The ward was quiet now. Too quiet.
Adrian sat in the chair closest to the window, the same one he had barely moved from since last night. The sterile air pressed down on him, thick with the sharp tang of disinfectant and the faint hum of machinery. Emily slept soundly across the room, her steady breathing filling the silence. Amara had dozed off earlier in the chair beside her, her head bowed, her hand still loosely wrapped around her friend's.
Adrian should have left by now. He told himself that a dozen times. But his legs didn't move. Something tethered him here, some invisible thread wound too tightly around his chest.
He'd promised himself years ago that he wouldn't get pulled into anyone's orbit...not emotionally, not personally. But Amara Collins had a way of drawing light into the spaces he'd spent years keeping dark.
The thought unsettled him enough to reach for his phone, if only to distract himself. But before he could do anything, the screen lit up with a name he hadn't seen in days.
Father.
Adrian's stomach clenched. He pressed the phone to his ear and leaned back into the chair, bracing himself.
"Adrian." His father's voice was as sharp as a blade....clipped, commanding, and threaded with the kind of authority that demanded obedience. "Do you want to explain to me why I received a call at midnight from the director of St. Luke's Hospital? Why he informed me that you went over his head?"
Adrian closed his eyes briefly, willing away the ache building at his temples. Of course word had traveled fast. In his father's world, nothing stayed quiet for long.
"There was a delay in admitting someone," Adrian said flatly. "I fixed it."
"You 'fixed it'?" His father's tone hardened. "You bypassed protocol, embarrassed the staff, and dragged the family name into the open. Again."
Adrian's grip tightened around the phone. He had expected this. He had expected the fury, the lecture about responsibility and appearances. What he hadn't expected was the faint curl of shame coiling in his gut....not because of his father, but because of how easily he had reached for that lifeline last night. How quickly he had broken his own rule.
"They weren't doing anything," Adrian said, his voice low. "Emily was hurt. Amara was…" He cut himself off, realizing too late how her name had slipped out.
There was silence on the other end, sharp and heavy. "Amara?" His father repeated, tone laced with suspicion. "So this is about a girl."
Adrian's jaw clenched. "This is about the fact that your precious institutions can't handle emergencies properly without someone pulling strings."
"That hospital isn't 'precious,' it's ours," his father snapped. "And those strings exist for a reason. You don't tug them unless necessary. Do you realize the message it sends when you use your name so carelessly?"
Adrian stood then, pacing toward the far corner of the room, lowering his voice so as not to wake Amara. "Do you realize what it means when people are left waiting, suffering, because everyone's too busy shuffling paperwork? She could've..." He stopped, exhaling sharply. "Forget it."
His father's voice softened, but not kindly. "You can't afford to be reckless, Adrian. You know what's expected of you. Your place in this family comes with weight. Influence isn't a toy you use to impress a girl."
The words cut sharper than Adrian expected. Impress a girl. As though Amara's terrified eyes, her trembling hands, her desperate pleas for help, were nothing but a stage for his arrogance. His father would never understand.
"I wasn't trying to impress anyone," Adrian said, his voice tight. "I was trying to help."
"That's not your role," his father replied coolly. "Stay in your lane. You're not here to fix every problem you stumble across. You're here to carry this family forward. Don't forget that."
Adrian's pulse hammered in his ears. He wanted to argue, to throw the phone across the room, to break something...anything....to drown out the voice that had dictated the terms of his life since childhood. But he didn't. He forced himself into silence, gripping the edge of the window ledge until his knuckles whitened.
His father sighed on the other end, the sound heavy with finality. "We'll talk more when you come home. Until then, remember who you are, Adrian. Don't let me hear about another stunt like this."
The line went dead.
Adrian lowered the phone slowly, his hand trembling before he clenched it into a fist. He hated this feeling...the pull of loyalty and resentment, of belonging and suffocation. He hated that no matter how far he tried to run, his father's shadow followed him.
And most of all, he hated that Amara had been there to see it.
He turned back toward the room. Amara was still asleep, strands of her hair falling across her face, the soft fabric of his hoodie wrapped snugly around her. Something about the sight disarmed him completely.
She didn't know. Not fully. Not yet. But she would ask again...he could see it in her eyes. And if she learned the truth… if she saw him the way everyone else did....powerful, untouchable, defined by his father's empire....then everything fragile between them would shatter before it began.
Adrian leaned against the wall, pressing the heel of his palm to his eyes.
Why did he care what she thought? Why did her opinion feel heavier than all his father's expectations combined?
He thought of her laughter, the way she filled silence with warmth instead of noise. He thought of the storm the other night, of her trembling against him as thunder rattled the walls, of the way she had trusted him with her fear. He thought of the hoodie she still wore, as though carrying a piece of him without even realizing it.
And suddenly, he understood why he had made that call. Why he had broken his rule.
Because it was her. Because when she looked at him like that...in fear, in desperation....he couldn't stand still. He couldn't pretend to be detached, to be cold, to be his father's son.
He had wanted to protect her. And it terrified him.
The night dragged on, each minute heavy with thoughts he couldn't escape. When dawn finally broke, Adrian found himself sitting again, staring at his phone. His thumb hovered over the screen, over the open message thread with her name at the top.
He typed a few words. Did you sleep?
Deleted them.
Typed again. Are you okay?
Deleted that too.
He settled for nothing, locking the phone and shoving it back into his pocket. It was safer this way. Safer to keep her at a distance. Safer not to let her see the cracks.
But as he glanced across the room, watching Amara stir awake, her eyes blinking against the pale morning light, Adrian knew it was already too late.
She was inside his walls. And he didn't know how to push her out.