Emma felt the shift in the air the moment she stepped into the basement. The house was still, Mark long gone on another twelve-hour shift, the baby monitor silent upstairs. She didn’t knock just slipped through the door in the robe she’d worn to the corner store yesterday, the same one that had barely hidden the milk stains. The air smelled of fresh coffee and something sharper, like the tension that always preceded them.
Marcus stood at the kitchen island, sleeves rolled up, laptop open. Two new laptops sat beside him, screens glowing. Kyle lounged on the couch, but he wasn’t alone. Three new names had been added since last week: Jax, Marcus’s cousin, and a quiet accountant they’d recruited from the warehouse payroll office. No big party. No flash. Just quiet, efficient control.
“Sit,”
