabella's father. He was mine too."
The room sobered fast.
Gabriel nodded once. "Accepted."
Maeve's gaze cut to him. "Gabriel."
"Accepted," he said again.
My grip tightened around the box. The wood edge pressed into my palm.
"Fifth," I said, softer now because Thomas Brooks lived in my throat when I was angry enough. "Isabella does not get used as the excuse for locking me away. If she is afraid, she can tell me herself. If Gabriel is afraid, he can say so and survive the discomfort."
Isabella's fingers brushed my shoulder. Gabriel's eyes moved to his wife. Something passed between them that hurt to witness, old fear and newer trust bound too tightly to separate.
"Fair," Isabella said.
Declan shifted by the wall.
I looked at him. "You get terms too, don't you?"
"Yes."
"Let's hear the cage from the man assigned to decorate it."
His mouth flattened. "You don't go anywhere alone while Mercer is active. Work, deli, trash room, sidewalk, roof, subway. Nowhere."
"I am allowed to pee alone?"
"Unless Mercer is in your bathroom."
"Funny."
"I was serious."
Maeve's mouth twitched. Cormac kept writing.
Declan folded his arms. The motion pulled his coat across his shoulders, and my eyes went there before I could stop them.
Too broad. Too close. Too much man standing between me and an enemy I had not seen yet.
My body warmed in the wrong places, and annoyance snapped back fast because anger was safer than wanting anything from him.
"Second," Declan said. "If Mercer or anyone connected to him contacts you, I see it before you answer."
"You see it," I said. "You do not take it."
"I see it," he agreed.
"Third?"
"You carry an emergency signal. Bracelet, pendant, phone case, whatever you hate least."
"Does it explode?"
"Only if Cormac designed it."
Cormac looked up. "I do contracts, not jewelry."
"Shame," I said. "I was warming to you."
Declan's eyes stayed on me. "Last term. If I give you an immediate order during an active threat, you follow it, then yell at me after."
"Define active threat."
"Gun. Knife. Hand on you. Car blocking us. Fire. Man where he should not be. Door open that I closed. Anything I name as active threat."
"Convenient."
"Alive is convenient."
The room went still around us. His voice had gone rough on the word alive, and it hit low in my chest. I hated that he sounded angry at the future for even considering my death.
"And if you use that term to win an argument?" I asked.
"Then you bring it to Gabriel, Isabella, or Cormac. They can overrule me after."
"After is doing a lot of work."
"So is staying alive."
My fingers curled over the coffee cup lid. The plastic bent under my thumb.
Gabriel said, "Declan's immediate safety orders stand during contact. His other decisions are open to challenge."
"Challenge by whom?" I asked.
"You."
That word landed strangely. Clean. Dangerous because I wanted to believe it.
Maeve moved from the window. "Miss Brooks, I understand your need for terms. I do. But Elias Mercer is not a man who knocks politely because you wrote rules on paper."
"Then paper should make the people with guns behave while I deal with the man who doesn't knock."
Her eyes sharpened.
I braced for the cut. It did not come. Maeve looked at me for a long second, then gave one small nod that felt more valuable than a smile.
"Reasonable," she said.
"Don't sound surprised."
"I will try."
Cormac slid the legal pad toward Gabriel. "I can put this into a temporary protection agreement. Plain language. A signature is not required if Miss Brooks objects to paperwork after last year."
"I object to hidden paperwork," I said. "Visible paperwork can live."
"A generous distinction."
Isabella leaned closer. "Are you okay?"
The question broke something I had been holding with both hands since the first message. My eyes stung again. I looked at Dad's box because wood did not look worried back.
"I am furious," I said. "I am tired. I am scared. I am angry at you. I am angrier at myself because I still want you close."
Isabella made a small sound and came around the chair. I stood because sitting made me feel trapped, and she hugged me in front of all of them. This time I let my face press against her shoulder. Her belly touched me between us, small and real and terrifying.
"I am sorry," she whispered.
"I know. That is the problem."
My phone buzzed in my back pocket.
Every head in the room turned.
The sound cut straight through my skin. Declan moved first, but he stopped when my hand lifted.
"My phone," I said.
His jaw flexed. "Show me the screen."
"You don't touch it."
"I won't."
The promise came fast. Too fast for a man who liked command.
I pulled the phone free with fingers that wanted to shake and refused to entertain my pride. Unknown number. Only the gray bar waited for me to open it.
Declan came closer. Close enough that his coat brushed my sleeve. He smelled like rain, coffee, and cold air from outside. My pulse thudded so hard I could feel it behind my teeth.
"Nora," Isabella whispered.
I opened the message.
Your father's file was never complete.
For a moment, the whole room disappeared around those six words. Dad's box dug into my stomach. The phone trembled once in my hand, and Declan's fingers closed around the edge of the device before it slipped.
He did not take it.
He held it with me.
His thumb rested against the side of my hand, warm and steady, while every rule I had just demanded stood between us like wet ink.
A second message arrived before anyone spoke.
Ask your sister what she missed.