Chapter 7 - THE RESCUE
Nathan didn't carry a weapon.
He didn't need one.
The men beside him obeyed his smallest gestures, and his calm expression frightened me more than their weapons did.
"Where is Owen?" he asked.
I said nothing.
Nathan sighed.
"He's my brother. I only want to help him recover."
"Then why are your men following me?"
His smile faded.
"Because you have something that belongs to my family."
Marcus moved between us.
"Leave her alone, Nathan."
Nathan stared at him.
"You should have stayed dead."
The words confirmed everything.
Marcus had been right. Nathan knew what happened that night, and he had ordered the cover-up.
I slipped my phone from my pocket and activated the emergency recording function.
Nathan noticed.
He lunged toward me, but Marcus tackled one of his men. The loading area erupted into chaos.
I ran.
A shot shattered a window above my head. I stumbled behind a delivery truck and heard someone shout my name.
Then Owen's security team arrived.
Rocco Bennett, Owen's oldest bodyguard, pulled me behind an armored vehicle while his men forced Nathan's group to retreat.
I had never met Rocco before, but he knew exactly who I was.
"Mr. Hartley sent us," he said. "He insisted we bring you back alive."
At the hospital, Owen was furious.
"You went alone?"
"I was trying to save you!"
"And you nearly got yourself killed!"
We stared at each other, breathing hard.
Then his anger collapsed into something more vulnerable.
"I can't lose another person because of my family."
I sat beside him.
"Then stop treating me like someone you can order out of your life."
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
He reached for my hand, his fingers trembling.
"I don't know how to protect someone without controlling everything around them."
"Then learn."
He looked at me as though those two words were harder to accept than any threat.
Before he could answer, Rocco entered with an update.
Nathan had vanished.
But the police had recovered his abandoned phone.
Its final message contained a photograph of Owen's hospital room.
May you like
And the person standing beside his bed wasn't Nathan.
It was me.
