The hospital was quiet when I pulled up.
Not eerily so—just late-night sterile, the kind of silence lit by automatic sliding doors and soft fluorescent glow. A nurse pushed a wheelchair across the far end of the lobby. Someone at reception was nodding off behind a screen. To anyone watching, I was just another man bringing in a passed-out friend who'd maybe had too much.
I parked by the private emergency entrance. Side access—no cameras. No noise.
I opened the back door and reached for Reed.
He was still out cold. His breathing was steady, shallow. His head lolled gently when I adjusted him upright, the bandage at his elbow damp at the corners. I lifted him into my arms—he barely stirred. He smelled faintly of antiseptic, and beneath that, the familiar salt and citrus of his shampoo. It made my throat tighten.
Inside, a nurse caught sight of me—but she didn't approach.
Within seconds, a tall man in slate gray scrubs emerged from the hallway. Dr. Arman Kellis. He didn't smile. He didn't ask questions. Just nodded once.
"This the one?"
"Yes."
"Put him in 3B. Chart's ready."
I followed Kellis down a discreet hallway, Reed still in my arms. Room 3B was clean, private, unlisted. Frosted glass, soft blue walls, nothing sterile enough to feel like a crime scene. Kellis opened the door with a swipe card, then stepped aside as I carried Reed in.
"Vitals team won't enter unless I say," he murmured. "He's listed as John Garrett. Mild concussion, sedative interaction, flagged under 'internal family concern' with counsel on standby. No tox screen. No police call. He won't exist here longer than you want him to."
I laid Reed down gently on the hospital bed. He curled slightly toward the side, unconscious but safe—for now.
"Thank you," I said.
Kellis nodded again. "Don't thank me. This is already one too many favors."
He paused at the door. "You'll want to be gone before his eyes open. If he wakes up alone, he'll process. If he wakes up to your face—he'll remember how close he got to not making it out."
Then he left.
I stood there for a long moment, watching Reed's chest rise and fall.
And for the first time in days, I let my knees go soft and sat in the chair beside him.
Just breathing.
Waiting.
Because even with all the systems in place—even with every lie lined up to keep this clean—
I had no idea what would happen when he opened his eyes.
The door opened again twenty minutes later.
Kellis returned—gloves on, a folded blood pressure cuff tucked beneath one arm, IV bag in the other. He moved like a man who didn't need to be watched. Efficient. Unshaken. As if sedated young men delivered by criminals were just Tuesday's paperwork.
He didn't look at me as he approached the bed.
"Vitals first," he muttered.
He slid the cuff around Reed's arm, adjusted the valve, and squeezed. The silence between us was filled with the soft hiss of air and the steady beep of the small monitor clipped to Reed's finger.
Kellis finished threading the IV and stepped back, checking the drip with a silent nod.
"He'll be dehydrated. Bruised. Foggy, obviously," he said without looking at me. "Keep your voice steady when he wakes. Low. Familiar. You'll lose him otherwise."
I stayed at the side of the bed, gripping the metal rail like it was the only thing keeping me upright.
Reed stirred.
It started as a shift—fingers twitching, lashes fluttering. Then a soft, slurred breath left his lips, followed by a weak jerk of his shoulders.
He blinked once. Then again. His head rolled slightly, eyes unfocused under the harsh white light.
"Reed?" I said, keeping my voice even. "You're safe."
His body tensed.
Not fully awake, not fully aware—but the fear arrived before language did. His hands flailed slightly, legs pushing against the mattress. He tugged at the IV in a clumsy, desperate attempt to pull himself free.
"Reed," I repeated, louder this time, but still calm. "You're at a hospital. It's me. You're okay."
His breath caught. "No—don't—don't touch me!"
I stepped back immediately, palms up, like he was a wild animal backed into a corner. "I'm not touching you. You're not tied. You're free."
Kellis hovered at the edge of the room, watching without interfering.
Reed's eyes scanned the ceiling, the walls, everything. Then they landed on me—and for a second, he froze.
He didn't soften.
He stared.
Then his voice cracked, uneven: "…you brought me?"
I nodded slowly. "Yeah. I brought you."
His face crumpled—confused, betrayed, and terrified all at once.
"So you knew," he whispered. His fingers twitched at the edge of the blanket like they were looking for something to hold. Or throw.
"No," I said quickly. "Not until I did. And the second I knew—I got you out."
He didn't say anything. His jaw clenched. His eyes flicked toward the IV again. Then the door. Then back to me.
"I don't… I don't know what's real right now," he muttered.
"I know," I said. "It's the sedation. They gave you too much. But you're safe now."
"Are you lying?"
The question was a scalpel. Precise. Meant to cut through the last of whatever softness had survived the last forty-eight hours.
I hesitated—only for a second. But it was enough.
Reed saw it. He pushed himself up on one elbow, slower than he wanted to, jaw tight.
"Start talking."
"Reed…"
"No," he snapped, voice thin but gaining strength. "You don't get to do that. Not now. Not after—whatever the fuck that was."
He was shivering. From fear, or exhaustion, or fury—I couldn't tell anymore.
"My family," I said finally, my voice low, steady. "They… they wanted something from me. Money. Leverage. They've always been like that. I didn't give it. So they pushed. They staged this to get me to comply. That's all it was."
Reed blinked at me. Once. Twice. His eyes were wet now.
"You're still lying."
His voice cracked.
"For once, just once, can you stop fucking lying to me?"
My chest ached. I moved closer. "Reed—"
"I'm serious," he said, his voice breaking, lip trembling. "I'm scared. I'm not stupid. I know that was more than just some family stunt. I know I'm involved now, and I don't even know how. They kept asking me about names, and routes, and I didn't know what to say. I didn't know anything." His breathing quickened. "And one of them—he kicked me. In the shins. Like I was just—just some thing they could break."
His hand covered his face, but not fast enough to hide the tears.
"And I thought they'd go after my grandmother. I kept thinking—what if someone got to her? What if I never see her again and she doesn't even know where I went—"
"Hey," I said, moving fast now. "Hey—Reed, listen to me."
I sat on the edge of the bed, pulled his hands gently from his face. His eyes were red, his cheeks hot and damp.
"Your grandmother is fine," I said firmly. "I checked on her. Personally. Ten minutes ago."
Reed's breath hitched.
"I wouldn't let anything happen to her. I swear."
He sobbed then. Not loud. Not ugly. Just that heartbreaking kind of crying that came from holding too much for too long. His shoulders shook. His fingers dug into the blanket.
"I deserve to know the truth," he whispered. "You know I do. I'm already in this. I'm already ruined."
I got up and cupped his face gently, thumbing away the tears that kept coming.
"I'm so sorry," I whispered, kissing his forehead. Once. Twice. A third time. "I'm sorry, Reed."
He trembled under my hands.
"This won't ever happen again. Not to you. Not like this. I promise you."
He didn't respond. Not right away.
But he didn't pull away either. And that was something.
Reed's breathing had finally started to settle. His lashes were damp, but his face had gone slack in that fragile, in-between way people look when they're too drained to keep bracing for what might come next.
He blinked slower. Longer. Each time, it seemed like maybe he was slipping under.
I stood up quietly, as quietly as I could.
I didn't even make it halfway to the door.
"Where are you going?"
His voice was soft, but sharp. That alertness—the kind you only gain when fear trains you not to rest—came back instantly. He hadn't let go. Not really.
I turned around, met his eyes. "Just to make a call," I said gently. "I'll be right back."
Reed's expression twisted. He sat up straighter on the bed, pain flickering across his face from the movement.
"No," he said quickly. "Make the call here."
"I can't."
His jaw tensed. His eyes went wide—not panicked, not angry, just wounded.
"I promise," I added, taking a step back toward him. "I'll be standing right outside the door. If you call my name, I'll be in here in less than a second. I won't go far."
He watched me for a moment.
Measured the distance between us. Measured the lies between us, too.
Then he huffed, turned away, and flopped onto his side, facing the chair I'd been sitting in all night. Like he couldn't physically look at me anymore.
I sighed and sat back down, the chair groaning under me.
He didn't say anything else.
Neither did I. But I stayed. Because he asked me to.
And as I watched the back of his shoulders rise and fall with slow, heavy breaths, one thought curled tight and cold behind my ribs:
I'll get Sandro for this.
There's no version of this where I let it go.
I called. Texted. Left voice notes that sounded progressively more pathetic with each replay. Reed didn't respond to any of them.
I stared at the grey-blue bubble on my phone like it might crack open and spit out something—an insult, maybe. A single word. Anything. But nothing came.
I didn't blame him. He'd been sedated, kidnapped, dragged through hell, and somehow I was still sitting here in my tailored sweater pretending the office smelled like lavender and not like regret. Margo sat across from me, typing furiously, like her keyboard had wronged her.
I finally broke the silence. "What am I supposed to do?"
Margo didn't even look up. "Go talk to him."
I blinked. "He won't answer the door."
"Then break it."
"Break it?"
She met my gaze now, sharp and unforgiving. "He's probably holed up in his apartment, scared out of his mind, wondering if someone's going to bag him again the second he opens the blinds."
I winced.
"Do you know how lucky you are that Emiliano let him walk out of that mess breathing? You owe that boy more than texts. Go see him."
I didn't move. Not because I disagreed. But because I wasn't sure what version of me would show up at his door—Lucien, the composed prince of make-believe? Or Rowan, the ghost who gets people killed.
Margo kept going, relentlessly. "And when you're done groveling, make sure Sandro gets exactly what he deserves. That piece of shit deserves to be buried in his own narcissism."
And there it was.
I nodded slowly and pulled out my second phone. The one no one at the office was supposed to know existed—not even Margo. She raised an eyebrow but didn't ask.
I dialed.
"CJ," I said when the line picked up. "I need a favor. Quiet and fast."
A low chuckle on the other end. "Someone lost your crown again?"
"I need Sandro's new address."
That wiped the smile. "You sure?"
"No. But do it anyway."
"Alright, Rowan. Give me an hour."
I hung up, staring at my reflection in the office's glass wall. For someone who built an empire out of lies, it was ironic how naked I felt in that moment.
I wasn't sure if I was about to fix things… or break them worse. But one thing was clear, Sandro had made a move on someone I actually cared about. And that made it personal.
Sandro didn't live in an apartment.
Turns out he didn't change his old location, he just simply keeps rotating. He lived in a statement.
A sprawling hilltop villa thirty minutes outside the city—gated, monitored, wrapped in a web of private security contractors who carried licenses and the arrogance to match. Cameras in every corner. Two dogs in the front yard, one rottweiler and one mutt with a scarred eye that barked at shadows. Motion sensors, heat tracking, armed men who rotated shifts like they were protecting state secrets.
It was cute, really.
He'd built a castle out of paranoia—and I knew every brick of it.
Because long before this little war started, I'd helped install half of it.
Back when Sandro still trusted me. Back when I was still Rowan the Favorite, the fixer Emiliano bragged about.
CJ and I never lost access. We simply pretended we had.
Tonight, we made use of that lie.
We didn't break in. We let ourselves in—through a blind spot I designed in the northeast perimeter. There was a ten-second loop in one camera feed. Just ten. That was all we needed.
The guards were rerouted with a scheduled alert from the front gate—an alert that never actually triggered. While they scrambled to check on it, CJ disabled the sensor pad on the secondary stairwell. A clean cut, rewired in under a minute.
Inside, we moved like breath. Quiet. Invisible.
I didn't carry the gun. CJ did. That wasn't my role tonight.
My job was simpler. I brought the camera.
Sandro was asleep on his right side, snoring lightly, one arm under the pillow. The kind of sleep that only comes when you think you're untouchable.
The photograph was timed perfectly, almost cinematic: —Sandro, mouth slightly open.
—The soft glow of his smart lamp behind him.
—And CJ's hand, gloved and steady, holding the gun to his head.
We were gone in under five minutes. No trace. No noise.
By morning, the photo had been printed on high-grade matte cardstock and slipped into an envelope blacker than most people's conscience. The envelope didn't arrive by mail.
It was already inside.
Tucked neatly beneath Sandro's crystal tumbler on the marble countertop of his personal bar. A place only he touches. Only he pours from.
No fingerprints. No sign of entry. Just a flat, black envelope, aligned so perfectly it could've been placed there by his own hand.
When he wakes up and sees it, he'll assume it's something he forgot. Until he opens it.
Until he sees himself.
Asleep. Vulnerable.
With a gun to his head and no memory of it.
Just an image that said:
You were sleeping. I wasnot.