Then Dorian bent down, picked up Sterling’s gun with the casual disdain of someone removing litter from a sidewalk, and examined it. Something crossed his face – a flicker that might have been amusement, might have been contempt – before he straightened and addressed the bodyguard.
“Take him to the police. Make sure they know what happened. All of it – the weapon, the threats, the hospital.” He paused. “And if his family’s lawyers show up before the paperwork is filed, call mine. They’re better.”
The bodyguard nodded, lifted Sterling by the armpits with the ease of a man moving a piece of furniture, and dragged him toward the exit. Sterling’s shoes squeaked against the linoleum as he went – the only sound in a lobby that was still holding its breath.
I watched him disappear through the glass doors. The boy I’d loved at seventeen. The man who’d called me his girlfriend an hour ago. Being dragged unconscious out of a hospital by a stranger, with the imprint of my hand still on his face.
I waited to feel something – satisfaction, relief, vindication. What I felt instead was tired. Bone-deep, marrow-deep tired. The kind of exhaustion that comes not from physical effort but from the sustained experience of being a person whose life refuses to simplify itself.
“I’m sorry,” I said to Dorian, and the words came out flatter than I intended. “This – he – I’m the reason he was here.”
“You’re not responsible for someone else’s insanity, Marlowe.” Dorian’s voice was gentle now, the clinical edge gone. “He’s responsible for his choices. You’re only responsible for surviving them.”
I nodded. My body felt like it was made of something heavier than bone.
“I’ll make sure every cent he paid is returned to his account,” Dorian continued. “And Rowan’s treatment stays covered. Full stop.” He pulled his phone from his coat pocket. “Give me your number. We’ll talk properly once things settle down.”
I gave it to him. My voice sounded like it was coming from someone standing behind me. He saved it, gave me a smile that carried real warmth – the warmth of shared history, of a boy who’d eaten at my kitchen table and become a man who owned a hospital – and walked away toward the examination rooms, his coat swinging behind him with the quiet authority of someone returning to work he cared about.
Sable materialized at my elbow. “So,” she said. “He’s… something.”
“He’s Rowan’s friend from school.”
“He’s also tall. And owns a hospital. And just had a man knocked unconscious to protect you. I’m just noting facts.”
“Sable.”
“I’m noting facts, Marlowe. Objectively. Without bias.” She paused. “I think I’m in love.”
Despite everything – the gun, the blood, the unconscious ex-boyfriend being dragged to a police car – I almost laughed. Almost.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go see Rowan.”
Across the city, in an apartment that cost more than most people’s lives, Caelum walked through his own front door and felt the silence hit him like a wall.
He’d left the office late. The day had been the usual procession of meetings and decisions and the controlled performance of authority – but underneath it, running like a second pulse, was the thought of Marlowe. Her face at breakfast. The roses he’d left on her bed. The note – sunshine – scribbled in handwriting he’d never bothered to improve, because who writes notes anymore? He did. For her. Because she was the kind of person who deserved handwritten things, and the realization that he’d become a man who thought in those terms was both thrilling and terrifying.
He climbed the stairs to her room. Knocked.
Nothing.
“Marlowe?” He knocked again. Louder. “It’s me.”
Silence. Not the silence of a person ignoring you – the silence of an empty room, which has its own particular quality, its own weight.
He tried the handle. The door opened. The room beyond was vacant – bed made, closet closed, the roses still in their vase on the nightstand. No Marlowe. No Sable. No note to match the one he’d left.
The first thought was innocent: she’d gone out. Shopping, maybe. A walk. People go places. Wives leave rooms.
Then his phone vibrated.
Unknown number. A message. He opened it the way you open anything from an unknown number – with the vague, instinctive caution of a man who’d learned that not all surprises are gifts.
Two photographs.
The first: Marlowe, in a hospital lobby. Her arms wrapped around a man – tall, broad-shouldered, wearing a cap pulled low over his face. The embrace was tight, close, the kind of hug that spoke of familiarity. Of intimacy.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.