Lucas remained between his client and the window, one ear on Tamsin as she scribbled away in the kitchen, and the other on the back and forth between Jayden and Lottie.

Jayden wasn't half-assing this, that was for sure. He was utterly meticulous, combing over each and every piece of paper in Lottie's equally painstaking file-keeping. His sister had kept all of Tamsin's medical records in that box file since she was born, every bit of paper in date order, so that she always had everything she needed if Tamsin ever needed to see a new doctor.

"So this is the point at which the cost of the insulin began to rise sharply," Jayden mused, "but six months before that it was the insulin pen that hiked."

"Yeah," Lottie agreed. She'd lost the tone of suspicion now that they were on the detective work, and Lucas noted they seemed to be functioning pretty well as a team now that they'd settled down. "And then here you can see the pen's needles have gone up."

"Right," Jayden agreed. "It's the death of a thousand cuts, isn't it? But even then, these cuts are-" he paused and glanced toward the ceiling before he looked at the paper again "almost five hundred percent each, in the space of a year. And this..." He drifted to a halt, then sighed a little. "This began before my dad died.."

Lucas blinked at that. "I thought we were operating under the belief that these changes were made after that date?"

"Yeah." Jayden nodded grimly. "You can't make price changes like these without board approval. And that means the board were already calling secret meetings before they ousted me. They knew I would fight them on this."

Lottie pursed her lips. "Between us, Lucas and I make just over a hundred thousand dollars a year. This is a rent-stabilized apartment, currently costing two and a half thousand dollars a month."

Jayden nodded as he listened. "So rent's just under a third of your take-home. Then you lose around another forty thousand in federal and state income taxes. Then you've got health insurance?"

Lottie nodded. "One and a half per month for me and Tamsin. Lucas' work provides his."

Jayden frowned. "So you have around fifteen to twenty thousand dollars to live on over the year."

"Right." She nodded again.

Jayden frowned down at the folder. "So around fourteen hundred a month, for food, water, electricity, and medication." He sucked air through his teeth. "That's tight."

"And it wasn't anywhere near as tight two years ago," Lottie murmured.

"Yeah. This is unacceptable." Jayden said it quietly, but there was an edge to his words. "There are families who don't have two employed parents. Or have more children. Or who aren't in rent-stabilized apartments. And there are sure as hell families out there who can't explain this directly to me or any board member. This isn't how you do business. This is how you make short-term profit."

"By killing your customers," Lottie said.

"Like a virus," Jayden agreed. He began to settle all the paperwork back neatly in the folder, and then closed it and offered it to her. "Thank you, Lottie. I really appreciate this. You didn't have to take time out of your day to talk to me. I swear to you I'm gonna do everything in my power to make this right as fast as I can."

She blinked at him as she accepted the folder. "I realize once lawyers get involved these things can take years," she admitted as she took it back to the cupboard it came from.

"Maybe," Jayden agreed. "But stuff like this is damning. It can turn people against a company once the media get wind of it."

Lucas felt his eyebrows climb slightly. "You're suggesting damaging your own company? What would that achieve?"

"I'm just throwing ideas around," Jayden said. "I figure it's a potential threat, to go to journalists with this story. It'd directly affect the only thing they care about: their bottom line. It could damage their income for years to come, not just for a few weeks. They might be willing to negotiate if that's on the table."

"I don't know," Lucas mused. "These are the people who held a secret ballot to oust you. They were already working together before your father's death. They aren't gonna invite you back in and give you a seat at the table. You are exactly the same threat: you want to lower their incomes."

Jayden drummed his fingers against his knee. He looked fairly adorable with his features scrunched up in deep thought and his brain whirring along so fast that it made his eyes skip back and forth like he was actually looking at facts and figures laid out in front of him.

Lucas tamped down on that train of thought. He didn't need to be mooning over his client, especially not with his sister here.

"I'm finished!" Tamsin came running back in, her schoolbook in one hand, and she held it out to Lucas for him to inspect.

"Oh, what've we got here?" He finally sat, perching at the far end of the couch from Jayden, and Tamsin hopped up to sit between them. "You got math today, huh?"

"Yeah!" Tamsin waggled her feet. "Did I do it right?"

"Well, let me see here..." He pored over her questions and answers. She was only in the second grade, so they were simple by his standards, but for Tamsin this was all new stuff she was only just learning. "How did you work this one out, sweetie?"

"Well, um." She poked her tongue out a bit as she looked at it. "That's eight ones and nine tens, and that's..." She walked him through her process pretty confidently, and her total was correct, so he nodded as he listened.

"Perfect," he said when she finished. "I think your teacher's going to be really happy with your work. I sure am, and I know your mom is, too."

"I am!" Lottie agreed with a huge grin. "Shall we read some?"

"Yeah!" Tamsin threw herself off the couch.

"Okay. Go choose a book, honey."

"Okay!" Tamsin ran away again, this time toward her bedroom, and Jayden was watching her with a wistful look in his eye.

Lucas looked to him. "You okay?"

"Yeah." He spoke softly, still lost in thought. "It's... weird. To me. I'm not saying you're weird, I just..." He drew a deep breath. "My dad wouldn't ever do that. What you just did. I had to go to my room, do my homework, he didn't have time to help me with it or check it for me, anything like that. Mom did her best, but when I got into high school she couldn't help with math or science. She wasn't a quadratic equations or molecular bonds expert, and I never expected her to be, but dad was and he didn't..."

Jayden tailed off as Tamsin came running back into the room, a book clutched in her hands. She presented it to Lottie with wide eyes and a wider smile.

"Oh, Evangeline Mudd again?" Lottie laughed and lifted Tamsin up into her lap. "All right. Where were we..."

Jayden stood and gestured toward the door. "Thank you for everything, Lottie. Is it okay if we see ourselves out?"

She looked up at him and nodded. "Go kick their butts, Jayden. Or at least get your attorney to kick their butts."

"Yeah." He gave a slight, crooked smile. "I will. Take care. You too, Tamsin. It was nice meeting you."

"You too!" Tamsin waved briefly, but was eager to get her nose into her book.

Lucas tailed Jayden out of the apartment, then gave him a quizzical look once they were outside. Marcus had already begun to descend the stairs.

Jayden returned Lucas' look, then followed Marcus. "I like her," he said. "She's smart as fuck."

"Yeah." Lucas followed, but he said nothing else.

Whatever Jayden felt about his father would have to wait. It wasn't something to discuss with other ears around.

"You're still a majority shareholder," Lucas mused as Marcus drove them back south toward Jayden's home.

"Correct," Jayden said.

"Does that do anything for you? Give you any control?"

Jayden shrugged. "I can do things like force a board meeting."

Lucas nodded as he considered it. "But you can't hire or fire?"

"Not single-handedly. Not unless the company starts underperforming, but even then it'd be under duress. I could feasibly call a shareholder meeting and initiate a vote on firing someone, but it's a risky move."

"Got it." He rubbed his jaw, then decided to change the subject. "I'm sorry your relationship with your dad wasn't what you might've wanted it to be."

Jayden blinked at that and crossed his arms. He was closing in on himself, Lucas noted. It was understandable. Very few guys really wanted to talk about their relationships with their fathers.

"And your dad?" Jayden said. "How did you get along?"

"We get along great," Lucas answered. "I don't think he wanted me to join the military, but he never said so. He always made it clear he'd support me whatever choices I made in life."

Jayden bit his lip. "I'm really glad to hear it. And you're... You're a great uncle to Tamsin. Is it okay if I ask where her dad is?"

Lucas nodded. "Yeah. John died three years back. It was sudden, unexpected. They'd only just got the apartment and suddenly Lottie was on her own, so I pulled out of the Navy and came home to help her out."

"That was one hell of a risk, wasn't it?"

He shrugged. "It's not hard for SEALs to find work in the civilian sector so long as we're willing to play to our strengths. I wasn't too interested in joining the PD, so I went into executive protection. Way less desk time. I'm not a desk kinda guy."

Jayden's arms uncrossed slowly, and he rested his hands in his lap. "Have you ever killed someone?"

It was always a question that came out, sooner or later, once people got comfortable with a veteran in their midst. Lucas was well-used to fielding it. "Yes."

"Huh." Jayden looked out the window for a couple of blocks, then regarded Lucas again. "I'm sorry you had to. But I also appreciate that you were out there protecting us. Like you're doing now. Maybe on a smaller, more personal scale, but that's what you do, isn't it? Take a stand, keep people safe." He nodded to himself. "You're a good guy, Lucas. I'm honored to know you."

Lucas didn't quite know how to take that. He'd heard so many thank you for your service’s since he'd come home, but most were just an automatic thing people said because they felt they were supposed to.

From Jayden, there was a weight to it. An honesty that he hadn't expected. Maybe he suspected that the Brainiacs of the world found the need for soldiers and military action distasteful. If only everything could be solved like a puzzle, an intellectual exercise where the losers would politely concede, and the winners moved forward.

But Jayden was smart enough to know that, no matter what his ideals might be, reality didn't match them. He knew the world needed protectors.

So Lucas dipped his head. "Thank you."

"I could thank you," Jayden said with a straight face. "Later tonight. In person."

Lucas rolled his eyes, then glanced toward the door to check Marcus wasn’t eavesdropping. "You can't be serious."

"I can be! All the time! Any day, or night, I can just turn on serious like that!" He snapped his fingers.

Lucas did his best not to laugh, but he couldn't help himself.

God, Jayden really was adorable. There was nothing Lucas could do about that, and it was about time he started to accept that they had some serious chemistry going on. Beneath the lust, beneath the fucking amazing sex, they had a spark. A connection. Lucas liked him. He never expected to, and sure as hell never wanted to, but if he didn't stop fighting it, it might be the thing that distracted him at the wrong moment, and that wasn't worth thinking about.

He liked Jayden, and he was going to do everything in his power to keep him safe.

Everything.