Chater 7 - Pressure Points
2151 Words
Morning pretended to be harmless.
Toast. Shoes squeaking on tile. Zoe’s ponytail swishing like a metronome.
“I need black socks,” she announced, already halfway up the stairs again.
“Laundry basket—under the volleyball bag,” I said.
She froze on the step. “You knew.”
“I’m magic.”
Luca reappeared with the trash bag tied tight. Taller again. Quiet again. He set the bag by the door, checked the deadbolt, checked the slider, checked me.
“Good?” he asked.
“Good,” I said. The word felt bigger than the lock.
Mateo shuffled in with his blanket as a cape. He pressed his cheek to my stomach, then lifted the blanket to cover my hip too. “Now we’re invisible.”
Sandro leaned in the doorway, tie slung around his neck like a lazy promise. “And fabulous.”
Ren set three lunches on the counter—labels forward, edges squared. “Bus in eight,” he said, and the kitchen obeyed.
Zoe snagged a banana. “If you’re late for pickup, Ashlyn’s mom can—”
“I’ll be there,” I said.
She squinted. “You look different.”
“Coffee,” I said.
She didn’t look convinced. “Okay.” A beat. “I like them here,” she tossed over her shoulder, casual as a grenade, nodding at the men.
Luca didn’t look up. “Me too.”
Mateo whispered, “They make the house wag.”
Sandro bowed. “High praise from a professional cape.”
Ren’s mouth moved like he might smile and decided not to. “Shoes. Backpacks.”
I kissed three heads and watched three bodies navigate the doorway in a herd. I used to watch to make sure the lock caught. Now I watched because they were beautiful when they moved together, like the world hadn’t managed to teach them to be small.
The quiet after them wasn’t empty. It was the sound a bow makes right before it looses.
“Perimeter?” I asked.
“Clean,” Ren said. “No footprints. No tire marks. Whoever came last night floated.”
“Or lives close enough to walk,” I said.
Ren nodded once. “That too.”
Sandro set a tray on the island. “Cappuccino for me, black for the monk, mocha for the menace.”
“I accept menace,” I said, and drank.
He slid a folder toward me. “Money map. Oxalis on top. MAE Systems in the middle. Bottom feeders trying to bite school contracts.”
“Westfield Elementary?” I asked.
“Paused,” he said. “Quietly. You’re welcome.”
Ren tapped a small key fob on the counter. “Panic remote. Side button—lockdown. Long press—silent alert. If you hate it, that’s normal. Hate isn’t a reason not to carry it.”
I picked it up. Light. Mean. I put it in my pocket. “Okay.”
“We train,” Ren said.
“We train,” I repeated.
⸻
Hallway.
Hinge side.
Shield line.
Ren moved like gravity had a crush on him. He gave me shapes instead of noise. Keep your thumbs safe. Hit with the heel. Throw the book at the face, not the chest. A shout buys half a second; eye contact buys another half; both are a door if you use your feet.
Sandro played demonstrator, dramatic to the point of slapstick until I caught him clean in the sternum with a heel-of-hand he didn’t see coming.
“Santa Maria,” he wheezed, grinning around it. “Brava.”
“Again,” Ren said, approval warm and quiet in the word.
We ran routes from hall to kitchen to mudroom to living room until the house was muscle memory instead of a stage. On the third pass I clipped my hip on the island. Pain spread like spilled coffee.
“Stop,” Ren said, hand at my elbow, steady as a wall. “Breathe.”
“I’m fine,” I said.
“I know,” he said, not moving until my shoulders did. “Again when you’re ready.”
I was ready. We ran it until the timer meant nothing and my breath meant everything.
“Water,” Sandro decreed. “Comedy.” Then, with a flourish, “In Naples I once ruined a bachelor party with a goat who unbeknownst to us was a priest.”
Ren didn’t look up. “Focus.”
“I am focused,” Sandro said. “On you ignoring my gifts.”
I laughed without meaning to. The sound loosened the room.
At the sink, cold water, citrus soap, the maple’s thin fingers writing on the window.
“Last night,” I said, not looking up. “Not an accident.”
“No,” Ren said.
“Today isn’t either.”
He dried a cup he’d already dried. “Copy.”
Sandro appeared in the doorway like he’d been summoned. “Do I order flowers for all these vows? White lilies? Red flags?”
“Burner phones,” Ren said. “Wedding expo at the Caldera overlaps the Oxalis event. Love is cover.”
Sandro’s eyes went bright. “Weaponized romance. Finally.”
⸻
Pick-up line. Car idling. Zoe hopped in, ponytail a metronome. “Coach says my serve is nasty.”
“I’m proud,” I said. “Nasty is a family value.”
She smiled at the windshield. “You’re… less jumpy.”
“I’m learning routes.”
“Me too,” she said, and the quiet after was not empty.
Luca slid into the back seat like a bodyguard. “We need trash bags.”
“For what?”
“For the trash,” he said, deadpan.
Mateo climbed in and buckled with serious purpose. He put the cape on his lap. “For the house,” he whispered to it. “In case it needs to wag again.”
Home. Backpacks dropped. Homework stacked. Zoe taped a fundraiser poster; the tape ripped like a metronome upstairs. Luca found reasons to check doors that didn’t look like fear anymore. Mateo drew a blue dragon with a smile.
“Do we tell them?” I asked, low.
“Pieces,” Ren said. “We show them what growth looks like.”
“Copy,” I said. The word fit better every time I wore it.
⸻
Dusk came quick.
The maple touched the glass.
The house went low and ready.
We laid the folder open. MAE Systems in the middle like a bull’s-eye that thought it was a blind. Oxalis above it, clean font, expensive logo. At the end of one line: Westfield—locks, with a hand-drawn pause mark. Sandro’s work.
“What if she shows up in person?” I asked.
“She won’t,” Ren said. “She sends mirrors.”
“So we send something that doesn’t blink,” Sandro said, wicked.
Before I could reply, the back camera chirped.
One ping.
Two.
Ren’s fork hit the table with a soft clink. He slid the tablet closer. Yard. Fence. The maple’s shadow. And a shape, just inside the neighbor’s floodlight—small, still. Not the hooded man from last night.
The phone on the shape lit its face in a square of cold glow.
My tablet buzzed. Unknown number. A text scrolled across the banner like a marquee:
DOOR’S PRETTY. HOW’S THE LOCK?
Sandro swore in Italian that sounded like a prayer that lost its patience. Ren’s voice went flat. “Probe.”
I typed before either of them could say don’t:
Pretty is cheap. Locks aren’t.
Three dots. Then:
WE’LL SEE.
The figure lowered the phone and walked out of frame. The neighbor’s light clicked off like applause withheld.
“Not rattled,” I said, to myself and to the room.
“Noted,” Ren said, and the warmth in the word had nothing to do with heat.
⸻
We ran evening protocol. Windows latched. Doors armed. Sensors humming like well-fed bees. The house wagged, then growled. Mateo would be very pleased.
“Five minutes,” I said, meaning before we get serious again.
“Five minutes,” Sandro echoed, reverent.
Back in the living room, the lamp low, the air thick. The day had left a shine on my skin and a hum in my bones. Anger. Control. Want. All true at once.
“Say it,” Ren said.
“I’m mad,” I said. “Not scared—mad. That anyone thinks they can point a camera into my rooms and write my story.”
“Be mad,” he said.
“And alive while you’re at it,” Sandro added, lazy on the couch, eyes not lazy at all.
I stepped between them. I didn’t ask. I didn’t apologize. I set my hands where I wanted—Sandro’s jaw, Ren’s forearm—and they let me.
“Last night wasn’t a fluke,” I said.
“No,” Ren said.
“God, no,” Sandro said.
“Short,” I warned, and felt both of them sharpen.
They didn’t rush me. That was the mercy. I climbed into Sandro’s lap, knees at his hips, and kissed him until his hands forgot how to be clever. Ren’s palm slid to the back of my neck, steady, and he drew my mouth to his—slow, deep, the kind of kiss that puts the floor back under your feet and then tilts it on purpose.
“Tell us,” Sandro said into my throat, voice scraped raw.
I told them. Plain. Want like instruction. Position like permission. Pace like a rule that belonged to me.
Clothes became background. The couch bit my thighs; the lamp made a crown of my hair. Sandro’s mouth was worship; Ren’s hands were a map. I rode the want I set, hips sure, breath hot. Language got honest. I swore because I meant it; I asked because I wanted more.
“Look at me,” Ren said, and I did, and he anchored me while Sandro groaned into my palm like the truth hurt and healed.
“f**k, yes—right there—don’t stop—” The sounds were mine, not a show. I took what I asked for and kept it. When the line came, I crossed it with my eyes open, a shiver that started low and spread greedy. They followed, bodies answering me, not the other way around. It was quick; it was sharp; it was ours.
After, we stayed exactly where we were, catching breath, skin cooling. Sandro kissed the salt off my cheek like he’d been waiting to do that all day. Ren’s thumb drew circles at my hip, steadying and not possessive.
“You led,” he said.
“And we followed,” Sandro added, pleased to the bone.
“Protocol,” I said, voice rough but sure.
“Now?” Ren asked, amused.
“Now,” I said, because wanting and war could live in the same house without apologizing to each other.
We dressed. I pulled on the sweater draped over the chair. Warm wasn’t weak. Warm was a choice.
⸻
The tablet buzzed once more on the table. Same number.
SOON.
I set it face down. “She’s impatient.”
“She’s theatrical,” Ren said.
Sandro’s smile sharpened. “So are we.”
I looked up the stairs. Zoe’s poster board leaned against her desk like a bright shield. Luca’s sneakers were lined up like soldiers by the door. Mateo’s dragon had a smile that looked like a dare.
“I’m not teaching them to hide from a world that wants me small,” I said. “I’m showing them how we get big.”
Ren’s eyes warmed without softening. “Tomorrow, we start moving pieces. A friend owes me server access he shouldn’t have. We pull subcontractor history. We find Maeve’s boss’s boss.”
“And Chicago?” I asked.
He held my gaze. “If we go, you don’t go as bait.”
“I go as the weapon,” I said.
“Good,” he said, and meant it.
We dimmed the lights in a domino run. Ren took the chair by the window like a sentinel who’d decided the dark was an ally. Sandro sprawled on the rug like a man who could sleep anywhere danger couldn’t stand him.
I watched them a long minute. The house settled around us like a body getting comfortable. Not the stillness that comes after chaos. The stillness that comes before a decision.
Upstairs, tape ripped in steady beats.
Outside, the maple wrote its thin letters on the glass.
On the counter, the panic fob sat where my hand could find it in one reach.
The night remembered last night.
By morning, it would remember this:
we trained, we wanted, we chose.
And the fault lines held.
- Writer
