51. Milo #2
I plate up breakfast—scrambled eggs, bacon, toast. Nothing fancy, but I put love in it, and love is the secret ingredient in everything I make.
That and garlic salt. I set a plate in front of Sage.
“For you, my queen,” I kiss her lightly on the mouth and she hums happily. “I had a really great time last night.”
She grins. “Me too.”
I give her another kiss on the temple then grab another plate and slide it to Knox. Then I eat mine standing up, leaning next to the stove, because that’s the cook’s throne and I will die on it.
Sage takes a bite of egg and makes a sound that—okay. Okay. That sound. That exact sound. I heard that sound last night and it meant something very different, and now my brain is short-circuiting. I stare at the ceiling. Hardware inventory. Aisle seven. Bulk screws. Moving on.
“This is amazing,” she says, mouth full.
“I know. I’m incredible. It’s my cross to bear.”
Knox eats in silence, which from him is basically a Michelin star. I watch the two of them—Sage waking up bite by bite, Knox angled toward her like his body can’t help pointing in her direction—and something big and warm and painfully earnest swells in my chest.
This is good. This is really good.
“Okay, can I just say something? And I know I always say things and most of them are nonsense, but this one is real.” I set my plate down.
“I know this situation is objectively insane. One girl, five guys, murder as a hobby—not exactly a Hallmark pitch. But this—” I wave at the kitchen, at Sage in Holden’s shirt, at Knox’s nearly empty plate.
“This feels right. We feel right. Someone should say that out loud before we all pretend we didn’t notice. ”
Sage looks at me with soft eyes. “Milo . . .”
“I’m not crying. There’s bacon grease in my eye. Moving on.” I pour more coffee. “So! Weekend plans. I vote we do something fun. All of us. Beach? Hike? I saw a Groupon for axe throwing? Too on-the-nose?”
Knox shakes his head as he brings his plate to the kitchen. “Can’t stay. Recon.”
“Recon?” I take it from him and set it in the sink. “But it’s Saturday. Even murderers get weekends, Knox. It’s in the Geneva Convention.”
“It’s not.”
“It should be. I’m writing a letter.”
Knox crosses to Sage. Something passes between them—one of those silent Knox conversations that happens entirely in micro-expressions and eyebrow angles. He touches her jaw with two fingers, barely a graze.
“I’ll be back tonight. After my shift at the club.”
He leans down and kisses her, and I can’t not grin about it.
“Stay safe,” she says.
He nods.
“Try not to be too conspicuous!” I call after him. “You’re a six-foot-seven wall of muscle lurking around in broad daylight, people notice that sort of thing!”
“Thank you for breakfast, Milo.”
“You’re welcome, handsome!”
The door shuts. I turn back to Sage.
She’s watching the door with a curious expression. Her brain has switched on. I can practically hear it humming.
“What’s the recon about?” she asks.
I hesitate. Not because I don’t want to tell her.
I do, actually, more than I probably should.
But because there’s an unspoken rule among the five of us that Sage stays insulated from the operational side.
She knows what we are. She knows what we do in the broadest sense.
But the specifics—the names, the plans, the how and when and where—we’ve kept that away from her.
Odin’s orders. He wants things “contained.” Protecting her is what he means.
But she’s looking at me with those steady gray eyes, and I think about the alley, and the promise I made, and the words that hit harder than any punch I’ve ever taken: Everyone decides what happens to Sage without asking Sage.
Fuck it.
“His name is Hudson,” I say. “Investment banker. Multiple accusations over the years—interns, junior staff, women who couldn’t fight back without losing their careers. The kind of predator who hides behind a corner office and a clean suit.”
Sage goes still.
“We’ve been working him for a couple of weeks. It goes down Wednesday at his gym. We’re making it look like suicide.”
She’s quiet for a long moment. Processing. I can see her turning it over, fitting it into the picture of who we are and what she’s signed up for—not in theory anymore, but in practice. A man with a name. A date on a calendar. A plan.
“Wednesday,” she repeats.
“Wednesday. It’s locked. Odin signs off tomorrow, but the plan’s already confirmed.”
“And Knox is doing recon today because . . .”
“Final pass. Making sure nothing’s changed at the location. Entry points, camera blind spots, timing. He’s thorough like that. The man could surveil a parking lot for six hours and come back with a dissertation.”
She finishes her coffee in a long swallow and sets the mug down. Something settles in her expression. Like a piece of her life just clicked into a slot she didn’t know was empty.
“Can I help?”
A small shock goes through me. Not because the question surprises me—I’ve seen this coming since the night she turned Brock’s junk into minced meat. It’s the steadiness that gets me. No wobble in her voice. No flinch.
“With Hudson? No, kitten. Too many moving parts, too tight a window. Eli would have an actual medical event if we tried to add a variable this late. And honestly, this one’s been in motion too long. It wouldn’t be safe.”
“Then the next one.”
I set the coffee pot down. Study her face. She’s not performing bravery or trying to prove something. She’s just asking. Like she’s been watching us through a window for weeks and she’s done standing on the other side of the glass.
“You want in,” I say. Not a question.
“I’m not just scenery, Milo. You guys are out there planning and surveilling and risking your lives, and I’m sitting here making coffee and waiting for someone to walk through my door.
” She meets my eyes. “It’s been three weeks of being watched and managed and walked home.
I get why, but I don’t want to sit on the edge of this forever.
I want in. I want to do what you do—get rid of the assholes the system keeps protecting. ”
My stomach tightens, because nothing about this is relaxed. Stephen is still a ghost, Tyler is still circling Amy, and Sage is still the center of too many men’s bad ideas.
But the rest of it? Wanting in?
That I understand.
“Kitten—”
“You promised to protect me with me. Not behind my back, remember?”
And there it is. My own words, handed back to me like a grenade with the pin already pulled.
“You know the others are going to be a problem, right?” I lean on the counter.
“Eli will literally have an aneurysm. Holden will say you’re a liability and then stare at a wall for twenty minutes.
Knox will just look at you with those eyes and you’ll feel guilty even though you haven’t done anything wrong. ”
“And Micah?”
“Micah will ask you if you’re sure and then support whatever you decide, because Micah is the only person in this group who should be allowed to interact with other humans unsupervised.”
She smiles. Small and fierce. “So what do I do?”
I straighten up. “You can’t just walk into a meeting and say ‘I want in’ because Eli will shut it down before you finish the sentence. You need skills. Real ones. Not just the stabbing instinct—which, incredible, truly, no notes—but actual technique.”
I hold up a hand before she can accuse me of plotting behind everyone’s back. “And I’m not saying we hide this forever. I’m saying we prepare you enough that when this goes to the group, you’re not asking for permission. You’re bringing a case.”
“Prepared,” she says.
“Exactly. Eli can say no to chaos. He has a harder time saying no to competence.”
She straightens on the stool. “What kind of skills?”
I grin at her. The big grin. The one that made Eli say, the first time he saw it, why does your smile make me nervous?
“How do you feel about pigs?”