25. Rowan
ROWAN
Harper puts both shipping-sale agreements beside my casebook before I finish telling her Peter disappeared. She turns the first one until the signature page faces me. "You have documentary proof. He started this before he knew about the pregnancy."
I glance around the student lounge and lower my voice. The tables nearest us are empty, but three first-years are arguing over a contracts problem near the vending machines, and another student has been asleep under a sweatshirt for most of the morning. "I need you to lower your voice."
"I know." I close my casebook and slide the agreements back into my folder. Evelyn wants copies for the conflict file, but I don't need to read them again. I zip the folder into my bag while Harper keeps watching me. "Pressure changes people."
"That's usually the point." She sits back and hooks one ankle behind the other chair leg.
"It can also change them temporarily." I stretch one leg beneath the table. "Crisis promises don't always survive the crisis."
Harper closes her laptop halfway. "You think he'll rebuild everything once Orell is gone."
"I don't know."
"That part is easier to trust because it has signatures."
Harper's mouth twitches. "You would require exhibits in a marriage proposal."
I flush but grin. "Probably."
"Would you have them notarized?"
"I'm not unreasonable." I reach for my coffee before remembering I finished it during class.
Harper laughs and starts gathering the notes she abandoned when I arrived.
I believed Erik at the shoreline house. I trust his intentions. I'm less certain about the life around him.
Peter is missing with a shipping audit after meeting a Zaitsev intermediary without permission. Every member of the Danilov family has a private definition of protection that seems to include deciding what everyone else is allowed to know. Three babies make those habits harder to dismiss.
Harper checks the time on her phone and pushes her chair back. "Evelyn's going to complain that we're late."
"She also complains when we're early." I stand and pull my bag onto my shoulder.
"That's because she thinks arriving early demonstrates anxiety."
I shrug. "She's probably right."
We leave the lounge and cross Fenwick toward the legal clinic. The ordinary noise of students between classes irritates me after last night. Nobody here knows Peter Danilov is missing or that Erik spent the morning tracing a coded cargo message.
Evelyn has my academic file open when Harper and I enter her office. A second folder is beside it, thick enough now to require colored tabs, and a stack of correspondence has taken over the corner of her desk. She checks the wall clock before looking at us. "You're late."
"Peter Danilov disappeared." I put my bag beside the chair and sit.
Evelyn stops reaching for her pen. "That seems more relevant than punctuality."
"He took the complete shipping audit."
"Did Erik know?"
"No." I pull my chair closer to the desk while Harper takes the one beside me.
Evelyn closes my academic file. "Then you're not going to do useful work on the financial records while you're waiting for news."
"I can try."
"You can also waste three hours and create errors." She pulls the larger folder between us and opens it to the reinstatement section. "You have another task that needs finishing."
The tabs divide every decision that could someday be blamed on my relationship with Erik.
Evelyn gives me letters confirming his recusal remained active and his authority never touched my academic record. Facts I already knew, now documented.
She turns to the next tab while I pass the letters to Harper. "Five years from now, nobody examining your record will care what you knew. They'll care what you can establish."
"She's building you an answer before anyone asks the question." Harper accepts the pages.
"I understand what she's doing."
Evelyn looks over the top of the folder. "Then you can stop sounding annoyed that I'm doing it."
I wince. "I'm not annoyed with you. Just that it's necessary."
Evelyn turns another page. "Your concern about Erik has the same problem."
I stop reaching for the document. "Which concern?"
"You're looking for proof about what he'll do after the threat passes. You only have evidence of what he's doing now."
The exposure stings. "I have reasons to be cautious."
"Fear can identify a question without answering it."
I look down at Erik's signature on the transfer agreement rather than give Harper the satisfaction of seeing my reaction. She's probably thinking "I told you so."
"You're allowed to decide his life isn't one you want. You aren't allowed to call a future fear evidence because it supports the safer conclusion."
I trace the date with one finger, then pull back my hand.
She's right, which is becoming an irritating theme today.
A knock saves me from admitting it. One of the clinic assistants opens the door and tells Evelyn that President Caldwell's office released a student-conduct notice less than a minute ago.
Harper already has her phone out when the university email reaches us.
Richard's message is short. Tyler's expulsion review will proceed based on findings from an independent academic-integrity investigation and multiple harassment complaints. The notice doesn't reference Erik, the laundering investigation, or me.
I read the first page twice anyway.
Harper scrolls through the attachment beside me. "They found academic fraud in two courses."
"Three." Evelyn opens the same attachment on her laptop and points to the final entry. "The third was referred last term."
I lean closer. The oldest complaint predates Erik's arrival at Blackthorne by months. Another came from a student I don't know. The harassment findings include two women from the athletic program and a graduate assistant.
None of it belongs to Erik, and he can't be accused of retaliation or acting out of jealousy.
Evelyn prints the notice and adds it to the conflict file.
"You really do intend to document every breath I take."
She closes the file after adding the page. "Your breathing is unlikely to interest character and fitness but everything else is fair game."
Harper gets up and checks the time again. "I need to be at the athletic complex in ten minutes."
"I'll walk with you." I collect my bag and stand.
Evelyn stops me before I reach the door. She rests one hand on the closed conflict file. "Rowan, evidence from one direction doesn't become less valid because you're afraid of what might come from another."
I think about Erik standing in the unfinished kitchen last night, recognizing that my questions had a purpose and still refusing to force the rest out of me. "I know." I mean it.
Harper and I make it halfway across the courtyard before Tyler steps away from the law-building wall.
I haven't seen him since the disciplinary hearing.
His expensive coat can't hide the wrinkles in his shirt, and he hasn't shaved.
Students move around him on the path, which forces him to wait until we're close before blocking us without making the attempt obvious.
Harper stops beside me.
Tyler looks at her first. "I need to talk to Rowan."
"Then you can talk to me with her here." I adjust my bag and leave enough room to walk past him.
"You got what you wanted." Tyler is glowering. "You got me expelled."
"Your review isn't finished." I keep my voice low as students pass us on both sides.
Tyler laughs without humor. "Don't hide behind wording. You're sleeping with the dean, and suddenly every complaint anyone ever made about me matters."
Harper takes one step closer to me. "The findings predate Danilov."
"She's already in it because you decided to have the conversation in public." I move around him, but Tyler shifts with me. "Your academic fraud has nothing to do with me."
"You think anyone believes that?" Tyler closes some of the distance between us. "You couldn't beat me through the process, so you got into his bed."
Anger fills me, but giving him the scene he wants would be stupid. "You're being reviewed because you cheated and multiple women reported you for harassment. Erik didn't create either situation."
I try to pass him again, and Tyler grabs my arm above the elbow.
Harper shouts his name, and the nearest campus security officer starts toward us before I can wrench free.
A second officer comes from the steps. The first catches Tyler by the shoulder and pulls him away while the other moves between us.
Tyler releases me, but my arm still stings.
The first officer moves him toward the building wall while the second turns to me. "Are you hurt?"
"I'm fine. He grabbed me when I tried to leave."
Tyler starts arguing with the other officer, his voice carrying across the courtyard. I hate being watched. I hate even more that my first thought is that Erik will hear about this before I finish giving my name.
My protection operator reaches us from the opposite side of the courtyard with his phone already in his hand.
"I need you not to call Erik."
His expression turns apologetic. "Makari already has."
"Wonderful."
Harper checks the mark on my arm. "That's going to bruise."
"I'm surrounded by people who keep telling me things I already know." I turn back to the security officer to give my statement.
A black SUV stops at the curb beside Fenwick. Erik gets out before the driver can reach his door, coat open, phone still in one hand while he crosses the courtyard. Students move out of his path.
He stops beside me instead of going anywhere near Tyler. He looks at the red marks above my elbow. "Did he hurt you?"
"No."
Harper points at my arm. "He grabbed her."
Erik turns his attention toward Tyler long enough that the security officer steps forward. "Dean Danilov, we have this handled."
"I'm not here as dean." Erik looks at me instead. "What do you want done?"
A month ago, he would already have made the decision. "I want the formal complaint. Campus security documents the contact, and it goes into the existing review."
"Only that?"
"Yes."