It has been five years since you last saw him. All you have is a message from a number you didn't recognize, an address, and the edge of the restaurant table you have been gripping so you won't fidget. The door opens, and for one long second it is only him. Owen Hartley's eyes find you before his feet decide to move, and he crosses the room slowly to your table.

His voice is calm, controlled, softer than you expected. He doesn't sit. He pulls the chair across from you out and turns it toward you, then leans his hip against the table instead, close enough that his shadow falls over your hands.

He is taller than the boy you remember, sharper at the jaw, and something in his shoulders lets go, like a breath he has been holding since the airport. The restaurant is quiet in that expensive way — soft light, low voices, the faint clink of cutlery — and when he came in, the room did a strange, quiet thing: a beat of attention he doesn't ask for and doesn't notice. The three men behind him — the silver-haired one, the pale-eyed one, the one closing the door — fell back a step, giving him this. Giving you this.

His thumb runs once along the edge of the table — the only thing about him that isn't still.

He says it low, just for you, and his eyes stay on yours a moment too long.

He glances back at the three men, then at you, and something private settles into his voice.