He had changed neither his torn jeans nor his blood-marked shirt. A strip of gauze covered his palm. Without his leather cut, he should have looked less dangerous.

He did not.

Two hospital guards blocked the doorway. Ronan and Maeve waited behind him. Maeve held Sophie's red shoe in one hand.

Relief hit me so hard tears filled my eyes.

Grant turned. "You are not family."

Silas looked at me, not him. "Do you want me here?"

The room went silent.

He could have claimed me. His men called him Alpha. His eyes had turned gold when he smelled my blood. Whatever existed between us, I felt its pressure even now, a strange pull beneath the pain.

He still asked.

"Yes."

Silas stepped forward.

The security officer put a hand against his chest. Silas stopped rather than force his way through.

Grant laughed. "Your permission doesn't give him legal standing."

"Neither does a badge give you ownership," Silas said.

Grant moved closer to my bed and lowered his voice. "Tell them you were confused. I'll take Sophie home, and this ends."

Home.

The basement door. The hidden phone. The nights Sophie crawled into my bed because Daddy was walking through the hallway.

"You tried to kill us."

"And yet you're both alive." His smile never moved. "Be grateful."

Silas heard him.

The gold returned to his eyes.

The air changed. Every person in the room seemed to feel it. Paula stepped backward. Mercer reached instinctively toward his holster.

"Silas." I said his name before I understood why.

His gaze found mine.

"Don't."

The command cost me. Part of me wanted to see Grant afraid. Wanted Silas to tear the badge from his chest and put him through the wall.

But that was what Grant wanted too.

An attack. An arrest. One more violent man he could place between me and the truth.

Silas's hands closed into fists.

Then opened.

He stepped back.

Grant's disappointment lasted less than a second.

It was enough.

I looked down at the court order still in his hand.

"Read it to me."

"You heard what it says."

"Read the filing time."

He stopped.

Paula glanced at the first page. "Emergency application submitted at ten sixteen p.m."

"And what time did the crash occur?"

Mercer answered before Grant could silence him. "Approximately eleven twenty-three."

The room became very quiet.

I could hear the monitor counting my heartbeats.

"He applied to have me declared suicidal more than an hour before he drove us off the mountain," I said.

Paula looked from the document to Grant.

"The order says the precipitating incident occurred at nine fifty," she said.

"At nine fifty, Sophie and I were alive in his car. Ask the gas station clerk on Route Eight. Ask for the camera showing Grant buying coffee while I sat in the passenger seat."

Grant folded the order.

"She's inventing details."

"Then it will be easy to disprove them," Silas said.

Paula took the document from Grant before he could pull it away. "Until the filing discrepancy is verified, I cannot release the child to either parent."

The words struck like another crash.

"Either parent?"

"Sophie will remain in temporary protective care at the hospital. Supervised contact only."

"I'm the victim."

"You are also subject to an active psychiatric order."

Grant smiled again.

He had not won everything.

Only enough.

"I want to see her," I said.

Paula closed the folder. "After the psychiatric intake."

"No."

"Mrs. Quinn—"

"Let her hear my voice. Let her see that I'm alive."

"I can't authorize—"

A cry came from the hallway.

"Mommy!"

Sophie slipped beneath a nurse's arm and ran toward the room.

Grant moved first.

Silas moved faster.

He did not grab my daughter. He placed his body between her and Grant, then dropped to one knee.

Sophie collided with him and clutched his shoulders.

"Mommy tied," she sobbed.

"She's hurt," Silas said. "She's awake. Look."

He shifted just enough for her to see me.

"I'm here, baby."

Grant reached around him. "Come to Daddy."

Sophie screamed.

Security flooded the doorway. Paula ordered everyone separated. Hands reached for Silas, for Grant, for my child.

The monitor shrieked beside me.

Through the confusion, Sophie held on to Silas and repeated the only answer she had left.

"No Daddy. No Daddy. No Daddy."

Paula heard her.

So did the hospital camera above the door.

Grant looked up at it too late.