Chapter 2 – Rowan
Chapter Two
Rowan
“How much is my silence worth to you, Whitmore?”
She doesn’t answer. Her mouth parts, but nothing comes out, just a sharp inhale and that wide-eyed panic she always gets when the world corners her.
I used to know how to pull her out of it.
Now, I watch her drown.
She presses herself against the wall, bracing for impact. Her hoodie is smeared with dirt, blood, and whatever unholy stench is coming from the city dumpster. There’s a dog zipped inside it, trembling, and obviously the reason she just committed a felony.
Unbelievable.
Tessa Whitmore, honor student, ethics clinic darling, rule-following martyr with a savior complex and exactly zero self-preservation skills… breaking and entering for a rescue mutt.
I should’ve known it’d be something like this. I’ve been watching her long enough to guess.
A couple of days ago, I saw her speed-walking across campus. My first instinct was to ignore her. To keep walking.
But then I saw the shake in her hands.
The one she tries to hide when she’s overwhelmed. The one I know better than I want to.
So, I followed her.
Not because I cared. That part of me is long dead.
But because I know what it means when Tessa Whitmore starts unraveling in silence.
She doesn’t lash out. She doesn’t blow up her life all at once. She slices at it, piece by piece, rationalizing every cut as a noble sacrifice until there’s nothing left but skin and regret.
I learned that the hard way.
Tessa prepares for war carefully, but she forgets that some people play dirtier.
People like me.
I don’t do forgiveness, I do leverage.
And right now, standing in this alley with a busted shelter window, a stolen dog, and Tessa Whitmore bleeding down her arm?
I’ve got more leverage than I’ve ever had.
She still hasn’t spoken.
Not even a snarky comeback—and for Tessa, that’s saying something.
She just stares at me.
Big blue eyes, glassy in the alley light, flick between my face and my phone. She’s calculating how much damage I’m capable of, and if she’s already too late to stop it.
She is.
Her hand curls tighter around the dog, fingers white-knuckled. She doesn’t even flinch when the glass in the busted window behind her creaks in the breeze. Just stands there, waiting for me to deliver the sentence.
She looks exactly like she did the day she left.
Terrified.
But also like she’s trying not to be.
I hate that some part of me still responds to it.
I swallow it down.
Focus.
Emotion is a complication. Complications are threats to control. And I don’t lose control. Not anymore.
Not since her.
I take a step closer.
Her breath catches.
Good.
She should be afraid.
“Tessa,” I say quietly, “do you know how many people would kill to avoid an ethics violation on their record?”
She doesn’t answer.
I glance down at the phone in my hand. Screen off now. Recording saved.
“What would the Bar committee think of this, hmm? Breaking and entering. Theft of city property. Obstruction of euthanasia protocol.” I tap my chin, mock thoughtful. “At minimum, you’re looking at expulsion. More likely, a character-and-fitness denial and a very fun hearing you won’t win.”
Her mouth opens, but whatever defense she’s about to mount dies on her tongue.
She knows I’m right.
She’s smart enough to see the path.
I wait.
Watch her breathe. Watch her sway just slightly under the weight of what she’s carrying. Dog, hoodie, guilt, me. All too much.
And still, she doesn’t beg.
Interesting.
“I’m not going to the police,” I say again, just to see what that does to her.
A flicker of hope.
Foolish.
“I’m going to do something worse.”
Her head snaps up.
I smile.
“I’m going to keep this. All of it.” I tap my pocket. “And I’m going to hold on to it until I decide what you owe me.”
“You—” Her voice cracks. “You want me to take a card?”
I nod once. “Exactly.”
“No.”
It’s automatic. Instantaneous.
And so very na?ve.
“No?” I echo. “Are you sure? Because it sounds like you’re confused about the situation you’re in.”
She glares, chin lifting slightly.
That’s the girl I remember. Mouthy. Brave. Dumb as hell when it comes to consequences.
I step even closer, letting the silence stretch between us until she’s backed so far against the wall, her shoulders twitch when the brick scrapes her hoodie.
“You don’t get to say no, Tessa,” I murmur, dropping my voice to something soft and sharp. “You forfeited that right the second you picked up the brick.”
She swallows. Her jaw tenses.
I lean in, not enough to touch, but enough for her to smell my cologne. Something clean and expensive. I’m not the boy she used to sneak out to meet. I’m not the one she left.
“This is how it works now,” I say. “You get one card. One condition. And when I call it in, you don’t ask questions. You just do it.”
“What do you want?” she whispers.
Ah.
There it is.
The real question.
What does Rowan King want?
The answer is simple.
Revenge.
But I don’t say that.
Not yet.
Instead, I smile.
“I don’t know yet,” I lie. “But I will.”
And then, just to twist the knife, I reach into my coat pocket and pull out a playing card.
No logo. No name.
Just three letters, written in clean black marker.
IOU.
I hold it out between two fingers, watching the horror flicker across her face.
She doesn’t reach for it.
So, I tuck it into the front pocket of her hoodie myself, just above where the puppy’s tiny head pokes out.
Tessa’s hand trembles.
But she says nothing.
Good.
She’s learning.
I take a measured step toward her.
She tightens her grip on the puppy, her shoulders hunched like I’m here to take it from her. I’d never waste energy on something that innocent.
No. I’m here for her.
The dog is just the fuse.
Tessa blinks.
“You were closing up late,” I say, voice low and certain. “Routine end-of-shift check. One of the dogs got out—this one. You don’t know how. The gate was latched earlier. Maybe a volunteer didn’t secure it. Maybe he slipped the clasp. You don’t know. You just heard barking outside.”
Tessa swallows.
“You chased him,” I continue. “Tripped over a box of meds by the fence, caught your arm trying to climb over. He was already halfway down the alley. You lost him.”
Her fingers twitch. “And the window?”
“You forgot your keys and were locked out. You panicked when you saw the blood, broke the glass to get back in and call for help. No theft. No bad intentions. Just a mess.”
She blinks rapidly. “And what if someone asks where the dog is now?”
“They won’t,” I say. “Because you never found him. That’s your report. The dog escaped. You tried to catch him. Failed. You filed an incident report and planned to follow up in the morning.”
I meet her eyes. “No one knows where he went. You certainly don’t. Not officially. And if he turns up later—weeks from now, miraculously healthy and mysteriously adopted? That’s a future problem. For now, he’s gone.”
She stares at me. “You’re terrifying.”
I shrug. “You panicked. You acted on instinct. It’s sloppy but forgivable. But this?” I nod toward her sleeve. “You keep bleeding, and someone’s going to ask the wrong question. So go clean up. Hide the dog. Make the call. File the report. And get ahead of it.”
“I-I can’t lie like that.”
“Yes, you can,” I say. “You’re not lying. You’re obeying.”
Her head jerks back.
Good.
Because I need her to understand something fundamental:
This isn’t a negotiation. It’s a correction.
“You think this is cruel?” I ask, stepping close enough to feel the heat of her breath. “This is me keeping you in the game. You’d rather bleed out for a stray and get expelled in the process? Fine. But don’t pretend you didn’t know how this would end.”
She’s trembling now.
It’s not just fear.
It’s memory.
And that’s the problem with her.
Tessa has always had a conscience louder than her survival instincts.
Even back then, freshman year of undergrad.
When I found her crying in the back stairwell after reporting a tenured professor for making a sexist joke during a seminar. Her entire pre-law cohort turned on her for “ruining the curve.”
When she helped me switch out my mom’s prescriptions at the student clinic because the generic ones made her sick, and our insurance wouldn’t budge.
When she kissed me outside my apartment. She already knew I’d never been kissed by someone who meant it.
She’s always done the right thing. Even when it wrecked her.
And now?
Now I’m going to make her live with that.
“You’ll take the dog to a friend’s house for the week,” I continue, tone clinical. “Make sure no one sees it in your apartment. You’ll show up to class tired, emotional, and exactly the kind of bleeding heart they expect you to be. You’ll cry if you need to. Use it. Play it.”
Her eyes shine now. But not from tears.
From fury.
The same kind of rage I remember from when she stormed out of our debate scrimmage freshman year because someone said she was ‘too emotional’ for pre-law, and I didn’t speak up.
“You don’t get to script my life, Rowan,” she snaps.
I lean in, just enough to murmur, “You gave me the pen the second you picked up that brick.”
She breathes hard. I can feel it ripple between us. Static, thick with everything she wants to scream but knows better than to say.
I study her face. The lip she still bites when she’s holding something in. The way her fingers rub the inside edge of her sleeve.
It’s the same look she had standing in front of the university honor board, refusing to name the student who plagiarized from her brief because she was on academic probation and couldn’t afford another strike.
Guilt. Defiance. That stupid, reckless nobility that’s always been her greatest strength.
And her worst flaw.
I used to love that about her.
Now, I use it.
“I’m not doing this because I care,” I lie. “I’m doing this because you owe me.”
She flinches again.
But this time, she doesn’t look away.
And for one brief, flickering moment, I hate her for that.
I hate her for the nights I stayed up, wondering what I did wrong.
And I hate myself more for still feeling it.
“You’re going to walk out of this alley,” I say calmly, “and pretend we never spoke tonight. But you’ll wait for the call. And when it comes, you’ll answer.”
“And if I don’t?”
I smile, slow and merciless. “Then you’ll learn what happens to people who defy me.”