22. Rowan
ROWAN
The bullet didn’t go in. It went across.
That’s what the surgeon told me.
Having your family’s name on the side of a hospital helps get access to top doctors and surgeons in emergencies. After a phone call from Declan, the surgeon arrived twenty minutes later and had me cleaned, stitched, and bandaged within an hour.
Furrow wound, he called it. Skin and muscle along the top of the shoulder. It bled like something much worse and hurt like hell in the moment, but nothing that needed an operating room or a night in a bed.
This is what money buys. Not immunity from being shot. Just the best possible version of getting shot.
So I’m physically fine. A deep ache, an inconvenient bandage, a bottle of pills I have no intention of taking.
What’s actually hurting is that nobody knows where Leah is.
“I swear, if Walsh and his guys got to her again, I’ll end every one of them myself,” I say as the three of us come off the elevator on her floor.
Her guard lost her after she talked him into bringing her back here for “a few things.” When he figured out he’d been played, he let himself into the condo and found a note. I want to see it myself. I notice things other people miss.
When I pick it up, what I see is a sacrifice.
“She doesn’t mean this.” I’m certain of it. “She didn’t want to leave. And she’s not fine.”
“How do you know?” Emmett asks.
I run my fingers over the paper. The letters are rushed and frantic. The loops don’t close, the lines are ragged, and there’s a small damp spot in one corner. She was crying. And then there’s the word she chose. Can’t.
I know exactly what she’s doing. It’s the same goddamn thing I’ve been doing.
She could have written “won’t.” She could have written “don’t want to.
” She wrote “can’t,” and she wrote it because she’s trying to protect us now.
She used the word love in her note. She’s doing it because she’s fallen in love.
I’d take that bullet a thousand more times for her. A bullet I can survive. The only thing that could actually kill me is losing her.
That’s a lot to explain to my brothers with the clock running.
“Trust me.” I close my hand around the note. “I know.”
“We need to find her,” Declan says.
“Of course we do. But finding her and bringing her back doesn’t fix the real problem. She thinks she is the problem. She’s trying to protect us from something she believes she’s causing.”
“I told her at the hospital it wasn’t her fault.” Emmett shakes his head.
“Words won’t prove it.” Declan is already pulling out his phone. “We fix the actual problems so there’s nothing left for her to blame herself for. Make the threat go away, and there’s nothing to feel guilty about.”
This is where Declan shines—fixing what needs fixing.
Emmett paces. I run through every place in the city she might go.
Declan has building security pull the exterior cameras and identify the cab.
The cab drops her at the bus terminal on Ninth, and the terminal has forty cameras, and none of them show Leah.
She walked in one door and out another, and she did it on purpose.
We can’t find her yet. But we can still take away the thing she’s running from. End the danger first. Then bring her home.
“You sure he’ll bite?” Emmett asks as Declan gets ready to call Walsh directly, no lawyers.
“I’m sure. His men attempted a kidnapping on camera. That garage is under continuous surveillance. And he shot Rowan. He could go away for a long time, and we have everything we need to make that happen.”
“He can’t afford police attention,” I add. “Even if he beat the garage charge, it would put his whole lending operation under a microscope. The only thing I’d ask, Declan, is why not bury him completely?”
“We will… eventually. But I want him to think it’s over.
” He looks at the phone in his hand. “Walsh isn’t a man you threaten.
He’s a man you let relax. We pay Kian’s debt at face value, and he signs a settlement, which releases Leah from any future debt collection.
The hospital filed the gunshot report because they have to, but Rowan didn’t name a shooter, so for now it’s just paperwork.
But on Monday, the DA gets the footage, the settlement, and the report together.
By the time Walsh realizes that he’s fucked, he’s in a cell. ”
“He wanted more than face value. Why would he take it now?” Emmett asks.
“Because he put a bullet in our brother on camera, and he knows it.” Declan’s voice is flat.
“He’s not chasing a bigger number anymore.
He’s looking for the door. I’m going to hold it open for him.
He needs to believe we’re a rich family with a reputation to protect, who wants this to go away quietly. ”
The three of us agree. Declan puts the call on speaker so we can hear every word.
He shows more restraint with that asshole than I could have. He reopens the settlement Walsh refused earlier in the week, offers the debt at face value and not a dollar more, and walks him through the agreement his lawyers will send within the hour. Walsh takes it.
“One more thing,” Declan says before he ends it. “Stay away from Leah. Stay away from my family. Whatever you think you just won here isn’t worth testing me over.”
“As far as I’m concerned, we’re done,” Walsh responds.
The call ends. Walsh thinks he just won.
It takes almost all night to find Leah.
Her best friend, Delia, promises she doesn’t know where Leah is when we call her, but hours later, she calls us again.
“I know I lied to you that Leah wasn’t with me. She made me promise. I’m breaking it. I think she really needs you.”
I don’t tell Delia that we really need Leah.
When we arrive at Delia’s apartment, Leah is folded into the corner of Delia’s couch with only her eyes showing above the laptop screen.
“What are you doing here?”
She says it to all three of us as we come toward her. Her voice is all surprise. Her eyes show relief she can’t hide. She can tell herself she wanted us to let her go. It would be a lie.
“It’s over, Leah.” Emmett sits down beside her on the little couch and puts a hand on her knee. “Walsh signed a settlement. He doesn’t know it yet, but he’s going to prison for a very long time. You’re safe.”
“And you’re all safe, too? Including Madeline?”
“Yes.” Declan takes her other side. “None of this was ever your fault. It was Kian’s. You don’t have to run from us anymore. There’s nothing left to run from. We want you home. With us.”
She turns her face into Declan’s chest, and he folds an arm around her.
I stand in front of them, waiting, wanting, so relieved she’s back within reach that I can barely stand still.
“Alright.” She pulls back and wipes her eyes. “But what about the scandal? Our relationship isn’t exactly normal. You have companies and reputations. And Madeline still doesn’t know the truth about Walsh or the identity theft. There are so many pieces still moving, even with Walsh handled.”
“None of that matters to us as much as you do,” I say.
She looks up at me, surprised those words came from me, the one who hasn’t let himself have her yet.
“Okay.” She holds my eyes. “I’ll come home. I’ll stay. But I can’t promise it’s forever. I don’t know what else is coming, and I won’t make a promise I can’t keep.”
I crouch in front of her and take her hand. “Deal. We can all respect that.”
What I don’t say is that I’m already thinking of every way I can show her why she should stay. Because I may be the only one of the three of us who hasn’t crossed that line with her, but I know now that I can’t live without her.