Chapter 110
Rowan's POV
The elevator doors slid shut behind me, and I finally allowed myself to exhale. My reflection in the polished steel doors looked like hell—shirt wrinkled, jaw tight, eyes bloodshot from a sleepless night watching over Lena's hospital bed.
The image of her lying there, pale and vulnerable, burned behind my eyelids every time I blinked.
By the time I reached my office, the morning sun was streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows, casting long shadows across the mahogany desk. I didn't sit. Couldn't. Instead, I stood at the window, staring down at Silverton's sprawling downtown, my mind still trapped in that sterile hospital room.
The way she'd looked at me this morning—polite, distant, like I was just another concerned acquaintance. Not the man who'd held her hand all night in the ambulance. Not the man who'd threatened to physically remove the ER staff if they didn't let him stay.
Just... no one.
My phone buzzed. The encrypted line—only three people had this number.
"Tell me you found him." I didn't bother with pleasantries.
Zack Hoffman's voice came through, rough with the early morning hours in Switzerland. "Still tracking. But there's a complication."
I gripped the phone tighter. "What kind of complication?"
"Your guy's definitely in Zurich, but he's moving constantly. Three different hotels in the past week alone." A pause. "And Rowan... he's not traveling light. There's a team around him."
"Security?"
"More than that. Former intelligence, by the look of it. Counter-surveillance protocols, encrypted communications, the works. Someone's bankrolling serious protection."
The implications settled over me like ice water. Marcus didn't have those kinds of resources. Not on his own.
"Who?" I asked, already knowing Zack wouldn't have a clean answer.
"Working on it. But I've traced some financial movement—offshore accounts, layered transactions. European money, old money. Whoever's backing him knows how to hide their tracks."
I turned from the window, my free hand curling into a fist. "I don't care who they are. Find him, Zack. Whatever it takes."
"Understood. But if he's under organized protection, extraction will be—"
"Then confirm his location first." My voice came out colder than I intended. "I'll handle the complicated parts."
A beat of silence. "Rowan, if this blows back—"
"It won't. Just find him." I paused, forcing myself to think tactically instead of emotionally. "And Zack? Find out who he's working with. I need to know what we're dealing with."
"Already on it. Give me forty-eight hours."
The line went dead.
I stood there, staring at my phone, the fury building in my chest like a living thing. Marcus had hired someone to drug his own daughter. Had conspired with Nora to destroy her reputation, her career, her safety.
And now he was hiding behind some shadowy European benefactor.
My other phone—the regular office line—sat on my desk. I grabbed it and dialed Jack.
"Security detail in place?" I asked the moment he picked up.
"Yes, sir. Three-man rotation around Ms. Grant's building, former Special Forces. They're good—she won't even know they're there."
"Any movement?"
"She's still at the hospital. Ms. Walker is with her."
Good. Emily I trusted to keep her safe. At least for now.
"Boss..." Jack's voice held a note of hesitation. "Ms. Grant specifically said she didn't want—"
"I don't care what she said." The words came out sharper than I meant. "Just do it."
I ended the call before he could argue.
The rational part of my brain—the part that had built Reynolds Industries into what it was—knew this was exactly the kind of overreach Lena would hate. The kind of controlling behavior she'd spent two years quietly resenting.
But the rest of me, the part that had watched her unconscious in that hospital bed, the part that had seen her eyes go cold when she looked at me this morning... that part didn't give a damn about boundaries.
She could hate me for it later.
As long as she was safe enough to hate me at all.
---
Lena's POV
The door closed behind Rowan with a soft click, and the tension in my shoulders eased slightly.
Isabelle moved first, crossing from where she'd been standing by the window to settle in the chair beside my bed. Her expression was gentle but assessing, the way a mother looks at a child who's trying too hard to be brave.
"Well," she said, reaching for her handbag. "Now that my son has finished hovering like an anxious hen, let's see about making you more comfortable."
She pulled out a few magazines and a hardcover novel, setting them on the bedside table. "I wasn't sure what you'd feel like reading, so I brought options. Though knowing you, you'll probably ignore all of these and check your work email the moment I leave."
Despite everything, I felt the corner of my mouth twitch. "Isabelle—"
"Don't 'Isabelle' me. I know how you are." Her tone was affectionate rather than critical. She arranged the books neatly, then paused, studying my face with those sharp eyes that seemed to see everything. "How are you really feeling? And I want the truth, not the polite version you give nurses."
I wanted to deflect. To give the same "I'm fine" I'd been offering everyone. But something about the way she was looking at me—not with pity, not with the uncomfortable concern of someone who doesn't know what to say, but with genuine care—made it harder to maintain the facade.