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“You’re done with the nursery.”

I look at the dresser pieces still covering the rug. “That sounds suspiciously like an order.”

He crosses the room and crouches in front of me, resting one hand against my knee. “It’s a request backed by observation.”

“Very diplomatic.”

“I’ve been practicing.” His thumb brushes over my knee before he looks toward the girls. “Who wants a snack?”

Babs cheers and races for the kitchen and Biddy takes my hand and walks with me instead.

That tiny difference between them makes me smile.

Babs arrives everywhere at full speed. Biddy likes making sure everyone gets there with her.

I squeeze Biddy’s hand as we follow the others toward the kitchen, adjusting my pace when she stops to inspect a sticker stuck to the hallway wall.

By the time we reach Bane, he’s cutting apples and Sprout waits beneath the counter for an accident.

Babs climbs onto a stool and starts explaining where she wants the dinosaur picture, Biddy interrupts to remind her that the stars need space too, and I lower myself onto the stool beside them, my swollen ankles reminding me why I left work early.

A year ago, leaving in the middle of an afternoon would’ve meant checking Spencer’s schedule before my own and rearranging whatever I had planned around whatever he’d decided he needed.

Today, I moved my last meeting, handed the rest of the rollout projections to Lena, and came home because I was tired.

Bane slides an apple slice toward me without interrupting Babs’s increasingly complicated explanation of dinosaur placement.

I take it and rest my other hand over my stomach and the girls continue planning around us.

Monday morning, Lena walks into my office, closes the door behind her, and places her phone on my desk.

Her expression makes me stop reading. “What happened?”

She sits across from me instead of answering immediately. “I saw something online this morning.”

I glance at the phone. “About me?”

“About Bane.”

That gets my full attention.

Lena slides the phone toward me. “It could be gossip that disappears by lunch, but I figured you’d rather know.”

She’s right about that.

I unlock the screen and find a post from one of the smaller celebrity accounts that usually survives by turning old photographs into new scandals.

A picture of Bane standing several feet behind Spencer at a movie premiere fills the top of the post. He looks younger, although the expression is familiar enough that I can practically hear him complaining about photographers blocking an exit.

The caption beneath it makes my stomach tighten.

Anyone else curious about Benny Wolf’s missing years? Spencer Stone’s bodyguard disappears, then shows up running a security company with major financial backing. How does that happen?

I scroll through the comments as Lena watches me from across the desk. People are already filling the missing years for themselves, with one claiming Bane worked abroad, and others have started questioning who funded Wolf Shield before its first major contracts.

Almost two weeks ago, Wolf Shield’s communications team received inquiries about this exact period, with the earliest traced back to Spencer’s publicist.

The company gave them the information already available publicly, and when nothing appeared afterward, I assumed the attempt had died. Looking at the post now, I understand what Spencer was doing instead.