Jackson Cross had always unsettled Damen without trying. The older brother by eighteen months, the one who finished things. Built things. Paid for things. The one who had started a logistics company in his late twenties and sold half of it five years later for more money than Damen could bear to think about. Jackson was not flashy. He did not peacock. Which somehow made it worse. He wore good suits without advertising them. Drove reliable cars instead of performance cars. Bought a house in Evanston and owned it outright before forty. He did not brag because he did not need witnesses.
Damen had spent years calling him arrogant.
Carissa had always suspected what he meant was impossible to manipulate.
She typed back before she could overthink it.
No. I’m not okay.
Three dots appeared almost instantly.
Do you want to talk?
Carissa stared at the ceiling, then at the door, then finally wrote the one honest sentence she had maybe never let herself say to anyone in real time.
Yes.
They met the next morning at a coffee shop in Old Town just after eight.