"You told me he was fine two weeks ago." Sera set her coffee down harder than necessary. The porcelain clinked against the marble breakfast table like a warning shot. She didn't raise her voice. She never needed to with him anymore. "I want to talk to him, Ranon. Not through you. Not through some filtered message. Him."
Ranon leaned back in his chair, knife and fork still in hand. He cut into the eggs like the conversation was just background noise. He wasn't really eating. Just pushing food around his plate while he calculated exactly how much truth he could feed her without it biting them both in the ass later. "He's fine."
She watched him the way she watched everything now. Cataloging. Weighing. "Why can't I reach him?"
"Security upgrade." He took a bite, chewed slowly, swallowed. "Kept him off the grid. Precaution."
