Chapter 31 #2
The laugh caught me off guard, real enough to hurt.
Naomi glanced over.
I turned slightly away from the group and pressed the phone to my mouth, as if that could hide evidence. It couldn't. I was a CEO, not a magician.
Nick called a second later.
“She gets that from her mother,” he said when I answered.
His voice had changed. Not relaxed. Nick Mercer probably considered relaxation a security vulnerability. But something warmer moved beneath the clipped edges.
“No,” I said.
“No?”
“That level of surgical insult wrapped in practical wardrobe guidance?” I looked toward Cufflink, who had cornered a staff member near the luggage table. “That is absolutely yours.”
Nick said nothing.
The airstrip hummed around me. Fuel. Heat. A radio crackling by the shade awning. A distant insect pulse under the engine tick of the waiting aircraft.
“She would like you,” he said.
My throat tightened before the rest of me gave permission.
“Let’s not insult her standards this early.”
“She has high ones.”
“Then definitely not.”
His exhale moved through the line, almost a laugh and almost not.
A ranger lifted his hand near the plane. Naomi caught my eye and gave a small nod.
“We’re boarding,” I said.
“I know.”
Of course he knew.
“Nick.”
“Yes.”
“Do not mistake my compliance for a precedent.”
“Noted.”
“That sounded much too calm.”
“I’m writing it down in a place I can ignore later.”
I looked down at the dust on my shoes. “Send me updates.”
“I will.”
The call ended.
I boarded the plane with my sunglasses on and my spine straight, because some habits deserved their excellent reputation.
The flight to Johannesburg passed in fragments.
Engine vibration under my feet. Naomi’s quiet work beside me.
Cufflink sleeping with his mouth open, which provided the universe with a modest corrective.
A bottle of water gone warm in my hand. The landscape below shifting from wild geometry to roads, roofs, industry, city.
By the time I reached the hotel near the airport, my body had the strange hollow buzz of too little sleep, too much restraint, and not nearly enough caffeine to justify continued civility.
The room greeted me with sealed-window silence, lemon cleaner, beige carpet, and climate control set three degrees below human comfort.
A bowl of green apples sat on the desk beside a card welcoming me by name, each one polished to the waxy shine of corporate hospitality.
Civilization had many sins. Branded fruit was one of them.
My phone found Wi-Fi and detonated.
SUMMER: Confirm location.
ANNIE: Are you safe?
RAYANN: Also confirm whether “safe” includes emotionally, because I have concerns.
ME: Johannesburg airport hotel. Security protocol changed. No one is dead.
I set my bag on the bench at the foot of the bed and typed.
SUMMER: What happened?
ME: Old contractor credentials accessed the assigned vehicle manifest. Mine specifically. Route changed. Aircraft and luggage cleared. Nick is handling it.
The climate control hummed above the door, too smooth and too cold. I checked the lock without meaning to. Green light. Deadbolt. Chain.
Still, my shoulder blades refused to lower.
ANNIE: Specifically yours?
RAYANN: I hate that.
SUMMER: Was the access contained?
ME: Pending final confirmation. Sarah is sending the Johannesburg contact details. I’ll route through the revised itinerary tonight.
brYNN: I’m sorry, did we all just skip over “Nick is handling it” written in post-orgasm punctuation?
The chat stopped.
Long enough for me to regret every word after “luggage.”
RAYANN: Oh.
brYNN: OHHHH, fuck.
SUMMER: Interesting.
ME: Do not interesting me.
ANNIE: You answered that very quickly.
EMME: With unusual confidence.
brYNN: Confirm how many times you fucked the ranger, because your punctuation has changed.
brYNN: That was a trust reflex. Do we call a doctor? A priest? Max?
ME: He is head of security. His involvement is implied.
RAYANN: Max is head of security too. I know what “implied” looks like when a woman is trying not to say “I let him boss me around and liked it.”
EMME: Rayann.
RAYANN: What? She has a tone.
brYNN: She has a post-orgasm security-event tone.
SUMMER: Brynn.
brYNN: Responsible correction: possible post-orgasm security-event tone.
ANNIE: Statistically, her avoidance pattern supports Brynn’s theory.
ME: I am blocking all of you.
RAYANN: You won’t. You need witnesses.
I walked to the window. Beyond the glass, Johannesburg moved in hazy afternoon light, all service roads, security fencing, hotel shuttles, and sun-struck pavement pretending to be an arrival experience.
Cars slid along the access road below. A shuttle bus idled at the curb with its hazard lights blinking like it had disappointing news.
SUMMER: Is he competent?
ME: Annoyingly.
RAYANN: Is he careful with you?
My thumb hovered.
ME: Yes.
RAYANN: Is he careful with himself?
I stared at the screen.
ME: No.
RAYANN: There it is, babe.
Brynn sent a knife emoji, then a safari hat, then a flame.
brYNN: I stand by my earlier request for numbers.
ME: Denied.
brYNN: That means three or more. Nobody gets this evasive over one emotionally irresponsible safari bang.
EMME: I am begging us not to call it that.
brYNN: Fine. One emotionally consequential wildlife-adjacent dick appointment.
SUMMER: Brynn.
brYNN: What? I used consequential.
ANNIE: The adjective did improve the sentence.
RAYANN: Slightly.
ME: I hate this family.
RAYANN: Also, you are deflecting badly.
ME: I am not deflecting.
EMME: You are using punctuation like a woman drafting a cease-and-desist against her own feelings.
brYNN: Oh my God, Emme came in with a chair.
SUMMER: Focus. Are you cleared to travel home?
ME: Not yet. Sarah is sending the Johannesburg contact. I’ll reroute the itinerary once I have final clearance.
brYNN: She used “route” as a verb. Someone sedate her.
RAYANN: No, let her cook. This is her emotional support logistics.
ANNIE: Control is where you put the feeling until it stops moving.
brYNN: Annoying, but right. Nobody asked for Baby Shark Socrates before dinner.
ANNIE: Please never call me that again.
ME: I can see all of this.
RAYANN: Good. Saves us the recap.
The room phone sat on the nightstand, mute and beige and somehow accusatory. Beside it, the digital clock changed numbers without sound. 16:42. Less than an hour before Sarah’s Johannesburg contact was due to meet me in the lobby.
Too much time for a room I had not chosen.
ANNIE: Does he have family there?
There.
The clean cut.
I looked at the apples on the desk. Too glossy. Too arranged. My hand curled around the phone.
ME: His daughter is in Virginia. Sofia. Fourteen. Homecoming is October 24.
Nothing.
Then everything.
brYNN: You know the child’s homecoming date?? What in the laminated emergency-contact hell is happening?
SUMMER: That is a calendar-level fact.
RAYANN: That is not even casual calendar. That is color-coded, reminder-set, emotionally dangerous calendar.
EMME: You know Jules stores emotional information in calendar format because it frightens her less.
brYNN: Did you make a subfolder for the man’s child?
ME: I am leaving this chat.
RAYANN: No, you’re not.
brYNN: Hot ranger. Teen daughter. Two continents. Active threat situation. This is very low maintenance, Jules. Barely a fucking blip.
SUMMER: Brynn.
brYNN: Responsible version: this is a complex multi-jurisdictional fuck spiral.
ANNIE: That is not responsible.
EMME: It is oddly comprehensive.
ME: Sofia is not a complication.
The words left my fingers before I could make them colder.
The typing bubbles vanished.
I stood very still.
Outside, traffic moved. Inside, the air-conditioning clicked on with a soft mechanical sigh.
SUMMER: No one said she was.
My jaw tightened.
No. They hadn’t.
I typed, erased, typed again.
ME: She is not a variable to manage. She is part of his life. That deserves respect.
Rayann answered first.
RAYANN: Yes.
Then Emme.
EMME: That sounded like truth, not defense.
A few seconds passed.
ANNIE: Respecting someone’s fixed truth does not require disappearing inside it.
My fingers went still over the screen.
brYNN: I was not emotionally prepared for Annie to walk in here and stab us with wisdom.
RAYANN: She’s right.
SUMMER: Jules.
I set the phone facedown on the desk.
The room smelled faintly of linen detergent, chilled air, and the stale neutrality of expensive hotels pretending no one had ever cried, fought, worked, or made a life-altering decision inside them.
The carpet gave beneath my bare feet when I stepped out of my shoes.
My shoulders had been up near my ears since the road hold. Lowering them took effort.
The phone buzzed again.
ANNIE: Does he make your life smaller?
Trust Annie to arrive with a scalpel and no anesthesia.
No.
The answer sat there, plain and inconvenient.
Nick did not make my life smaller. He made it harder to lie about its shape. There was Wilder Horizons, my sisters, Maris Key, clients with money and emergencies, a father gone too soon, and a life built from obligations I had chosen and others that had chosen me back.
And now there was Sofia. Virginia. Homecoming. A father who had booked the flight instead of saying maybe.
She stood inside the architecture of his life, load-bearing and nonnegotiable.
I typed one word.
ME: No.
ANNIE: Then that’s useful data.
brYNN: Annie, you terrifying little spreadsheet ghost.
EMME: Jules, you sound less armored.
ANNIE: Or armored around different things.
I leaned one hip against the desk and looked at the blank television screen, where my reflection looked pale, tired, and far too awake.
ME: He booked the flight.
SUMMER: What flight?
ME: To Virginia. For Sofia’s homecoming. He was going to say maybe. He didn’t.
The chat quieted again.
RAYANN: Men like that will call sacrifice love if no one stops them.
ME: I know.
RAYANN: That sounded personal.
ME: It was intended to.
SUMMER: Complicated is not the problem. Undefined is where people start making excuses.
RAYANN: We design around the truth.
EMME: Even inconvenient truth.
ANNIE: Especially that.
brYNN: Our family business is basically impossible logistics with better lighting, richer clients, and fewer liability waivers than we probably need.
A laugh moved through me, quiet and sharp.
ME: That may be the most accurate brand statement we have ever had.
brYNN: Put it on a tote.
SUMMER: Do not put that on a tote.
RAYANN: Max would carry the tote and somehow make it look tactical.
My chest eased around the smallest breath.
Then Brynn ruined the peace, naturally.
brYNN: I would like to formally request one ranger photo before anyone makes decisions involving continents.
ME: Denied.
EMME: That means he’s devastatingly handsome.
brYNN: Or butt-fuck ugly with a huge dick and good crisis management skills.
SUMMER: Brynn.
ANNIE: Refusal to provide evidence increases suspicion across all categories.
ME: I hate all of you.
brYNN: You love us. You hate that we are conducting a full emotional autopsy with excellent instincts.
RAYANN: And minimal consent.
SUMMER: No, you don’t.
No, I did not.
The light outside had thinned from gold to gray. My reflection hovered in the blank television screen, phone in hand, shoes abandoned by the desk, one hand still too close to the deadbolt.
My phone buzzed with a separate text.
SARAH: Johannesburg contact confirmed. Name: Pieter Botha. SAPS. He will meet you in the lobby at 1730 and remain through international check-in. Nick has details.
Former South African Police Service. Good. Someone who knew the local system, not just private security theater.
SARAH: Separate issue. Credentials used for manifest access were disabled last year. They should not have authenticated.
The room lost a degree of warmth.
I reread the message.
They should not have authenticated.
My door lock gave a soft electronic click.
The hallway outside went silent.
Not the lock opening.
Not yet.
Just a click.
My fingers closed around the phone.
Then Nick’s name flashed across the screen.
NICK: DO NOT OPEN YOUR DOOR.