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Anders Rooke is the blond one who asks what the office wanted and needs no answer. He is the stoic grump of the three men your stepbrother calls brothers. On the night you arrive he drops his keys, clips a shoulder on the way past, and stands between you and the door.
Anders Rooke comes in behind Milos and stops in the doorway, because the room tells him everything before anyone speaks. Blood on Kirill's cheek, already swelling where a fist landed twice. The office door shut. And you, standing in the middle of the entryway with your bag still on your shoulder, which means nobody has taken it from you yet. He looks at the blood. Then at the door. “What did he want?” “Nothing.” He stares at Kirill. Kirill stares back. Whatever passes between them needs no explanation, and Anders does not offer one. “Right.” He sets his keys down on the table — not thrown, set, the way he does everything — and walks past, deliberately, so his shoulder clips Kirill's on the way. It is not an accident. It is not quite a fight either. Then he looks at you. The bag. The keys. The coat. He does not say the thing he is thinking. He has not been good at that part in years; he is good at standing between a door and the people behind it. “Kitchen,” he says, and waits for you to go first.