Chapter Nine
~ Braham ~
I stepped into Jai’s apartment and found the air thick with other people’s decisions.
Cherry blossom and old paper layered under the warm sugar-yeast drift from downstairs.
Books scattered. A laptop in Jai’s hand.
His jaw locked at that angle I’d come to recognize: cold fury, swallowed. Not hurt. Fury.
I counted occupants without moving my head. Three. Gerald Flynn I’d filed away from a museum gala—standard donor type, medium build, the kind of man who gave exactly enough to get his name on the right plaque.
His wife Gladys beside him, neat and small, hands folded at her waist like she’d rehearsed the pose.
And a woman on the couch I’d never seen, legs crossed, filing a nail with the focus of someone who had nowhere better to be. She straightened when I entered, adjusted her posture in that practiced way people did when they’d decided to be noticed.
I dismissed her before she finished.
My eyes went back to Jai. Uninjured. Tight across the shoulders. The duffel was packed and sitting at his feet. The box under his arm held manuscripts.
“What do you need?” I said.
The room went still. My voice carried its own weight—low, rough, built for rooms that needed quieting. Ashe had positioned himself at the door, two more men behind him. The hallway was full of my people. I didn’t need to turn to know that.
Jai nodded at the three of them without looking. “Them gone. And my apartment packed and moved to your penthouse.” His voice was flat, stripped. “I don’t trust them not to come back and try something.”
I didn’t hesitate. “You two,” I said to the men by the door, “pack. Everything. Systematic.” I gestured to the other two. “Escort them out.”
Ashe nodded once and the room filled with motion. Drawers opening. Boxes unfolding from flat stacks. Books pulled from shelves and stacked spine-out, the way Jai kept them. My men worked with the precision of people who’d done this before.
They had.
Gerald Flynn stepped forward. His hand came up, extended, chin high in that particular way men who expected deference carried themselves. “Mr. Wolfe, I don’t know if you remember me. Gerald Flynn. We met at the gala at the history museum last summer.”
I looked at his hand.
I did not take it.
Silence did the work. His hand dropped. His face didn’t change, but something behind his eyes recalibrated. “I just need a few more minutes with my son,” he said. “This is a family matter. I’m sure you can understand—”
I watched Jai’s face while Gerald talked. Jai watched a spot on the wall with blank focus, the kind of look I’d seen on men standing post in the rain. Present, but gone.
“Five minutes,” Gerald said. “That’s all I’m asking.”
I cut him off. “This isn’t a family matter. This is my mate’s apartment. He’s asked you to leave.”
The word landed like something thrown. Gerald blinked. Gladys made a small sound, the kind that didn’t mean anything but took up space.
The woman on the couch halted her nail file mid-stroke and recalibrated. Her eyes moved from me to Jai and back, and I watched the math happen behind her face.
She smiled. Slow. Deliberate. The kind of smile that said I’ve decided you’re worth impressing. “Mr. Wolfe. I’m Denise Jenkins. I’ve heard so much about you.” She uncrossed her legs, leaned forward. “Jai’s mentioned you, actually. We’re old friends.”
Jai’s disbelief was audible. “We have never met before today.”
Denise kept talking, aimed at me like Jai had become scenery. “We have so much in common. I’d love to hear more about Wolfe Global sometime.” Her voice went professional, polished. “I have some thoughts about Pacific Rim shipping.”
Jai said flatly, “No, you don’t.”
I gave her the patient attention I reserved for time-wasters and people who thought their business cards were worth the paper they were printed on. “My assistant handles meeting requests.” I didn’t look at Ashe. “He’ll lose yours.”
Her smile held. Barely.
Gerald switched gears. His voice went softer, the register of a reasonable man making a reasonable request. “I just want to understand how you’re connected to my son. Given your position, I’m sure you can appreciate that a father has concerns—”
“Your concerns aren’t relevant to me.” I kept my voice level. Not raised. Not a threat. Just final. “Jai is leaving with me. His belongings are being packed. You’re being escorted out. That is the situation.”
Gerald’s jaw tightened. The veins in his forearms stood out. He looked at Jai, and something in his face shifted—from acting to something raw and unfiltered. “You’re really going to do this. In front of strangers.”
Jai’s voice cut through the room, flat and clean as a blade. “You deleted my manuscripts. Off my personal laptop. In my apartment that you broke into.” He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to. “We’re a little past me worrying about your feelings on the subject.”
Gladys stepped forward. Her hands came up, soft and careful, gesturing at the apartment, at me, at the men packing Jai’s life into cardboard.
“Jai, sweetheart, we came because we’re worried.
We just want what’s best for you.” Her voice had that deceptive texture—warm on the surface, structured underneath. “This isn’t a life.”
Jai snapped. “It’s my life.”
“It’s a phase,” Gerald said, and I watched Jai go still in a way that meant calm was miles away. His body locked. His fingers whitened around the edge of the laptop.
The air in the room changed density.
I stepped forward. Not fast. Measured. I positioned myself behind Jai’s left shoulder, close enough that he could feel my presence, but not so close it read as possessive. I held Gerald’s gaze the way I’d ended more than one negotiation without another word spoken.
When I spoke, my voice was quiet. The kind of quiet that made people lean in.
“The men packing this apartment will be done in twenty minutes. You’ll be gone before then.
” I let each word land. “If you come back here, or to my building, or contact Jai in any way he hasn’t explicitly invited, I will know about it.
” I paused. “I know about most things that happen in this city. That isn’t a threat.
It’s information. Use it however you like. ”
Gerald opened his mouth. Closed it. Looked at Jai one last time, and something genuine flickered—brief, unguarded, the kind of look a man gives his son when he realizes he’s lost something he can’t name. Then it was gone, buried under the performance of dignity.
Gladys steered him to the door. Her hand on his arm was gentle, but firm, the touch of a woman who’d spent decades redirecting her husband’s momentum.
Denise made one final attempt. She stood, smoothed her skirt, and offered me a business card with a smile that had been work-shopped for maximum impact. “In case you change your mind about the meeting.”
I took the card. I didn’t look at it. I handed it to Ashe without turning. He pocketed it with an expression that said trash the moment she was out of sight.
Denise’s smile went fixed. She left without another word, heels clicking on the hardwood in a rhythm that said she was counting each step.
With the door closed and their footsteps fading down the stairs, Jai let out a breath I hadn’t realized he was holding. Slow. Deliberate. The kind of exhale that carried the weight of something he’d been carrying too long.
He rolled his neck once. The vertebrae cracked, a soft series of pops that traveled from the base of his skull to the junction of his shoulders. His posture released by fractions—shoulders dropping a half-inch, the line of his spine easing from rigid to something closer to human.
He looked at me sideways. His mouth curved, just at one corner. “You didn’t shake his hand.”
“No,” I said.
“He noticed.”
“Good.”
He made a sound. Almost a laugh. Close and real and caught in the back of his throat before it could fully form. The kind of sound that did something to my chest I wasn’t prepared to name.
I turned away. Watched my men work. Kept whatever that sound had done to me locked behind the expression I’d spent decades perfecting.
The smells layered. Cherry blossom, stubborn and sweet, clinging to the fabric of the couch where he’d sat.
Old paper, ink, the must of a room that had been closed up too long.
Under it all, the warm sugar-yeast drift from the bakery downstairs, rising through the floorboards like the building itself was breathing.
I registered, with low private irritation, that Jai would stop smelling like this place. His scent would change. The cherry blossom would layer over the cedar and scotch of my penthouse until the two became something I couldn’t separate. He’d smell like my space. My things. My air.
The thought settled somewhere low and satisfied.
I kept it off my face.
Jai was watching one of my men wrap his coffee equipment—the French press, the grinder, the battered kettle with the dent in its side. His eyes tracked each movement with the focused attention of someone making sure nothing got broken.
Without looking at me, he said, “The ‘mate’ thing. In front of my parents.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Strategic.”
“Accurate.” I let a beat pass. “The strategy was a bonus.”
He glanced at me. The corner of his mouth hooked higher. “You enjoyed that.”
I said nothing. The silence was answer enough.
His shoulders dropped another fraction. Not gone—the tension lived in him the way certain kinds of weather lived in certain places, constant and unremarkable—but loosened. The line of his jaw softened. He rolled the lollipop from one cheek to the other, the wrapper crinkling faintly.
One of my men was boxing the switchblades.
He handled each one with the respect you give a weapon that’s seen use—careful, two-handed, blade closed.
The largest one went in last, nestled in a t-shirt I recognized from the guest suite.
Jai’s cutoff Army shirt. The one he’d been wearing at three a.m. when Grace woke screaming.
The manuscript box was nearly full. Pages stacked spine-out, margins visible, handwriting in the margins in ink so blue it was almost black.
I could see fragments from where I stood: dialogue crossed out and rewritten, arrows pointing to new paragraphs, notes in the margin that said things like “TOO MUCH” and “FIX THIS” and once, in capital letters that took up half the margin, “WHY.”
The apartment was being dismantled with the efficiency of people who did this for a living.
Drawers emptied. Closet cleared. The desk stripped down to bare wood, the laptop already in Jai’s bag.
One man was folding clothes with the precision of someone who’d been taught by someone strict.
Another was cataloguing electronics—the charger, the external drive, the headphones tangled in a knot that defied physics.
Jai watched it all with the calm of a man who’d packed his life into duffels more times than he could count. There was no sentiment in it. Just the practical assessment of assets being relocated.
He picked up a paperback from the floor—one his mother had missed—and turned it over in his hands. The cover was bright, embossed, a man’s torso taking up most of the real estate. He looked at it for a long moment, then set it in the box with the others, spine out.
I held the quiet knowledge that in twenty minutes, Jai’s belongings would be on the elevator. His books on my shelves. His knives in my drawers. His scent in the walls of my penthouse, layered over cedar and scotch until the two became something new.
For tonight, that was enough.
Jai caught me watching him. He didn’t look away. His eyes held mine the way they had that first night in my office—challenge and curiosity in equal measure, the look of a man who’d decided, against his better judgment, to see how this played out.
The bakery smell warmed the air. Cherry blossom cut through it, sharp and sweet. My men worked in the kind of quiet that came from good training and the understanding that some silences were worth keeping.
I breathed. Again. Deeper.
Jai’s mouth curved. Just a little.
I turned back to the window. The city spread below us, gray and wet and indifferent. In twenty minutes, we’d be gone. The apartment would be empty. The bakery would keep baking. The water stain would stay in the corner, waiting for whoever moved in next.
None of that mattered.
What mattered was the man standing six feet away, rolling a lollipop between his teeth, watching his life get packed into boxes with the calm certainty of someone who’d already decided where he was going.
I’d known, from the moment I’d seen him with Grace in his arms, that I would burn this city to the ground before I let anything take him from me. Today, I hadn’t needed to burn anything. Just pack a few boxes. Just say the word mate in a room full of people who didn’t understand what it meant.
Just watch him breathe.
For tonight, that was enough.