Chapter 25 Stephan #2
Katie sets her mug down, disrupting my fantasy. “As long as we’re being honest,” she says softly, “I have something to tell you, too.”
I glance up. “Oh?”
Her fingers twist around the handle of her cup. “Mary’s in the Halcyon trial. The treatment—it’s working. She can go on small outings now. Her color’s back. Next week she has bloodwork, and we’re hoping her white count is finally dropping.”
Fuck.
Her eyes lift to mine, full of a fierce, fragile hope. “This treatment could save her life. We have to win, Stephan.”
The words land like a blow.
I nod slowly, keeping my expression neutral, but my mind is already racing.
Mary O’Shea. Halcyon’s clinical trial. Katie’s sister isn’t just a bystander—she’s evidence. If the DOJ finds out, it could ruin her, the firm, everything I’ve built.
“Katie… this is a huge conflict of interest, but you already know that.”
She nods.
“I thought perhaps you'd wait to start her in the clinical trial…”
She looks up at me, green eyes wide, filling with tears. “I couldn’t wait. Mary’s life couldn’t wait.”
I lean toward her, my shadow falling over her as the air in the kitchen turns heavy and restrictive. “This could ruin us both,” I whisper, as if speaking too loudly will make it come true.
“My sister’s life is worth it. Worth my career. Worth everything. I had to try.”
I turn my back to her, my hands gripping the edge of the counter until the stone bites into my palms. My pulse thuds—a slow, warning beat against my ribs. “It was different when the DOJ wasn’t involved. They’re going to look over everything. Every note, every patient, everything.”
She wipes a tear from her eye. “But only from the old clinical trials, right? They won’t look at this new one? They’ll redact the names of the participants if they do, right?”
“I— I can’t answer that. The DOJ is powerful.”
Katie covers her face with her hands. “I’m so stupid. I should never have entered Mary into that trial. I should have quit the firm.”
I place a reassuring arm around her. “Shhh, we’re past the point of regrets now. We can’t go back. I will keep an eye out for the DOJ’s information requests. They shouldn’t be looking at the new clinical trials, and I will do what I can to keep their focus on the old drug.”
I should let the system correct the breach. Instead, I tighten my hold around her. That’s the choice I’ll have to live with.
Wrapping her arm around me, she buries her head in my abdomen. “I’m so sorry, Stephan.”
My hand moves of its own accord, fingers threading through her hair to tilt her head back. “Don’t be.” The words feel like a lie as they leave my throat. “You were doing what you thought was best for your sister.”
“This could ruin you, too,” she murmurs against my skin, the vibration sending a chill through me that has nothing to do with the cold kitchen air.
I look down at her, my heart hammering a slow, heavy rhythm against my ribs—a countdown I can't stop. “I know. But you’re worth it, Katie.”
She pulls back just enough to meet my eyes, her expression fracturing. “Don’t be a martyr if you don’t have to be.”
“I’m not. I told you I will protect you– and I will.” Every word I offer feels like a shield, but it sounds like possession.
She exhales, the tension in her shoulders softening. She believes me.
And as I watch her take another sip of tea, a quiet, impossible thought takes root—I have to defend her. And I have to hide her — from the Department of Justice. From Cassian. From the truth.
Cassian is my biggest threat. Cassian doesn’t miss. That’s why he’s the head of trial prep. He has a biological radar for “anomalies”—a missing decimal point, a stutter in a witness's voice, a junior associate who looks just a little too haunted.
Right now, Katie is an anomaly.
If he digs into the Halcyon patient logs and sees the name Mary O’Shea, he won’t come to me with a smile.
He’ll come to me with a resignation letter and a phone call to the Ethics Committee.
Cassian believes in the Firm the way Katie once believed in God.
To him, the Law is a closed system. If I’ve introduced a virus—a conflict of interest this massive—he won’t try to cure it. He’ll try to cauterize it.
I can see the conversation playing out. Cassian standing by my desk, his voice like ice. “Stephan, why is your associate’s sister in Halcyon’s data? Why is she in the drug trial they’re running right now?”
There is no “Senior Partner” answer for that. There is only the truth: I am compromised. I am protecting the girl, and in doing so, I am dismantling the very walls that kept us safe.
Damien is the wild card, but Cassian is the blade.
If I don’t bury Mary’s name in the metadata before the DOJ servers sync with ours, Cassian won’t have a choice.
He’ll have to choose the survival of Marek, West & Roth over my life.
And if Cassian makes that call, I don’t just lose the firm.
I lose the only identity I’ve ever trusted to keep the chaos contained.
I look at my hands. They’re steady, but the adrenaline is a cold, sharp needle in my gut. I have to get to those logs, and I have to do it without Cassian seeing my login time stamp. But that is a problem for tomorrow.
By the time we finish our tea, it’s nearly midnight. I wrote the first contract to define her surrender. Tonight, I realize I’ve signed another—unwritten, irreversible, binding me instead.
“Would you like to sleep with me?” I ask, holding out my hand.
Katie hesitates for half a heartbeat, then nods and slips her fingers into mine. “Should I change into a negligee?”
“Not tonight,” I say. “Tonight, we’ll just rest.”
I lead her down the hall to my room, where the lights are low and warm. The city glows faintly through the windows, the sound distant and dreamlike. I pull back the covers and watch as she climbs in, moving carefully, as if she’s afraid to disturb the peace between us.
Somehow she fits here—in this space built for solitude, this life I’ve curated to keep the world at arm’s length.
I slip in beside her, the mattress dipping beneath our combined weight. Her breathing slows, syncing with mine.
For the first time in years, I stop thinking three steps ahead, though I know there’s a wolf at our door.
I want to surrender to her.
“May I?” she asks, her eyes searching mine for permission to touch me.
I open my arms. “You may.”
She slips into the space beside me, her head settling on my chest. Her hair smells faintly of candle smoke. Without thinking, I press a kiss to her forehead. She exhales—a small, content sound that feels like trust incarnate.
I look at the hand she has rested on my chest. The same hand that annotated the Richter logs. The same hand that signed my contract. And now, the same hand tied to a patient file at Halcyon.
I should tell Cassian. I should let the system correct the breach. Instead, I tighten my hold around her. That’s the choice I’ll have to live with.
Neither of us speaks. The lake hums beyond the glass, steady and endless. I envy its clarity.
I’m afraid—not of scandal, not of the case, but of losing this.
Of losing her.
When I close my eyes, the firm’s firewall glows behind my lids. I know which key will bury her sister’s name—and that I’ve already chosen to press it.