5. Rowan
ROWAN
Makari disconnects my phone from the clean laptop after copying the photographs I took outside.
Erik takes it from him, checks nothing on the screen, and puts it directly into my hand.
Two seconds later, Harper’s voice fills Erik Danilov’s library through the speaker, and I tell her what’s happened.
“Say that again, because my brain heard estate, body, state police, and phone.”
“Mom and Callie are home.” I keep that first because it’s the one fact I can control. The laptop on the side table continues copying the encrypted folder from my father’s phone while Makari records every step.
“A car is outside the Bennett residence.” Makari stands beside the window, listening to someone through his earpiece before looking at Erik. “Two people are visible from the street. The rear approach is clear.”
I lean toward my phone. “Harper, did you hear that? Callie and Mom are safe. You need to stay at the apartment and lock the door.”
“I dislike survival instructions from a woman who found a corpse and then went indoors with the dean of institutional affairs.” Harper’s voice thins under the joke. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m angry, tired, and legally compromised, but I’m not hurt.” I look at the wrapped phone beside the laptop, then at Erik near the library doors. “Dean Danilov is trying to convert protection into custody.”
Erik turns toward me instead of pretending he can’t hear. “Ms. Vasquez should know I have security outside her apartment too.”
“Was that him?” Harper asks.
I take her off speaker before she can start a fight with him from across town. “Yes, that was him.”
Harper is quiet for a beat. “Are you leaving?”
I look at the wrapped phone beside the laptop. “Not until I know what’s on Dad’s phone.”
The joke drops out of Harper’s voice. “Then call me before you stop being mad enough to function.”
“I will.” I disconnect before she can hear how close that gets.
The windows reflect Erik behind me. The headlights at the gate belonged to a second state police unit, which should have made me safer. Instead, the officers spoke mostly to Erik before they left with Aaron’s body. My father’s phone stayed inside this house.
I turn toward him. “If you say protection one more time, I may ask for a judicial definition.”
“If protection means custody to you, we settle that first.” Erik looks toward Makari. “Open the gate. Bring a car to the front door with a driver only unless Rowan asks for an escort.”
Makari watches him for half a second, then speaks into his phone in Russian. Erik waits until he finishes before looking back at me. “You can leave whenever you want. Your mother, sister, and friend remain protected whether you stay or not.”
I arch a brow. “You expect gratitude because kidnapping is off the table?”
“I expect accuracy.” Erik steps to the long table and opens the folder Liya left behind. “The gate is open, and the car will be outside. Nothing about the evidence requires you to sleep here.”
That is considerably harder to argue with than a threat. I look at the folder. “You still expect me to work with you.”
“You need records.” He turns several pages toward me. “I have records.”
“That was almost persuasive until you made yourself indispensable.”
Erik steps back from the table. “The documents are indispensable. I’m merely standing near them.”
The line is dry enough to catch me off guard, and I look at him before I can stop myself. His jacket is off now. The first two buttons of his shirt are open, probably from the long night rather than any attempt to make my judgment worse, but the effect is the same.
I drag my attention back to the paperwork. “You look entirely too pleased with that distinction.”
“I’ve had a difficult evening. Allow me one.”
Refusing to look has never changed evidence, so I move closer to the table. The first sheet lists transfers, dates, receiving accounts, and authorization trails. Jeremy Bennett appears in the approval column. His signature carries the slight leftward pull it always developed when he was tired.
“This doesn’t clear him.” I keep one finger beside the column without touching it. “It also doesn’t prove intent. A signature proves authorization. It doesn’t prove he knew the route behind it.”
“I agree.” Erik doesn’t qualify the answer or try to turn it into a concession.
I look up at him. Agreement shouldn’t be more irritating than resistance, but apparently tonight has no interest in consistency.
He turns to the fourth page. “These three entries are Danilov Foundation grants. They use the same intermediary account, with money returning through the same route.”
The foundation’s money sits inside the same pattern as the athletic transfers. Erik brought those records to me himself.
If he wanted a convenient dead man to blame, showing me his own losses makes no sense.
“You didn’t frame him.” The words come out before I make them more lawyerly.
“You know Orell Zaitsev owns the company in the records, Dad’s authorization appears in the chain, and you think Zaitsev may have built the route around him. ”
Erik studies me for a moment. “That’s more accurate.”
“Don’t grade me.” I straighten away from the paperwork.
“Then don’t let anger make my argument for me.” Erik closes the folder. “Your father didn’t build the encryption on that phone. I need to know what Jeremy thought was worth hiding behind skill he didn’t have.”
Dad hid worry by leaving forms on the kitchen counter where I would find them, then pretending the placement was accidental. Anything likely to scare us became something he handled alone.
“Us.” I reach for and miss the back. My second attempt catches it, and I sit harder than I mean to. Dad had known enough to hide something. He had also known enough to hide it from us.
Erik takes one step toward me, then stops. Outside, he grabbed my wrist without thinking and released me just as quickly.
Here, with no body between us and no immediate danger to excuse anything, he stays on his side of the table. “You don’t have to hold yourself together for anyone in this room.”
“Good, because I wasn’t planning to.” I get back to my feet and push the chair under the table. “I have terms. I help decode the files. Every discovery goes both directions. My mother stays outside your organization. Callie does too. You ask me before making decisions about my family.”
Erik considers the conditions instead of answering on reflex. “I agree to all three.”
I had prepared for a fight. A car engine sounds from the front drive before I can decide what to do with how easily he agreed. “That’s my car.” I pick up my bag.
Erik steps away from the table, leaving the path to the hall completely open. “Yes.”
I stop near him. “You’re not going to stop me.”
“No.” His attention stays on my face instead of the bag. “The driver will take you anywhere you want to go.”
The spray-paint can inside my bag knocks against my wallet. I look toward the front hall, then back at him. “You should probably know I came here prepared to commit misdemeanor vandalism.”
Erik’s attention drops to the bag. “Whose property?”
“Your car, originally. The evening changed direction.”
The corner of his mouth moves. “My Bentley appreciates your restraint.”
“Don’t give it ideas.”
I leave him in the library and walk into the front hall. Nobody follows closely enough to crowd me.
The car waits in front of the house. For five minutes, I stand inside the open front door while the driver remains behind the wheel. Makari stays at the far end of the hall. Erik remains in the library with the papers and the phone copy.
Nobody blocks the door or asks me to stay.
As though she reads my mind, Harper sends three words:
Choose on purpose.
I look at the waiting car, then back toward the library.
Aaron called me four times. He died with Dad’s phone in his hand. The encrypted folder is still copying inside a house owned by a man I accused of framing my father less than forty-eight hours ago.
A man who opened the gate when I demanded a choice.
A man I now know didn’t create the payment route.
A man I’m far too physically aware of for any part of this situation to qualify as good judgment.
I don’t get into the car. When I return to the library, Erik looks up from the table without commenting on how long I took.
“If I stay, it’s because the file is here.” I set my bag beside the chair instead of near the door. “Your foundation money gives me leverage. I’m not staying because you told me I need you.”
Erik comes around the table and stops several feet away. “You would’ve stayed to prove me wrong.”
“That’s a terrible read.”
“It’s a useful one.” His attention stays on me.
I fold my arms. “You look entirely too satisfied with yourself.”
“You came back.”
“For evidence.” I should leave the answer there. Instead, I stare at his mouth. I catch myself doing it and look back up.
His expression changes just enough to tell me he noticed. Erik doesn’t step closer. That restraint is worse than if he did.
“You have something to say?” I ask.
“One thing.” He sets the page in his hand on the table. “You chose to stay. I want the rest equally clear.”
I wait.
Erik holds my gaze. “I won’t put a hand on you under my roof unless you come to me.”
Finally, it connects to something real enough that I can’t pretend I don’t understand him. My pulse picks up. “You think I’m going to?”
His attention drops to my mouth for the first time tonight. “I think you’ve looked at my mouth twice since you came back into this room.”
Heat moves through me, immediate and unwelcome only because he’s correct. “Three times,” I say.
Then I close the remaining distance and kiss him first.
Erik doesn’t move for half a second.
He made a promise, and he keeps it even after I make my choice obvious.
Then he takes my phone from my hand, sets it on the table beside us, and kisses me back.
Nothing about this resembles the stairwell. I shove his jacket off his shoulders, and he lets it drop near the chair. His hands settle at my waist without trapping me.