"Listen first why."
Damian was the first to speak. "You have thirty seconds."
It wasn't a threat — the way he spoke was too flat to be a threat. But there was something underneath it that was more dangerous than a raised voice. Patience that was already extremely thin.
Adrian did not rush. He put down his cup, leaned his back against the chair, and looked at Damian in the way someone would look after calculating this reaction long before saying the sentence that triggered it.
"I told Nathan you two were here tonight," he said, "because I needed him to know. Not as a betrayal — as bait."
Damian did not move.
I was the one who asked. "Bait for what?"
"Nathan hasn't been able to be lured out of his pattern for three days." Adrian looked at me. "He's careful. Too careful to make a mista
