Chapter 19 · The Switch

"Who's D. Grant?" I say it again, slower, my thumb still pinning his phone flat against the tray. "You don't get to go quiet on me now."

Levi's jaw ticks. Sweat's cutting a line down from his hairline, past the bruise blooming under his eye, and he's not looking at the screen anymore. He's looking at me like he's doing math on how fast he can take the phone back.

"It's not my sister," he says. "Drop it."

"Four minutes ago that panel synced to a commission server. Now some name I never heard of is sitting on top of it at midnight." I lean in, elbow locked against the gurney rail so he can't twist free. "That's not a coincidence I'm letting go of."

"You don't get to decide what you let go of." His voice is wrecked, low, but there's something under it now — not panic anymore. Calculation. "Not in here."

That's when he moves.

He doesn't go for the phone.