Chapter 8
His Answer
Sloane laid Rowan's answer beneath the hospital archive lamp and watched him recognize it.
His pupils widened. His hand flattened on the metal table, stopping short of the page.
"I wrote this."
The room sat three floors below Milo's unit, windowless and cold enough to protect old microfilm. Theo had brought evidence sleeves from legal affairs. Celeste stood by the locked door. Adrian was upstairs under police guard while Mara completed his donor screening.
Sloane read the letter aloud because she wanted every word to wound the person responsible.
"Meet me under the clock at Grand Central, Friday at six. Bring every question. I will answer them, and if the child is mine, neither of you will face this alone."
She stopped before the last line. That one belonged to the woman who had waited beneath the brass clock until midnight.
Rowan looked at Theo. "You told me she never answered."
Theo set his phone facedown. "I told you the courier returned the letter."
"It was inside her envelope."
"I can see that."
"How did it leave my office?"
Theo gripped the back of a chair and remained standing. His legal precision had deserted him. "You dictated the first draft after the venture committee dinner. I revised it, printed it, and brought it to your apartment for signature."
"I remember."
"You were leaving for Singapore. You told me to deliver it myself."
Sloane slid the page toward him. "Did you?"
"I carried it to Blackwood Tower. Vivian met me in the lobby."
Rowan's voice dropped. "I said yourself."
"She said you had reconsidered. She showed me a message from your account directing all contact through her."
"And you obeyed."
"I was twenty-nine, newly made general counsel, and your mother controlled every vote that kept me there. She told me Sloane's brother had threatened litigation over the clinic trial. She framed the pregnancy as part of the claim."
Sloane gripped the table edge. "You had met me. You ate Christmas dinner in my apartment."
Theo looked at her. "I knew you. I chose the version of events that protected my career."
The answer was uglier and more useful than an excuse.
"What happened next?" Rowan asked.
"Vivian took the letter. Two days later, her office returned an empty courier envelope marked refused. I told you Sloane had sent it back unopened."
Rowan crossed the space between them and caught Theo by the front of his shirt. The chair skidded into a cabinet.
Celeste reached for the alarm beside the door. Sloane covered her hand.
"Wait."
Rowan held his oldest friend against the steel drawers. "I spent five years believing she chose silence."
"I know."
"My son learned chemotherapy before he learned my name."
"I know."
"Stop saying that."
Theo's face tightened. "Then hit me or let go. I have no sentence that repairs this."
Rowan released him with a shove. He turned away, one hand braced on the archive table.
Sloane studied the width of his shoulders, the white scar at his jaw, and the fury he had nowhere safe to put. Part of her wanted to touch him. The rest remembered waiting under the clock while station announcements repeated and strangers met the people who came for them.
"Did you go to Grand Central?" Rowan asked without turning.
"Six hours."
His head bowed.
"I thought the meeting was your idea," she continued. "The message came from an unknown number, but it used a phrase from our last night together. I went because nobody else knew it."
"What phrase?"
"It doesn't matter now."
He faced her. The space between them narrowed when neither moved. "It matters to me."
"That has not proven a reliable measure."
His hand lifted toward her cheek. It stopped before contact and fell.
Celeste cleared her throat. "The letter has a machine code at the bottom. Can it identify the printer?"
Theo straightened his collar. "Yes. Blackwood devices embed tracking dots on color prints. The archive system may retain the job log."
"You no longer work for Blackwood," Rowan said.
Theo went still.
"Effective now, you are terminated as my counsel and from every personal appointment I control. Send conflicts notices before noon."
"The board suspended your executive authority. You cannot fire me as general counsel."
"Then Vivian can keep you."
Theo absorbed the blow. "Understood."
He gathered his phone and laptop.
Sloane blocked the door. "We still need the printer log and the payment metadata."
"Those records belong to the company," Theo said. "As an employee, I have a narrow route to preserve them. Fired, I become a witness with no access."
Rowan's expression hardened. "You should have considered that before handing my life to my mother."
"He should have," Sloane said. "Milo cannot wait for your punishment to become convenient."
Rowan looked at her. "You want me to keep trusting him?"
"I want you to use him. Trust can starve outside with the rest of us."
Celeste leaned against the door. "Vivian expects loyalty to flow one direction. Theo can mislead her for perhaps an hour if he returns upstairs looking wounded. He has achieved the face."
"Thank you," Theo said.
"It was not praise."
Rowan paced to the end of the table. He had given Sloane veto power over Milo's treatment, yet the old instinct remained in him: decide, order, make everyone else live inside the result.
"You fired him before asking what the evidence required," she said.
"He stole five years."
"Your mother stole them. He held the door. Keep the crimes separate if you expect a court to do the same."
The words struck him. He picked up Theo's phone and returned it.
"You remain general counsel until you preserve the printer logs, the lab transfer authentication, and every record tied to Vale-Ashbourne Clinic. After that, resign."
Theo took the phone. "Vivian will know someone accessed the archive."
"Let her chase you instead of Sloane."
"That is your legal strategy?"
"It is your first useful consequence."
Theo left for the executive floor. Celeste followed to give her statement to police, taking the original letters in sealed sleeves. Rowan and Sloane remained under the hard white lamp.
The ventilation fan clicked off. In the sudden silence, Sloane heard Rowan drag the discarded chair upright and set it back beneath the table. He aligned it with the others before facing her, a small repair performed because the large one lay beyond reach.
"I did write to you," he said.
"Once."
"I searched after the letter came back. Your lease had ended. The clinic said you were abroad. Adrian threatened an injunction if I contacted your family."
"Did you verify any of it?"
"I hired an investigator through Theo. He found a departure record in your name and a forwarding address in Lisbon."
"I have never been to Portugal."
"So you stopped."
"Yes."
She appreciated the absence of defense. It did not ease the ache.
"I needed you to try twice," she said.
Rowan's hand rested beside hers on the table, close enough that the heat reached her little finger. "I needed to be a man who did."
Her phone rang from Milo's unit. Mara never called when a text would do.
Sloane answered on speaker. "Is his fever back?"
"His temperature is stable," Mara said. "I was reconciling Adrian's confirmatory HLA result against the national registry file. The match entry disappeared while I had it open."
"A display error?"
"Registry security confirmed a deletion under hospital credentials. Adrian's donor profile and every saved match linked to Milo are gone."