บททั้งหมดของ Brother's Best Friend Is My Child's Father : บทที่ 41 - บทที่ 50

The patience was gone.I had held it through the lab, through the flat, through the smoke and the darkness and two rounds of arguing with Adrian. I had held it because situations like this one required a clear head and I knew that. But standing in Elena's sitting room with the broken canister still on the floor and Sophia already gone, the patience had run out.I pulled out my phone and stepped away from the others toward the far end of the room. I dialled and it picked up on the second ring."I want everything on Sophia." My voice came out low and flat. "Every move she has made in the last three months. Every contact, every number, every location she has been seen at. I'll need the frinancial records if you can get them. Who she has been meeting and how often." I paused. "I want no mistakes delays."I ended the call and pocketed the phone.When I turned around, Adrian was watching me from across the room. He had his arms crossed and his eyes were steady on mine, the look he wore wh

The flat was dark except for the lamp in the corner.I preferred it that way. Too much light made people restless, made them feel like they needed to be doing something. The dark kept things quiet and the mind clear.I was sitting at the small table by the wall with a glass of water in front of me, untouched. Outside the window, the city carried on the way it always did, indifferent and loud and completely unaware of anything happening in this room.My phone was already in my hand.I dialled and waited. It picked up on the third ring."Everything is going exactly as planned," I said. My voice was easy, unhurried. "Tonight was not a failure. Not even close. It was the first move."A pause on the other end. Then, "Dominic is getting more involved than we anticipated. He is making calls, pulling resources. He is not going to step back from this."I smiled. It was a small thing, barely there, but genuine."Good," I said. "That makes it more interesting."I stood up from the table and wal

I stepped into the back bedroom and pulled the door halfway closed behind me.My man picked up on the first ring."I need names," I ordered sternly although my voice was low. "Sophia is not running this alone. She has backing, organised backing, and I want to know exactly who is behind it. Every contact she has made in the last six months. Every meeting, every transaction, every number she has called more than once." I moved to the far side of the room, away from the door. "I do not want a general picture. I want names. Specific, confirmed names. And I want them before she makes her next move.""That could take a few days," he said."You have got until tomorrow night."A pause. "Understood.""And keep it contained," I added. "Nobody outside our circle knows we are looking. If Sophia finds out we are tracking her contacts, she pulls them back and we lose the thread." I waited for the confirmation. "Good."I ended the call and stood in the quiet of the room for a moment.Sophia had peo

The car was gone but the feeling it left behind was not.I stood by the door with my arms crossed and my eyes on the street below through the window and I turned it over. The way it had pulled away. Unhurried, indicator on at the corner, no attempt to accelerate or disappear quickly. Just a smooth, easy departure, like a driver heading home after a long shift.That was the part that would not sit right.Dominic was near the window, one shoulder against the wall, his eyes on the street. He had been standing like that for several minutes, quiet and still."It does not make sense," I turned to look at him. "You show up, you sit outside a building for hours, and then you just leave. They made no approach or attempt to come inside, nothing." I looked at him. "Why come at all?"Dominic did not turn from the window. "It is a warning," he shrugged. "They want us nervous. They want us watching the front of the building and thinking about the car and what it means."I looked at him for a mom

The flat was too quiet.That was the thing about silence after something loud. It did not feel like peace. It felt like the space between one thing ending and the next thing starting, and you sit in it and waited and the waiting was its own kind of weight.I was on the edge of Maya's bed with my hand resting on her back. She had fallen back to sleep after the crash, eventually, after I had held her and told her it was nothing and kept my voice level until her breathing slowed again. She was asleep now but lightly, the way you sleep when your body is tired but some part of you is still listening.I kept my hand on her back and listened to the flat.Nothing from the hallway or from outside. The street below the window was quiet. I had checked it twice in the last twenty minutes, standing to the side of the curtain the way Dominic had shown me, not front and centre where I could be seen. Both times, nothing. Just the wet pavement and the lamp post and the ordinary stillness of a str