Kaiden got home with river wind still clinging to his suit and that look he wears when work went right but his chest didn’t feel it. The front door clicked soft. He clocked me on the couch, then Mia by the window with a mug she wasn’t drinking.
“Hey,” he said, gentling everything. “I picked up the two saplings from Nonno’s guy, the dwarfs we talked about. Want to come out and help us plant them?”
Mia didn’t turn. “No, thank you.” The words were clean, careful, like walking a line. “I’m going to Isla’s for a bit.”
“You want a ride?” I asked.
“I’ll drive.” She set the mug down untouched, grabbed her keys. Kaiden moved like he might say something else and then didn’t.
“At Isla’s if you need anything,” she added, softer, like she hated the way the sentence sour in the air.
“We’ll be here when you get back,” I said.
She nodded, that small, precise tilt that means I heard you, and left. The door shut with good manners. Her car backed over the jacaranda petals and turned out of sight.
For a long beat we just stood there, listening to the house be a house.
“Come on,” I said, clapping his shoulder once. “Let’s put something in the ground.”
Out back, the light was honest and the dirt still tender from last week’s rain. Kaiden had two
burlapped balls in the shade by the fence, compact, glossy–leafed, exactly the size hope should
be when you’re learning to carry it.
“Which one gets the nursery window?” he asked.
“Shorter one,” I said. “Less fight with the gutters.”
We worked without needing to script it. I cut twine; he rolled the root ball; we checked for pipes like men who’d already paid for a plumber once (which we had). The shovels bit clean. Kaiden’s tie ended up in his pocket, his shirtsleeves pushed to the elbow; dirt got under his
nails and made him look more like himself.
“How did it go with Alina?” I asked, because silence can grow teeth. “She as sharp as she
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sounded on text?”
“Sharper,” he said, setting the first tree in the hole like he was placing a crown. “Gave us predictability and a heads–up about ‘research equipment‘ moving weird at night. I put Jeremy on a watchlist.“‘
“Good.” I tamped earth with my boot. “We can use a friend in a tower.”
He huffed a laugh, no joy and no bitterness, just acknowledgment. We backfilled. He watered slow, not drowning them, like Luca taught us. When the soil settled, he fished in his pocket and held up a coin.
“From Dad,” he said. “Said to put an intention under the roots.”
I lifted the burlap edge; he slid the coin in. “Can I ask for us to find some peace again?” I said.
“Yeah.”
We staked the trunk, soft ties instead of wire. From the shed I dug up a loop of red mas, n twine and wound one neat band around the stake, not magic, not a superstition we’d cori in daylight, just a reminder. He saw it and nodded, grateful without words.
The second tree went by the front gate, where the morning sun hits first. We dug, set, backfilled, good work, the kind that uses hands and leaves your head a little bit quieter. Kaiden straightened, palms on his hips, breathing deep like the hole had been inside him and the shovel finally found it.
“She said Isla’s,” he murmured, needing to say it once out loud.
“Isla’s,” I agreed. “Someone who will feed her something she won’t eat and talk until she doesn’t have to.”
“Or not talk,” he said. “She’s good at both.”
We watered the second tree. Mud darkened the circle around the trunk, a clean ring like a new name. I wiped the shovel with my palm and leaned on it. Kaiden came to stand beside me, shoulder around shoulder, the we’ve done so many times before.
“They’re small,” he said.
“So were we,” I said. “Look how rude we turned out.”
He snorted, the sound loosening something in my chest.
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A minute later his phone buzzed: Isla: Got her. We’re okay. He showed me, and we both let out the same breath.
We stood another moment, watching water sink. Two olives in the dirt, one coin buried with intention, one red loop catching the light. Not solutions. Not miracles. Just roots beginning.
“She’ll come back when she’s ready,” I said.
“We’ll be here,” he answered.
We left the hose coiled just so. Order where we could make it and went inside to wait like men.
The house was in that late hush, dishwasher ticking, the olive saplings dark shapes through the window, when my phone vibrated face down on the coffee table. Unknown number, but the label I’d added flashed anyway: ALINA – NIGHT CONTROL.
I answered before the second buzz. “Sokolova.”
“Mr. Donatello,” she said, precise. “I have a problem.”
I was already on my feet, grabbing my jacket. “Talk to me.”
“Gate Three, Lane B. Reefer container GLDU 7429186, declared as ‘research centrifuge components.‘ Seal is intact, but the temperature logs are falsified. Manifest requires minus twenty; the unit never went below two. Weight is eight hundred kilos heavier than declared. Driver presented a duplicate chassis ticket, time–stamped fifteen minutes in the future.”
I palmed the doorjamb, brain swapping from home to work. “You holding it?”
“I can justify a fifteen–minute stop on refrigeration audit before the union steward arrives,” she said. “After that, I need a customs flag or a police request. I would prefer not to call either until I know which mess I am buying.”
“Copy.” I put her on speaker and thumbed a text to Jeremy: Pull docs on GLDU7429186. Vendor, consignee, routing. Now. Then to Kaiden: Rivermark issue. Medical freight. I’m heading out. Stay for Mia.
A beat, then Kaiden’s reply: Go. I’ve got home.
Back to Alina. “What vendor?”
She didn’t shuffle paper; she knew it. “Consignor: Myriad Research Holdings. Consignee: a shell in Alexandria. Routing shows a late add to your preferred gate time, someone piggybacked on your slot.”
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“Who cleared the add?”
“My system shows a user ID that does not exist,” she said, irritation dry as dust. “Which means someone used an old credential. They were sloppy; that is our luck.”
My phone pinged. Jeremy: Myriad shows three fronts. Same tax agent as that shady clinic cluster. Sending you doc dump + a letterhead match. Also: container was swapped from a Santos feeder.
“Alina, we’re flagging it,” I said. “Can you lock the box on a safety inspection hold and route the driver to Secondary?”
“Yes,” she said, immediate. “I will cite a compressor anomaly and request the steward’s presence. That buys us twenty.”
“Buy thirty,” I said. “I’ll be there in twenty.”
“Dress warm,” she said. “Wind is ugly on the river.”
I killed the call and grabbed what I needed. Shoes, keys, gun.
As Lhit the porch, Alina texted a photo: the gate lane under sodium lights, a white reefer unit beading condensation, a driver in a cap checking his phone. Fifteen minutes, her caption red.
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