Rowan POV
The apartment is black except for the city lights bleeding through the windows.
Rowan sits in that darkness like he belongs there. Like the shadows are the only place he's ever been real. The contract file sits on the table in front of him, and he hasn't opened it in three hours because his brain already photographed every page.
Daniel Hart's schedule. Every meeting. Every lunch. Every moment he's alone.
Daniel's security details. Who guards him. When they change shifts. Where the gaps are.
Daniel's home address. The penthouse on the forty-second floor where he keeps his life private and his heart locked away.
His favorite coffee place. Corner of Fifth and Main. Tuesdays and Thursdays at seven in the morning. Always black coffee. Always alone.
Rowan has been collecting these details for three years. Not because Marcus ordered him to. Because after he left Daniel, he couldn't stay away. He'd tried. Disappeared completely for two months and nearly destroyed himself doing it. Then he'd broken. One surveillance job had turned into two, then five, then a permanent assignment watching the only person who ever mattered.
He told himself it was protection. Daniel needed someone looking after him. Daniel was vulnerable after Rowan shattered him. Someone had to make sure nothing worse happened.
That was the lie Rowan told himself so he could keep breathing.
The truth was simpler and more painful. Rowan couldn't live in a world where Daniel didn't exist. Couldn't move through his life as an assassin without knowing that somewhere in the city, Daniel was safe. Was breathing. Was living the life Rowan had given him by leaving.
Now his handler wanted him to take that life away.
Rowan's phone was in his hand before he decided to move. His fingers dialed the number from memory. No contacts. No saved names. Just numbers burned into his brain the way everything important burned into his brain.
Sebastian answered on the second ring.
"Yeah," Sebastian said. Just one word. Because they didn't waste time on greetings.
"I can't do it," Rowan said.
Silence came through the phone like a held breath.
"I can't do this contract. I need to disappear. I need to walk away and I need help doing it."
More silence. Longer this time. Rowan could hear the city noise behind Sebastian's line. Traffic. Voices. The world moving while Rowan's stood still.
"That's not something we do," Sebastian finally said. "Walking away. Disappearing on the organization. That's not something that ends well."
"I know."
"They'll hunt you. They'll kill you. And if they think you're protecting someone instead of just walking away, they'll kill that person too."
"I know that as well."
Another pause. Rowan could picture Sebastian's face. The sharp angles. The ice-blue eyes that had watched over him through sixteen years of assignments. The only friend he had in the world because friendship required something human, and Sebastian was the closest thing to human that lived in their world.
"Okay," Sebastian said finally. Simple. Complete. No questions.
"Okay?"
"You need help. I'll help you. Whatever you need, I'll do it."
Rowan's chest tightened because this was betrayal on a level that would destroy both of them. Walking away from the organization meant death. There was no retirement. No exit. Just a line in a file marked terminated with prejudice.
But Sebastian said okay like it was nothing.
"We need to move fast," Rowan said. "They gave me two weeks but they'll figure out I'm compromised sooner. I need new identities. Somewhere to hide. Access to resources."
"I can do that. I have people. Equipment. We can get you out of the country within forty-eight hours."
Forty-eight hours to disappear. Forty-eight hours to leave the only city where Daniel existed. Forty-eight hours to become a ghost of a ghost.
It was almost possible.
Then Rowan's phone buzzed.
Not a call. An alert.
His custom monitoring system. The one connected to Daniel's penthouse security. The system he'd installed three years ago without anyone knowing, as a way to protect the man he loved from a distance.
Security breach detected. Multiple entry points. System override in progress.
Rowan stood up so fast the chair fell backward.
"What happened?" Sebastian asked.
"Daniel's penthouse. Someone's breaking through the security. Now. Right now."
Rowan was already moving to the door. His jacket. His keys. His phone. Everything essential, nothing else.
"They're faster than we thought," Sebastian said. The shock was gone from his voice, replaced with tactical clarity. "They're making their move."
"I'm going there."
"If you show up at his place, they'll know you're compromised immediately. They'll kill you both."
"I don't care." Rowan was at the elevator, pressing the button. Waiting. The seconds felt like hours. "I can't let them hurt him."
"Rowan, listen to me. If you go there as yourself, as his former lover, you're done. Your cover is blown. Your identity is exposed. Everything you've built is destroyed."
The elevator doors opened. Rowan stepped inside.
"I know," he said.
"And you're doing it anyway?"
"I'm doing it anyway."
The phone line crackled. Sebastian breathing on the other end. Rowan could almost hear him making decisions, calculating odds, figuring out how to salvage a situation that was already burning.
"If you're going there, you can't let them take him alive," Sebastian said quietly. "If they grab Daniel, they'll use him. They'll use him against you. They'll make you watch."
"I won't let that happen."
"You can't promise that." Sebastian's voice was hard now. Real. Showing him the truth underneath the training. "You can't protect him if you're dead. And you will die tonight if you walk in there without a plan."
The elevator dropped toward the lobby. Numbers flickering past. Forty. Thirty-nine. Thirty-eight.
Rowan thought about Daniel's smile. The way it made him look like someone worth saving. The way his eyes held light even when his heart was breaking.
"I have a plan," Rowan said.
"What?"
"I'm going to save him or I'm going to die trying. There's nothing else."
The elevator hit the lobby. The doors opened into harsh fluorescent light and the real world waiting to swallow him whole.
"They're in the building," the alert on his phone said. Multiple tangos moving toward Hart's unit. Estimated arrival at penthouse level in four minutes.
Rowan ran.
"I'm coming with you," Sebastian said through the phone. "I'm moving to secondary position. I'll have your six when you hit the building."
"No. This has to be mine. This has to be on me."
"He means something to you," Sebastian said. It wasn't a question.
"He means everything."
The parking garage. Rowan's car. Keys already in his hand even though he didn't remember grabbing them. His body knew what to do. Combat mode. Survival mode. The mode where Rowan stopped being human and became the weapon everyone trained him to be.
Three minutes fifty seconds until the assassins reached Daniel's penthouse.
Rowan's hands were steady as he started the car. Steady as he floored the accelerator out of the garage. Steady as he merged into traffic and pushed toward the address that had been burned into his memory for three years.
His phone buzzed again.
The assassins had arrived.
Daniel was about to die.
And Rowan was going to burn the entire world down before he let that happen.