He stops. Turns to face me. Then nods.
No deflection. No joke to soften it. Just the nod, plain and unguarded, and something steady in his eyes that tells me to not do anything other than to accept it as fact.
I don't move from the window, that familiar crawl starting underneath my skin. I roll my neck, hear somethingpop, dig my thumb into the muscle at my shoulder, needing somewhere to put the restlessness before it turns into something worse.
Ian watches me do it. Doesn't comment.
"How did you find me?"
His expression shifts—something careful moving behind it, the particular stillness of a man deciding how much weight a sentence can carry before he says it. "You're not gonna like it."
"Of course I'm not." I press my palm flat against the cool glass of the window, grounding against it the way the doctor told me to, something solid and real to anchor to. "But tell me anyway."
Ian studies me a beat too long—the kind of pause that's wrong on him, because Ian never has to choose his words. They just arrive already loaded and ready.
"Rowan."
I straighten. "Rowan?"
He nods slowly, crossing his arms, leaning back against the doorframe like he needs the support of it. "We were still in Japan when he called. Said he knew how to get to you. Said we should meet."
“That doesn’t make sense.” It really fucking doesn’t.
“Surprised me, too. Fucker had everything we needed. Rotations. Codes. Which guards could be bought." Ian's voice goes flat, careful. "All this inside knowledge, and he handed it over like it was nothing."
Rowan doesn't make deals he doesn't structure to his own advantage. Doesn't pick up a phone for anyone unless the math already favors him three moves out. I've watched him operate for years—every conversation a chessboard,every kindness a down payment on something he'll collect later with interest. The idea of him reaching out to Ian unprompted, handing over intelligence on his own wife's operation, doesn't fit the shape of the man I know.
Unless it does.
"What did he want in return?"
Ian raises a brow. "What makes you think he wanted anything?"
"It's Rowan. He doesn't do anything if it doesn't benefit him directly."
Ian stands, slides his hands in his pants pockets. "He didn’t get what he wanted.”
“Then what did he get?” Because Rowan would never walk out without getting something. "Ian."
"It's not what you think."
"You don't know what I think."
"I know you're already three steps down the wrong road with it." He exhales, scrubs a hand over his face. "Let's just say I'm a very generous negotiator."
“Ian?”
He doesn't look at me. Looks past me, out the window, at the mountain going gray in the last of the light. "Doesn't matter right now."
"You saying that confirms that it fucking matters."
"Reth—"
"What did it cost?" My voice comes out rougher than I mean it to.
Ian's jaw tightens. For a second, I think he's going to give me the same deflection he's been running for days.
Instead, something in his face just—gives.
