The Morning After Awakening

POV: Malia

The coffee went cold twenty minutes ago, but I kept the ceramic mug pressed between my palms. It gave me something to ground myself with, something to distract me from the charcoal-grey wool jacket draped over the back of my dining chair. Julian had left it behind last night. The left cuff was slightly frayed, a tiny, humanizing imperfection on a man who otherwise moved through the city encased in impenetrable armor.

I shouldn't have let him stay as long as he did. I shouldn't have let him stand so close to me in the entryway, the space between us shrinking until I could feel the heat radiating off his skin. Every time he looked at me with that quiet, careful intensity, the rage I’d nurtured since Callan died began to fracture. I hated it. It felt like a direct betrayal of my own blood. Callan was on the ground, and I was standing in my kitchen, rationalizing the lingering scent of cedar and rain clinging to the fabric of the man I blamed for putting him there.

I tipped the mug over the sink and watched the dark liquid spiral down the drain. Running the cold tap, I scrubbed the ceramic harder than necessary. Julian hadn't pulled the trigger. The official reports were clear on that, but his firm had financed the people who did. He was the architect of the environment that got my brother killed. That was the fact I used to build the wall between us. But last night, when he had quietly dismantled my accusations not with defense, but with a raw, ugly admission of his own failures, the wall had cracked. He had looked exhausted, stripped of his usual arrogance, and in that fleeting moment, I hadn’t seen my enemy. I had just seen a man carrying a weight similar to my own.

My phone vibrated against the granite counter, the buzzing jarring in the silent apartment. I didn't need to look at the screen to know who it was. I dried my hands on a towel, letting it ring three times before picking it up and swiping to answer.

"You left your coat," I said. No greeting.

"I realized that about halfway down the freeway," Julian’s voice came through the speaker, low and rough around the edges. He sounded like he hadn't slept either. "I can send someone to pick it up if looking at it is bothering you."

"It's just a coat, Julian. It doesn't have the power to bother me." It was a lie, and we both knew it. I leaned my hip against the counter, staring at the jacket.

He was quiet for a long second. The line crackled faintly. "Malia. About last night. I didn't intend to cross a line with you. I came over to give you the operational files, not to unload my conscience."

"You didn't cross a line," I said softly, staring at the frayed cuff. "You just stopped lying to me. It’s a strange look for you, but I think I prefer it."

"It's a dangerous look for me. But I'll keep that in mind." I could hear the faint sound of traffic in his background, the steady rhythm of a city moving forward while I felt entirely stuck in place. "I have a board meeting I can't miss. But I need to see you later. There's a discrepancy in the timeline Callan’s supervisor gave the investigators. I want you to look at the raw data before I make a move."

The mention of Callan’s name acted like a bucket of ice water. The warmth that had been creeping into my chest solidified instantly. "Send me the data. You don't need to come over."

"I do, actually," he said, his tone shifting back to the precise, calculating cadence I was used to. "Because the data is on a physical drive, and I’m not letting it out of my sight. I’ll be there at eight."

He ended the call before I could argue. I lowered the phone, the sudden silence in the kitchen heavy and suffocating. I walked over to the chair, picking up the heavy wool jacket. I intended to throw it in the hall closet, out of sight. Instead, I held it for a moment, my thumb brushing over the frayed thread on the cuff. I hated him. I had to hate him. Because if I didn't, it meant I was losing the only thing keeping me focused on finding out the truth.