Page 96 of The Sexy Ex's Brother
The apartment finally stills around us. In the office, the photo will wait where I left it. In this room, the bed will, too. Two anchors, two promises. Tomorrow there will be a third: a girl with a backpack and a passport and a look I haven’t learned how to read yet. She won’t be an asset or a headline. She’ll be Emma. And she’ll walk into a home that looks like we chose it for her. Emma lands at two. The next move is mine.
47
IVY
Idon’t realize how tightly I’m holding my breath until the city starts to fall away. The car hums steady around us. The driver keeps a respectful silence. I watch the lanes split and merge like the inside of my chest.
Jack’s hand finds my knee without looking. It’s not performative. He’s not even aware of it, I can tell by the way his gaze stays on the window, on the ribbon of eastbound traffic, on nothing and everything at once. His thumb presses once, absently, grounding. A small line settles at the edge of his mouth, the one that usually means a calculation is running behind his eyes. Only this time, it isn’t about a deal or a building or a board vote. It’s about a girl with his eyes and a flight number I’ve checked so often it’s burned into me.
“You’re doing everything right,” I say softly.
He doesn’t answer right away. He just breathes out and shifts, shoulders rolling back as if to make more room inside his own body. “I’m making sure we get to her.” A beat. His gaze flickers to mine. “And that she gets to us.”
Jack’s phone lights up on the console:Unknown Caller.He glances at me; I nod once. He taps speaker.
“This is Martin Hale, counsel for Derek Wilson,” a smooth voice says, already trying to sound inevitable. “My client, though currently in federal custody, wishes to convey…”
“You’re violating a no-contact order,” Jack cuts in, calm enough to slice through steel. “Your client doesn’t get to reach us from jail. This call is recorded and will be forwarded.”
A second tone clicks in, Santiago, patched before I even saw him move: “Counsel, disconnect. Further outreach triggers sanctions. You know the restrictions your client is under.”
There’s a silence, heavy and sour. Then the line goes dead.
The car feels bigger when it’s gone, like someone opened a window. Jack exhales once, steady, and his hand returns to my knee, anchoring us where we are, headed forward.
“Derek’s really done now,” I whisper, testing the words in the quiet hum of the car.
Jack’s eyes stay on the road ahead, but his thumb presses against my leg, firmer this time. “Yeah. Derek can’t touch us anymore. Not from a cell. Not ever again.”
The truth of it settles between us, heavier than relief, steadier than hope. For the first time in months, I believe it. I let my shoulders drop, just a fraction, enough to feel the weight shift off my chest. Outside, the city keeps moving, steady and unbothered, and I remind myself we’re not alone in this drive.
The second car follows in our rearview like proof of that. Santiago texted fifteen minutes ago: on-site. I picture it the way he described it, all clean lines and contingency, plainclothes at arrivals, one at the curb, one at the service exit, one moving as a floater in case the crowd thickens. Nothing dramatic. Nothing to spook her.
I brush the tips of my fingers over the small gift bag in my lap. Kraft paper, white tissue, the ribbon I tied three times because my hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Inside: a pocket-size journal with thick paper that won’t bleed, a set of soft pencils,and a tiny watercolor palette that fits in a palm. I wrote her name on the first page in small letters and then erased it because I wasn’t sure if that would feel like a boundary crossed.
“What if she doesn’t…” I start.
“Hey.” Jack’s hand leaves my knee long enough to lace our fingers together. “You’ll read her. You always do. We’ll let her set the pace.”
“Okay.” I squeeze back, because that’s what he needs right now, answer, not echo.
The car slips into the ramp for Terminal 4, towered letters throwing shadows over the glass. People spill everywhere: rolling suitcases, little kids in dinosaur backpacks, a woman in a red coat talking too loudly on her phone. It’s all ordinary noise until it isn’t. Until it’s the place where his life intersects with hers, where a thousand strangers are soft-edged obstacles between the three of us.
We pull to the first drop-off. The second car slides in two bays behind. A man in a navy windbreaker taps the driver’s window, then leans just enough to speak to Jack through the open door. “She’s at baggage claim. Flight landed early. Thirty minutes until curbside, give or take.”
“Santiago?” Jack asks, even though he knows.
“Downstairs already,” the man answers. “I’ll walk you to the escalators. Bags are covered.”
Jack nods. The motion is small, contained. His calm is a thing with edges, sharpened by purpose. When he steps out, he moves like he owns the air without needing to prove it, shoulders squared, stride even, eyes taking in each slice of space, assessing, discarding. I fall in beside him, the gift bag a weight I keep remembering and then forgetting I’m holding.
Inside, arrivals is a carousel of voices and fluorescent glare. Screens blink with cities that feel like different languages when you read them in a crowd. Santiago is easy to spot if you’relooking, the man who somehow makes standing still look like strategy. He clocks Jack first, then me, then the space behind us, a silent inventory.
“Gate 8 baggage.” His voice is low, the way it gets when he’s already two steps ahead. “She texted that she’s fine. No issues.”
Jack’s mouth twitches. It could be gratitude. It could be a thousand unsaid things. “Good.”
We descend as a unit without making it a show. The plainclothes men become columns you don’t notice until the roof falls. I clock them anyway, the one with the rectangular bulge of a radio beneath his jacket, the one pretending to scroll his phone but watching the sliding doors, the one whose shoes are too sensible for a tourist.
