e watched something in his face go very still - not shock, she realized, but

the number

ied it for exactly two seco

ain, the calm was still there, but underneath it something had shifted, recalculated, gone from *possible* to *confi

ssible? I signe

corridor with the particular alertness of a man cataloguing exits. "My father's assistant of thirty years reports to my grandmother. My grandmother's driver

m, whose fear had gone quiet and watchful now that he understood - even without details - that

'm having security placed on this floor within the hour. Discreet. Hospital staff will think it's a p

ring with the exhausted gratitude of someone who'd

ven years pretending I couldn't," Adrian sai

-

arkable in the specific way that meant they were very good at their jobs. Emma watched them take up positions at either end of the corridor and felt something in her chest that was a

ake had finally drifted off, machine-steady and safe for

t leavi

face. "I didn't expect you to. I'm saying it because it's the

corner of Emma's mouth t

sed, briefly, before the vigilance returned. "Ms. Carter - Emma. I need to

exhaustion of the day suddenly se

meone confirming that you already matter enough to be watched. That's worse. An enemy wants you gone. Someone co

and cold on her tongue. "You me

t lie to you and call it impossible, because you've already proven you notice when someone lies to soften the t

complete absence of performance in a man who, by every account she had, had sp

he hospital three nights ago, something raw slipped past the control, quick and gone, like a door left open half a second too long. "I'

arder than the danger. "I don't make promises I don't intend to keep," she s

irst real thread of something neither of them had signed up for on paper: the beginning

t it, and whatever ease had crept i

it?" Em

creen toward he

. Emma recognized the car. She recognized the hospital entrance behind it. She recognized, with a lurch o

ngle line of text from

more interesting. See yo

might have been fear in his voice. "He already knows about you. Before

-

f Chap