The attorney beside him went very still.

Grant's eyes sharpened. "You are repeating what those animals told you."

"No. I was in the car."

"You were sedated."

"After the crash. Your petition was filed before it."

Mercer's hand closed around Grant's arm.

Not to restrain him.

To warn him.

The gesture confirmed more than either man intended.

"Mrs. Quinn," the hospital attorney said, "would you like Mr. Quinn removed from this floor?"

Grant stared at me.

Behind him stood two security officers, three nurses, Paula, Mercer, and Silas. Eight people waiting to see whether I would soften the truth to protect the man who had tried to bury me with it.

"Yes," I said. "Remove him."

Grant took one step through the doorway.

Every alarm in my body screamed.

Silas moved once.

He did not enter my room. He placed himself behind Grant, close enough that the difference between the two men became impossible to miss.

Grant used authority to cross a boundary.

Silas used strength to hold one.

"She asked you to leave," Silas said.

Grant turned. "And you think she asked you to replace me?"

Silas's gaze did not move from the back of Grant's neck.

"No. I think she asked you to leave."

Security took Grant by both arms.

He fought only after they reached the nurses' station, when the distance made him brave.

"You'll lose her!" he shouted at me. "No judge gives a child to a woman who sleeps beside a gang leader!"

Silas's jaw tightened.

I looked directly at Grant.

"Then it is fortunate I haven't slept beside anyone."

One nurse choked on a laugh.

Grant heard it.

Humiliation hit him harder than restraint. His face changed into the one he kept hidden behind locked doors.

"You ungrateful bitch."

The corridor fell silent.

The hospital attorney slowly lifted her phone. "Thank you, Officer Quinn. That clarified the domestic relationship for the record."

Grant stopped fighting.

Too late.

They took him downstairs.

Silas remained beyond the threshold, rainwater darkening the floor beneath his boots.

"Are you hurt?" I asked.

He touched the cut on his cheek as if he had forgotten it. "Glass."

"Did they find anything?"

"Something they brought. Nothing that belonged to us."

His answer was careful. There was more behind it, but he would not pour his danger into my room simply because I had written his name on a form.

"Come in," I said.

Silas looked at Paula first.

She checked the authorization sheet, then nodded.

He crossed the threshold.

It should not have mattered. He had carried me out of a wreck. He had held my hand through a panic attack. Yet watching him enter only after I invited him made something inside my chest loosen.

"Sophie?" I asked.

Maeve answered from the hall. "Right here."

My daughter appeared wrapped in a hospital blanket, one hand gripping Maeve's fingers and the other clutching Silas's leather cut. Purple gauze covered her foot.

She saw me.

"Mommy."

This time the word was not broken by terror.

Sophie ran.

Paula tried to stop her from climbing onto the bed, but Silas was already beside us. He slid one arm beneath Sophie's knees without lifting her until she nodded. Then he raised her over the bedrail and lowered her against my uninjured side.

I buried my face in her hair.

She smelled like apple shampoo, antiseptic, and smoke from Silas's jacket.

"I found the motorcycles," she whispered.

"You found help."

"The big one fell down."

Silas glanced toward his scraped knuckles. "The motorcycle can be fixed."

Sophie considered this. "You too?"

His face went unexpectedly gentle.

"Me too."

She held out the leather cut. "You forgot this."

Silas did not take it.

"Keep it until your mom says you don't need it."

Sophie looked at me.

Another choice placed in my hands.

"Keep it today," I said.

She tucked it around both of us like a blanket.

For three minutes, there were no police, no petitions, no wolves, and no cameras. Only my daughter's breathing against my heart and Silas standing close enough to catch her if pain made my arms fail.

Then Briar entered carrying a sealed evidence bag.

Inside lay the severed section of my seat belt.

"The lab found tool marks," she said. "Fresh ones. And there is something else."

She turned the bag over.

Caught in the cut fibers was a dark blue thread.

The exact color of Grant's police uniform.