POV: Evelyn

The hospital gave me five minutes to choose which stranger would stand between my daughter and her father.

Paula Reed placed the authorization form across my blanket.

"This person will not receive custody," she explained. "They will be allowed to observe Sophie's care, attend supervised contact, and carry information between you while the psychiatric order is reviewed."

Three empty lines waited beneath the words APPROVED FAMILY LIAISON.

My sister lived two counties away and had stopped answering after Grant visited her workplace. My parents believed police officers did not lie about their wives. The lawyer assigned by the hospital had known me for eleven minutes.

Outside my room, Silas Blackwood sat on the floor with his back against the wall.

Hospital security had forbidden him from entering. He had not argued. He had simply lowered himself beside the door and remained there for forty-three minutes while Grant paced at the nurses' station and told anyone who would listen that the bikers were holding his family hostage.

Silas had enough strength to tear the door from its hinges.

He waited for me to open it instead.

"Mrs. Quinn?" Paula prompted.

I picked up the pen.

My hand shook so badly the first letter tore through the paper.

SILAS BLACKWOOD.

Paula read the name and frowned. "You understand Mr. Blackwood has no legal relationship to you or Sophie?"

"That's why I'm choosing him."

Grant could bend family. He could frighten friends. He could call a doctor, a judge, or a police officer and make my life sound like a problem he had been bravely managing.

Silas existed outside every structure Grant controlled.

That did not make him safe.

It made him useful.

Paula carried the form into the hallway. The moment Silas heard my name, he rose.

He entered only after the nurse nodded.

The hospital room seemed to shrink around him. He had washed the blood from his face, but he still wore the shirt torn during the rescue and a fresh bandage around his palm. Without his leather cut, I could see the old scars along both forearms.

He stopped at the foot of the bed.

"You chose me."

It was not triumph in his voice. It sounded closer to disbelief.

"Temporarily."

"Understood."

"I don't trust you."

"You shouldn't."

That answer unsettled me more than a promise would have.

"Most men would try to convince me otherwise."

"Most men haven't met your husband."

My gaze fell to his bandaged hand. "You wanted to kill him."

"I still do."

There was no hesitation. No polite lie.

The monitor quickened beside me.

Silas heard it and took one step backward.

"But wanting isn't doing," he said. "You told me to stop. I stopped."

"What happens when I tell you something you don't like?"

"I may argue."

"And if I still say no?"

"Then the answer is no."

The simplicity of it made my throat tighten.

Grant had never heard no as an answer. To him it was an opening offer, an insult, or evidence that I was unwell.

"I need rules," I said.

Silas nodded once.

"You don't enter this room unless I invite you. You don't touch Sophie without asking her. You don't tell the police, the hospital, or your club that you speak for me."

"Agreed."

"I can remove your name from that form whenever I want."

"Yes."

"And whatever happened on that mountain—whatever made your eyes change—does not give you a claim on me."

Something moved across his face. Pain, perhaps, though it vanished too quickly to name.

"Agreed," he said again.

"You aren't going to explain it?"

"Not while you're injured, medicated, and unable to leave the room."

My fingers tightened around the sheet.

It was the first time anyone had treated my inability to leave as a reason to withhold pressure instead of an opportunity to apply it.

"Then why stay?"

Silas removed his phone from his pocket. He placed it on the rolling table and pushed it toward me without approaching the bed.

The screen showed a live video.

Sophie sat cross-legged in the pediatric family room with Maeve beside her. My daughter still wore Silas's enormous leather cut. One foot was wrapped in purple gauze. She was dipping apple slices into peanut butter, watching a cartoon with the sound turned low.