No queue today, we’ll be back on Friday🙃

“I need the addresses to the apartment buildings you have. I might be taking one.” Dale sat obediently, opening one of the drawers Lysander hadn’t checked and pulling out a paper. “They are not vacant.” “Didn’t ask.”

Max’s eyes were wide with shock but he was… smiling? Just ever so slightly, the smallest curve of his lips, but he was smiling. That lit an unfamiliar fire in Lysander’s chest.

Lysander nodded, chanced a glance at his husband. There was a very specific breed of half-crazed cruelty that Dale inspired in him. He was overly aware of the fact Max had never seen him behave this way before.

A hand shot out so fast there was no opportunity for Dale to dodge. Fingers knotted in his hair, he pulled the man closer and examined his face. “You look like shit. Don’t embarrass me.” He pushed him away roughly. “I will do better, sir,” Dale grit out.

Dale looked like he might be physically ill. Imagining what Lysander’s true purpose for his visit was, most likely. “Yes, sir,” he repeated. “Good, good. Where’s Teddy?” He pocketed the letter as he said it. “Assisting some newer recruits with a pick up, sir.”

Dale swallowed, clearly measuring his words carefully. “Yes, sir…” “Good!” Lysander crossed the room, beginning to open desk drawers without warning. “Did you miss the girls?” he asked, pulling out what was clearly a personal letter and skimming the contents.

The door crashed open and the man inside jumped from his desk in shock. “Surprise inspection, Harriet!” Lysander announced, grinning when Dale backed into the windows behind his desk, a feeble attempt to put as much space between himself and Lysander as possible. “Did you miss me?!”

That was how they all ended up in a dingy old elevator though, Lysander leading the group down a dim hallway when the doors finally screeched open again. He didn’t bother to knock on the door he stopped at, planting a solid kick to the wood beside the knob instead.

“Can I come?” Max asked, blinking innocently back at her when Miranda sent him a sideways glance. “I wanna meet him.” The others looked to Lysander—he’d have to break them of that eventually. He wasn’t Max’s keeper, if his husband wanted to come he could come.

Max had tensed at the sound of the man’s name, but when neither of the girls seemed to react, his shoulders dropped again. Lysander pushed it from his mind, nodding when Ren glanced up at him. “I’ve been meaning to find an excuse to go bully him.”

“Dale has like, six apartment buildings still in his name, why don’t we just find one Ant likes and take that?” Ren was saying, watching Sasha’s progress as she repainted his nails. “What’s he gonna do, tell us no?”

With the Wetherby’s dead and the threat of retribution no longer looming overhead, Anatoly didn’t need to be as confined to the office as he had been. Anatoly himself seemed reluctant to agree with that thought, but he listened obediently as the others discussed.

It was pure chance that Dale came back up in conversation the next week.

Sasha sniffled. Her voice was a whisper. “Thank you, Lysie.” “Don’t thank me and don’t start crying again. Just think it over. Take your time. She’ll still be there when you make your decision, whatever it ends up being.”

Her mouth opened, but Sasha faltered. “You have to figure that out first,” Lysander told her. “When you make up your mind on that, you’ll have your answer. Only you can make that choice though. I can’t decide for you.”

Lysander studied her a moment, leaning back in his seat as if he needed to see the whole picture. “Is she worth it?” he asked eventually. Sasha frowned. “What—?” “Is knowing her again worth the risk? Is she worth digging those things out and letting them see the light of day again?”

Icy eyes met hers and suddenly Sasha was glad she had come to Lysander instead of his brother. If anyone understood that desperate need to make sure the past remained forgotten, it was this man. “What if I’m not ready?”

“You don’t know whether to leave the past buried or not.” It wasn’t a question. It was an observation. Slowly, Sasha nodded. “I don’t…” She couldn’t figure out what she was trying to say. “What if… I start pulling on memories… and more dig their way out in the process.”

The smile she’d been attempting to smother finally pushed its way to the surface. “She just wanted to protect me. I wasn’t sure how to explain that she couldn’t.” Her words trailed off and Lysander took that to mean story time was over.

“She wanted me to go with her, to where her tent was, wanted to move hers closer when I refused. I tried to tell her it was dangerous, to be so close to me all the time, but she kept coming back. I was sure if my father ever found me, she was as dead as I was.”

Someone else might have tried to remind her she was eleven; she shouldn’t have had to just 𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘶𝘮𝘦 this girl was a threat. Lysander knew better. He’d been even younger when he’d learned how well a threat could disguise itself as a friend. So he waited for her to go on.

“She thought you were lost,” Lysander filled in and Sasha nodded. “Asking if I was looking for my family, where my house was. I knew it was a bad idea, to lead a stranger back to my tent, but I was so excited by this novel new method of communication. I let it cloud my judgement.”

Sasha swallowed. “I hadn’t spoken to anyone but myself in weeks. I think some part of me had been hoping she would understand.” She gave a weak little giggle. “She didn’t. Didn’t speak a word of Japanese. But… she drew me a picture. A little family with a question mark, and then a house.”

Lysander sat his cup down—Dale’s name always put a bad taste in his mouth. “She had this tattoo… a dragon. My mom’s tattoos were all dragons, wrapping around her arms and her legs and onto her back. I don’t even know what came over me, but all of a sudden, I had my hand wrapped around her wrist.”

“Dana,” she agreed, fighting the smile that tried to fall across her face at the sound of the name. “I knew her.” “Knew?” Lysander pushed before she could drift off with her thoughts. “Knew… She lived on the streets at the same time as me. Before Dale.”

Dana… Dango. She’d done pretty good with that one. Some of the tension lifted from her shoulders.

Sasha blew out a long breath. “Someone had a meeting with Ren today. Nothing on the books, it was right after he got off the phone with you.” “Dana,” Lysander supplied with a nod.

Lysander’s cup was half empty by the time she had deemed her drink suitable for consumption. He let her get a few sips in before he repeated his first question. “What happened?”

Sipping his coffee, Lysander watched Sasha dump sugar into her own cup, standing to dig through the fridge for creamer, nose crinkling when she saw it was vanilla. Not even French vanilla, just vanilla. These men hated fun.

Lysander just nodded. He started in the direction of the kitchen and Sasha followed without a second thought. Climbing up onto his perch by the coffee maker, he waved a lazy hand in the direction of the island and a second stool drug itself across the floor. “Sit.”

“No!” A white brow lifted in answer to the panic in her eyes, the frantic shaking of her head. “No?” “No, Lysie. It’s nothing like that. I…” She what? She had no idea, hadn’t quite figured out how to put it into words she could stomach yet.

She hiccuped, gaze falling to the floor. “Am I getting dressed to leave the house?” From anyone else, it could be a perfectly normal question. From Lysander, it was impending bloodshed.

Lysander shook his head. “It’s fine.” Everything from his posture to the edge in his voice said it was anything but fine, but then he reached out and used the sleeves of his hoodie to finish drying her face. Instead of asking if she was okay, he said, “What happened?”

Catching sight of the wet spot in the center of his chest, Sasha grimaced. The hoodie had offered a much needed buffer between their skin, but it had done nothing to keep her tears from seeping through. “Sorry, Lysie…”

She didn’t let go, even after the tears had stopped, nothing but a bad case of hiccups left in their wake. Lysander was rubbing slow circles in her back, but she could tell he was reaching the end of his tether. Begrudgingly, she pulled away.

She had no idea how long they stood there like that. Long enough that Max had come searching for his husband, saw what was happening from the loft, and tiptoed back to their room just as quietly. Long enough that Lysander had pressed his cheek to the top of her head.

It was probably the stiffest, most violently uncomfortable hug she had ever received, but for some reason, it was exactly what she needed right then. Lysander ran cool naturally, but the hug was warm, warm enough to melt everything else away.

She all but crashed into him, arms wrapping around his middle, face pressed to his chest. Lysander’s hands came up to rest gingerly on her back. It was only after a moment that he made any attempt to tighten his grip. If she weren’t sobbing into his chest, Sasha would have laughed.

Trying to avoid her gaze, Sasha thought, before Lysander grabbed an abandoned hoodie off the back of the couch and pulled it over his head. He held his arms out wide. Waiting.

“Can I have a hug?” she asked weakly. It was a pointless question that she knew the answer to already, but whatever was left of that little girl in her had asked it anyway. Icy eyes glanced around the room frantically.

Sasha wanted to be disgusted by the fact he was in nothing but his underwear, but she was too distracted by the horrified look on his face when he caught sight of her. “Why the fuck are you crying?” Was she crying? She hadn’t even realized. No wonder the cab driver had looked at her funny.

She couldn’t go after Ren. She wasn’t ready to see that woman again yet. That left her with only one other option. “You better have a really good fucking reason for interrupting me and my husband after we were apart for two weeks,” Lysander informed her as he descended the steps from the loft.

This is my warning that if any queues are late next week it’s cause my dumbass little sister and her bum ass boyfriend just had a baby so now I have to go see them🥳 Tomorrow and Monday are ready to post but I make no promises for the other days🙂‍↔️

Sasha didn’t stop. She needed one of the boys. Miranda was her best friend, but she was as good at giving advice as she was at reading a room. She’d tell Sasha whatever it was she thought Sasha wanted to hear most. Sasha needed someone who wouldn’t sugarcoat anything.

The walls were pressing in on all sides. Her lungs constricting. “I have to go,” she announced, but her own voice seemed far away as well. “I have to… yeah, I have to go.” She barely remembered to grab her phone before she was heading for the front door. “Sasha!” Miranda yelled after her.

The memories trickled in slowly, but she could see that woman clearly now, just a girl when Sasha had known her. Dango, Sasha had called her. They’d not known each other’s real names; Sasha’s English had been so weak they’d communicated primarily through drawings. She had called Sasha ‘Grub’.

“She…” Sasha began and the others fell quiet. “She was there… when I was on the street. Before Dale…” She was sure her heartbeat had to be audible to the room at that point, hands trembling as she bent to retrieve the picture, holding it gently this time, like it was something priceless.

“Um…” Sig said slowly, “What? What’s happening?” “Nothing, no one’s talking to you, Sigmund!” Miranda snapped back, but Sasha could barely hear their bickering, voices far off and muted, as if she was under water all of a sudden.

Her mouth had gone dry, throat closing as her pulse jackhammered behind her ears. “Hana yori dango…” she whispered before she’d even realized the words were on the tip of her tongue.