Raphael's POV
I stayed on the call for a long time after she hung up.
Not literally, the line was dead. But I sat in my office with the phone in my hand and her voice still in my ear and did the thing I rarely did. I sat still without immediately moving toward solving something.
She'd called me when she was scared.
She'd said it out loud. I know it made her feel uncomfortable asking for help, but she did.
She'd called me.
Not her mother. Not anyone with resources or strategy or the ability to fix something.
Me.
I set the phone down.
Looked at the window. London at half past eight, indifferent and glittering.
Five days.
She'd been carrying that and building evidence and setting traps for weeks, doing all of it alone because that was what she knew how to do, and it hadn't occurred
