Arianne had left the last hour of her afternoon open on purpose, clearing it the moment her contact in Rohan sent back a name. She was still rereading the surgeon’s credentials for the third time when her assistant buzzed to say Nate had arrived early.
"Send him in."
Nate stepped through the door in a jacket that didn’t belong to a man who spent most of his days behind a bar, the kind he only wore when he wanted a meeting to feel like it mattered. He stopped just inside the office, taking in the twins camped out on the small couch by the window, homework spread across the coffee table between them, and Lexx propped in the playpen tucked into the corner, both fists wrapped around a teething ring he refused to let go of.
"Am I interrupting something?"
"They’re supposed to be finishing their reading before dinner." Arianne didn’t look up from her screen. "They’re finishing it very slowly."
"We’re almost done," Lily said, not looking up either.
Leo had no such defense prepared and kept his head down instead, pen moving with sudden, renewed purpose.
Nate crossed to the playpen first, crouching down to rap two knuckles gently against the rail. "Hey, trouble." Lexx blinked up at him and offered the teething ring in return, an invitation Nate declined with a laugh. "Generous of you. I’ll pass."
A knock interrupted before Nate could sit. Finn came in balancing a tray of tea and a plate of the biscuits the twins liked, a bottle warmer tucked under one arm for Lexx, setting everything down on the low table with practiced efficiency. "Figured you’d all want something before this ran long." He checked the playpen on his way past, adjusting the teething ring Lexx had flung out of reach. "And I figured this one wouldn’t say no to being fed on time either." He glanced at the folder in Arianne’s hand. "Mr. Rochefort asked me to check if you needed him pulled out of his meeting."
"Not yet. He’s still with Lucas?"
"Contract review. Might be another hour." Finn straightened, already halfway to the door. "I’ll let him know you’re in here if that changes."
"Thank you, Finn."
Once the door clicked shut, Nate finally sat, elbows on his knees, eyes on the folder like he already knew what was in it and hadn’t decided what to do with that knowledge yet. "You said you had something."
"I have a name." Arianne slid the folder across the desk. "Dr. Amara Osei. She trained in Montclair, but she’s been operating out of Rohan for the last six years, and her success rate on cases like Mikaella’s is nearly double what your surgeon at home quoted you. I’ve already spoken to her directly. She’s willing to review the full file this week."
Nate opened the folder and didn’t say anything at all, just read, thumb pressed hard against the edge of the page.
"Six years in Rohan," he said finally. "Why haven’t I heard her name before? I called every specialist I could find."
"Because she doesn’t advertise, and she doesn’t take referrals from anyone she hasn’t vetted herself. I called in a favor I’ve been sitting on for years, from someone who owed me more than they’d like to admit. That’s the whole reason we got a yes instead of a form letter." Arianne watched him absorb it. "I know it’s not the miracle you were hoping to find on your own. It’s better. You just didn’t have the right door to knock on."
"What’s the plan for getting Mikaella there?"
"A private medical transport, once her doctor clears her to fly. I’ve already spoken to the hospital in Montclair about arranging the paperwork on our end. If everything goes the way it should, she could be in Rohan within the week."
"And the pawn on the businesses?"
"Gilbert’s drawing up the paperwork now. You’ll have the terms by tomorrow, and it stays exactly what you asked it to be. A loan with collateral, nothing else." Arianne folded her hands on the desk. "You’ll get every one of them back the moment you can."
Nate closed the folder slowly, like closing it too fast might undo what was inside it. "I don’t know how to thank either of you for this."
"You already tried, at the restaurant. Gilbert and I told you to save it until we’d actually done something worth thanking us for." She tilted her head. "This is that something. You can say it now, if you need to."
"Thank you." It came out rougher than he’d meant it to. "For not treating this like a favor I’ll owe you forever."
"You don’t owe anyone forever for this, Nate. That’s not what family does." Arianne’s voice had gone quieter, the edge from her earlier calls fully put away now. "Warren might have made you feel like every dollar came with a price tag attached. This doesn’t. Not from us."
Nate looked over at the twins, Lily now reading her sentence out loud to Leo in a voice meant to prove she’d finished first, and something in his face eased that hadn’t eased all week.
"Uncle Nate, are you staying for dinner?" Lily asked, apparently having tracked the entire conversation despite her insistence on finishing her homework first.
"Not tonight. I’ve got a surgeon’s file to go over and a sister to call." Nate stood, tucking the folder under one arm like it weighed considerably more than paper should. "Next time."
"You’ll tell us if anything changes with the transport?" Arianne asked, walking him to the door.
"You’ll be the first call I make." Nate paused with his hand on the frame. "Second, actually. Mikaella gets the first one. She’s been waiting two weeks for good news, and I’m not making her wait one more hour for it."
The door had barely shut behind him when it opened again, and Franz leaned in, tie loosened, visibly relieved to be out of a room full of contract clauses. "Was that Nate leaving?"
"You just missed him." Arianne stood, rounding the desk to meet him halfway. "How was Lucas?"
"Thorough. Two hours over three paragraphs." Franz caught sight of the twins, still bent over their reading, and lowered his voice. "Did it go well? With Nate?"
"Better than well. I found him a surgeon in Rohan. Gilbert’s handling the paperwork on the businesses." Arianne let some of the tension she’d been carrying all afternoon finally leave her shoulders. "For the first time in two weeks, I think he actually believes this might work."
Franz pressed a brief kiss to her temple, the kind that said more than a longer one would have with an audience of two children pretending not to notice. "Good. He’s carried enough of it alone."
"Not anymore." Arianne glanced back at the folder Nate had taken with him, already halfway down the hall toward whatever came next. "Not if the rest of us have anything to say about it."
Franz crossed to the playpen and scooped Lexx up before the teething ring hit the floor a second time, settling him against one shoulder. Lexx immediately abandoned the ring in favor of Franz’s collar, gumming at it with the same determination he’d given everything else that afternoon. "And this one? Behaved himself?"
"Better than the twins did," Arianne said. "He only cried twice, and both times Finn had a bottle ready before I even stood up."
"Finn’s earning a raise this week." Franz bounced Lexx once, drawing a delighted, drool-heavy grin out of him. "Come on. Let’s get everyone home before dinner turns into a negotiation."