60

Marianna.

"MARIANNA," Marco said again, from the other side of the door.

"One second," I called back.

I sat up. Smoothed down the Georgetown Law shirt. Met Duane's eyes—he was already awake, had probably been awake for a while, because the man doesn't move until he decides to.

"How good are you at lying?" I asked him, very quietly.

"Excellent," he said. Also very quietly. Zero hesitation.

"Okay." I took a breath. "Follow my lead."

I opened the door.

Marco stood in the hallway in his underwear, wearing an expression that I KNEW IT, and right behind it, I don't know what I knew, but I KNEW.

"Before you say anything—" I started.

"Duane Richter is on my couch."

"Yes, and I can explain that." I held up one finger. The universal gesture for I have a completely reasonable story that I definitely did not just invent. "I left my BOC certification at his place. The physical copy. In a folder, in the guest room. I need it for a credentialing update at Kinetic—Dr. Lindholm needs it on file by Monday. She was very specific about the Monday deadline. You know how she is—"

Marco's eyes narrowed.

"—and I texted Duane last night because I didn't want to cross the whole city alone at that hour, and he very kindly offered to drop it off on his way to—" I glanced at Duane.

"Early morning track session," Duane said from the couch. His voice was perfectly even. No inflection at all. He could have been reading a grocery list. "Simulator work before the Canada flight."

"Right. Simulator work." I nodded. "So he dropped it off. And then it was late, and the couch was there, and—" I waved my hand in a gesture meant to convey one thing led to another in a completely innocent sequence of events.

Marco looked at me.

He looked at Duane.

He looked back at me.

He has our mother's eyes. The perceptive ones. The ones that have been catching my lies since I was eight and told him our goldfish jumped out of the bowl on purpose.

But here's the thing about Marco: he's also a sports agent. He spends his entire professional life deciding which version of a story serves everyone best and running with it.

A beat.

"Where's the certification?" he asked.

I didn't miss a breath. "In my bag. Duane already gave it to me."

"Right." Marco scratched the back of his neck.

"I'm making coffee," he said.

And he disappeared into the kitchen.

I turned back to Duane.

He was looking at me with something that, on anyone else, I'd call impressed.

"BOC certification," he said.

"It was the first thing I could think of."

"You said 'very kindly offered.'"

"I was under pressure."

The ghost of the almost-smile. There and gone, but real.

From the kitchen: the grinder. Then cabinets. Then Marco's voice, raised over the noise—"Do you people want eggs? I'm making eggs. I'm not making them twice, so speak now—"

"Yes," I called back.

"Duane?"

"Yes," Duane said.

"See, that's what I like about you," Marco said, to the kitchen in general. "You commit."

Duane stood. Picked his jacket up off the armrest. And then, instead of heading for the kitchen, he crossed to where I was standing by the hallway.

The kitchen was maybe fifteen feet away. The grinder was running. Marco was narrating something to the eggs.

Duane put one hand on my jaw, tilted my face up, and kissed me.

Quick. Quiet. Warm and certain, stealing something in my brother's hallway like a teenager.

"Good morning," he said against my mouth. "The real one."

"Marco is fifteen feet away," I whispered.

"The grinder's loud."

"That is not a security protocol—"

"It's worked so far," he said, and stepped back exactly as the grinder cut off, so that when Marco stuck his head around the corner, Duane was innocently putting on his jacket and I was standing there with my face doing something I could only hope read as sleepy and not recently kissed.

"Eggs in five," Marco said. "Someone set the table. Not you, Duane, you're a guest. Marianna, you live here, you're staff."

"That's not how—"

"Staff," Marco repeated, and vanished.

I set the table. My mouth was still warm.

Here's the thing I kept circling while I put out the forks: I don't know where this is going. Me and Duane. There's no name for it yet, no shape—just phone calls and paper airplanes and a cover story about a certification folder. I couldn't tell you what we are.

But I could tell you this much, plainly, in the small honest voice underneath all my noise: he matters to me. He might matter more than anyone has in a long time. Maybe ever.

Which was terrifying. But there it was.

We ate eggs. Duane left for his simulator session—the real one, ironically, at nine. At the door he paused, and Marco was watching, so all he said was "Thanks for breakfast," and all I said was "Drive safe," and the whole exchange was so aggressively normal it looped back around to suspicious.

Marco, to his credit, said nothing. He just looked at the closed door for a moment, then at me, then went back to his eggs like a man filing something away for later.

I walked into Kinetic at 7:30. The eucalyptus smell hit me. The water feature trickled. The receptionist with the impressive nails said good morning. Everything was exactly the same as always—and also completely different, because I was different. Had been for a while. In the slow, tectonic way that doesn't announce itself.

Dr. Lindholm was waiting outside Recovery Suite 2 with a tablet and the expression of someone who had made a decision.

"Ms. Reyes." She fell into step beside me. "I want to debrief last week."

My stomach dropped.

"Dr. Hartley has withdrawn from his consulting agreement with Kinetic," she said.

I looked at her.

She looked back. Her eyes were steady. Not asking a question. Not opening a door. Just placing information in front of me with careful, deliberate hands.

"That's unfortunate," I said.

"Yes," she agreed. "It is."

A beat.

"Mr. Hale arrives at nine," she continued, switching gears with the smoothness of someone who has decided the previous topic is complete. "I've also added a new client to your roster. Luca Ferrante—one of Veloce's reserve drivers. He's in Miami for simulator work this week. Dr. Okonkwo cleared him, but he specifically requested an introduction to the recovery program." She glanced at me. "He's twenty-three. Your age. Considered something of a prodigy, though he's had some... adjustment issues in his first season."

I nodded. "What kind of adjustment issues?"

"The competitive kind." Her voice was carefully even. "He's very ambitious. Sometimes that creates friction with—" She stopped. "Just be aware that he can be charming in ways that have an agenda underneath them."

She handed me the tablet. Luca Ferrante's file.

I looked at the photo.

Dark hair. Green eyes. A smile that knew exactly what it was doing. The bio said Italian, from Florence, third-generation racing family. His talent assessments were extraordinary. His teammate relationships were described as "developing."

And something cold walked up the back of my neck.

I couldn't have explained it. There was nothing in the file to justify it—just a handsome kid with good numbers and a diplomatic euphemism in the teammate column. Veloce's reserve driver. Duane's team. Duane's backup, technically.

I closed the file, a little faster than I needed to.

"Understood," I said.