"Coward," Ronan said.

Hospital security took the stranger downstairs. Briar went with them, but I knew what would happen. He would ask for a lawyer. Grant would deny knowing him. Mercer would call the badge theft unrelated.

Before Briar left, she sealed the phone, cash, photograph, and stolen badge in separate bags. Four objects. Four pieces of proof that the threat had entered the building because someone expected every frightened woman to run before she could count what had been left behind.

I was done running before I counted.

Paula Reed closed the blinds on the hallway windows.

"We need to move both of you."

"No," Silas and I said together.

We looked at each other.

"You first," he said.

"If we move now, Grant learns that stealing the list worked. He'll watch every exit."

Paula frowned. "Remaining here is not safe."

"Neither is running along the route he expects."

Silas set the terrible coffee on the windowsill. "What are you thinking?"

No one had asked me that when Grant handled our bank account, Sophie's school, my doctors, or our car. They asked if I understood him. If I appreciated him. If I had remembered my medication.

Silas asked what I was thinking and waited for the answer.

I looked at the empty bed across the room.

"We tell three people three different transfer times."

Ronan lowered his cup. "Go on."

"The hospital administrator hears midnight. Paula's office gets eleven. The police liaison gets ten. Whichever time Grant moves tells us where the list came from."

Paula stared at me. "You want to use yourself as bait."

"No. I want to use his certainty that I am helpless."

Silas's wolf did not show, but I felt the resistance in him. It tightened his shoulders and flattened his voice.

"If the wrong person arrives, they could reach this floor."

"Then the room needs to look occupied while we wait somewhere else."

Ronan pointed at the empty bed. "Pillows under a blanket? Classic."

"Grant checks faces," I said. "He never trusted what he couldn't personally control."

Sophie held up a purple crayon. "Draw Mommy?"

Four adults went silent.

I looked at her picture. She had drawn me with yellow hair, though mine was brown, and arms long enough to touch both sides of the paper. Beside me stood a black shape with square shoulders.

"Is that Silas?"

She nodded. "He stays at door."

Ronan leaned toward the drawing. "Why am I not in it?"

"Too loud."

Maeve laughed so hard she had to sit down.

Even Silas smiled.

We built the false room around Sophie's drawing.

Maeve borrowed a training mannequin from the nursing school. Ronan gave it one of his sweatshirts, then objected when everyone agreed the shoulders were still too small to resemble Silas. Paula arranged pillows beneath my blanket. The live monitor remained connected to a prerecorded rhythm approved by the hospital attorney.

"This is deeply unethical," Paula muttered while adjusting the mannequin's head.

"But the hair is excellent," Ronan said.

The mannequin wore a black mop from the pediatric playroom.

"It looks nothing like him," I said.

Silas studied it. "The resemblance is uncomfortable."

I laughed before I could stop myself.

Pain caught beneath my stitches. Silas was beside me instantly, one hand hovering near my waist without touching.

"I'm fine."

"You are holding your side."

"Because Ronan gave you yarn hair."

"I can remove Ronan."

"From the room?"

His gaze shifted toward his vice president. "If you prefer."

Ronan clutched the mannequin. "After I gave you a body double? This family has no loyalty."

Family.

The word landed softly and stayed.

At nine forty-five, Maeve moved Sophie and me into a recovery room across the hall. Silas came only after I asked him. He sat close enough to hear us, far enough that I could see the unlocked door.

We waited.

At nine fifty-eight, Briar's phone rang.

She listened without speaking, then held the screen where we could see a traffic camera.

Three police cruisers had turned onto the hospital road.

The police liaison had been given ten o'clock.

"Mercer," Briar said.

Silas's expression hardened.

My plan had worked.

That should have felt like victory.

Instead, the elevator chimed outside, and Grant's voice carried down the corridor.

"My wife is being abducted tonight. Seal every exit."

He had taken the bait.

He had also brought the entire police station with him.