Michael was right—Alex had access to databases that could unravel Dorian's carefully constructed invisibility in hours. One search query would expose aliases and safehouse locations and maybe even connect him to Hoyle's network.
"Back off." The edge in my voice made Michael's eyebrows rise.
"There it is. You just showed your hand, brother."
"You don't understand—"
"I understand perfectly." The pace of his words quickened. "You know what I did for a living. I know what it looks like when someone's protecting a threat. I see you glancing toward that bedroom door like you're calculating response times."
My jaw clenched hard enough to make my teeth ache. "Not everything dangerous is a threat. Some people deserve privacy."
"Privacy?" Michael laughed. "Privacy is what you give to neighbors and coworkers. Whatever's behind that door has you ready to throw your brother under a bus."
My composure continued to fracture. Dorian's safety now outweighed keeping peace with Michael.
"So it's a person then? Not a thing you picked up on shift. It's a human being?"
I didn't answer. There was nothing I could say without confirming what he'd already deduced.
Behind the closed bedroom door, I heard the faint creak of floorboards—just once, then silence. Dorian was awake. Listening.
Michael read my silence like a signed confession. His shoulders sagged slightly, the cop mask slipping to reveal thebrother underneath—wounded, worried, and angry at being shut out.
He looked older for a second. Not tougher. Not sharper. Just tired. My brother, the one who used to sit on the floor with me after Dad's shifts and explain how the fire truck worked like it was the coolest thing in the world. The one who never let me walk home alone.
"Shit, Matthew. What have you gotten yourself into?"
His eyes glistened, just for a second, and then he blinked it away.
"After Dad, I thought we promised each other. No secrets. Not like this."
He exhaled hard, and his hands unclenched as they fell to his sides with the weight of defeat. "You know I'd take a bullet for you. I've got your six, no matter what stupid decision you make. But Ma? She doesn't deserve to get caught in someone else's crosshairs. Not again."
It was a verbal sucker punch.Not again.Dad's funeral flashed through my memory—Ma standing graveside in her black dress, holding onto Marcus's arm while the honor guard folded the flag. She'd aged a decade in the space between the warehouse collapse and the burial service.
"No one's dragging her into anything. This stays here."
"You'd better be right. If this goes sideways, and whoever you're protecting brings violence to our family, I won't be able to forgive that."
He moved toward the door, knowing he'd lost the battle. For a moment, I thought he might turn around and try one more approach to break through my defenses.
Instead, he paused. "If this blows up, I'll be the one picking up the pieces. Don't make me clean up another Farid."
The door closed with a soft click that echoed through my apartment.Another Farid.Michael knew exactly where to aimwhen he wanted to draw blood. He'd watched me nurse that guilt for years.
He's not wrong.
Michael read the situation with surgical accuracy. I was protecting someone dangerous whose past could detonate in our faces without warning. Ma could get hurt. My brothers could become collateral damage in a war they never chose to join.
But he's not entirely right either.
Danger and threat weren't synonymous, despite what Michael's training insisted. Violence followed Dorian in his wake, yes, but not by choice. He was debris from someone else's explosion, not the bomb itself.
The bedroom door remained closed, but I knew my walls and doors weren't soundproof. Dorian had heard everything—Michael's accusations, my deflections, and the family loyalty I'd chosen to break rather than betray him.
What was he thinking in there? Was he calculating escape routes and preparing to disappear before my brother could make good on his threats?
I crossed the living room to my chair. The leather exhaled beneath me as I settled into the familiar cushions, my body finding the groove worn by countless nights of solitary television and takeout dinners. I stared at Dorian's mug—the one with the Fire Department logo that I'd given him without thinking.
