Chapter 13

I dashed into the hospital, where the air smelled of bleach and worry.

I pushed through the corridor doors, my chest burning from the sprint up the stairs. Every step echoed in my skull.

My hands were shaking so badly I nearly dropped my phone. All I could see was that text burned into my mind.

“Choose, or watch him die.”

“Please, please,” I whispered to no one. “Let him be okay.”

When I reached my father’s room, the world tilted.

He was there. Alive. Breathing. But pale, his chest rising and falling in slow, uneven rhythms. The heart monitor beeped a tired rhythm, steady but weak. A nurse looked up from her chart, startled by my entrance.

“Miss Riley…”

“What happened?” My voice came out strangled.

“He’s stable,” she said gently. “No change since last night. But someone left this.” She pointed to the pillow beside him.

My blood ran cold.

A single white envelope rested against his pillow, perfectly placed, as though someone had been careful not to wake him.

I moved closer, each step louder in the quiet room. My fingers trembled as I picked it up.

No name. Just my initials, J.R., written in looping, unfamiliar script.

My throat tightened. “Who brought this?”

The nurse frowned. “We don’t know. It wasn’t here at shift change. Security’s checking the cameras.”

I tore it open.

Inside was a single sheet of paper. Just six words, printed in bold type:

YOU’RE RUNNING OUT OF TIME.

I sank into the chair beside his bed, the paper fluttering in my hand. My father’s breathing hitched slightly, and instinctively I reached out, threading my fingers through his.

His skin felt so thin, so fragile. I could feel the faint pulse beneath it, stubborn and soft.

“Dad,” I whispered. “Did someone come in here?”

His eyelids fluttered. For a moment, I thought he wouldn’t respond. Then his lips moved, barely forming words.

“Jane… Daniel… knows…”

My heart stopped. “Knows what, Dad?”

He struggled to take a breath. “The truth… about the accident…”

Tears burned behind my eyes. “What truth? Dad, what do you mean?”

But his strength faded. His eyes slipped closed again, and the room fell back into the hush of machines and antiseptic air.

I sat there, staring at him, my mind spinning.

The accident. The one that nearly killed him. The one that everyone said was a tragic hit-and-run. The one that, deep down, I’d never fully believed was random.

Daniel knows the truth about it?

I pressed my forehead to my father’s hand. “Why, Dad? Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

Outside, thunder rolled over the city. Rain splattered against the window, the rhythm uneven, like the pulse of my thoughts.

If Daniel had known something about my father’s accident all this time… then what else had he been hiding?

I stayed there for hours. Watching his chest rise and fall.

Listening to the rain and the hum of hospital machines. The paper with those six words sat on my lap, crumpled and damp from my grip.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Daniel’s face, his expression in that café when Pierce appeared. The fear. The guilt. And then I saw Pierce’s smile. That cold, deliberate smile.

None of it made sense. But somewhere in the middle of it all, I could feel the truth circling me, waiting to strike.

By late afternoon, the nurse insisted I go home and rest. I didn’t argue, though rest felt impossible.

Outside, the sky was bruised purple. The city glowed in streaks of neon and rain light.

I walked down the hospital steps, my coat soaked through in minutes. Cars hissed by, their headlights bending through the storm.

I kept thinking about my father’s words. Daniel knows the truth about the accident.

Had Daniel known Pierce back then? Had Pierce caused the crash? Or had Daniel been part of something even worse?

I pulled my phone from my pocket, ready to call Daniel, but my fingers froze over the screen.

What if my father was right? What if Daniel wasn’t the hero he claimed to be?

My pulse quickened. My breath came shallow. I slid the phone back into my bag.

I needed proof. Not promises. Not half-truths. Proof.

By the time I reached the car, my clothes clung to my skin. I unlocked the door, but something made me pause, an uneasy whisper in the back of my mind.

I turned.

Across the parking lot, under a flickering streetlight, a man stood watching me.

Same build. Same coat. Same faceless stillness as before.

I couldn’t see his features, just the faint gleam of rain on his shoulders. The wind caught his coat, making it ripple like a dark flag. For a moment, I thought I saw something glint in his hand, metal? A phone?

“Hey!” I shouted.

He didn’t move. Didn’t even flinch.

Then, as a car passed between us, he was gone.

I scanned the lot, my heart hammering. Nothing. Just rain and shadows.

When I finally got home, the apartment felt colder than usual. I hung my coat, kicked off my soaked shoes, and stood in the doorway, unsure what to do next.

A note on my counter caught my eye. It wasn’t there this morning.

Folded once. No envelope. Just sitting there, waiting.

My hands shook as I opened it.

“You can’t save him and the truth.”

My breath hitched. I dropped the paper like it was on fire.

How did they get in? How did they know where I lived?

I ran to the windows, locked. The door, still bolted. Every light in the apartment flickered once, as though mocking my fear.

I sank onto the couch, clutching a pillow to my chest.

Daniel’s voice echoed in my head: Some people would use you to get to me.

Had he meant Pierce? Or someone else?

The clock on the wall ticked louder and louder, filling the silence with steady accusation. I looked again at the note on the coffee table.

You can’t save him and the truth.

What did that mean? Was my father’s safety tied to Daniel’s secrets? Was Pierce forcing me to choose between the man who’d once broken my heart and the only family I had left?

The sound of thunder shook the windows. I pressed my palms to my eyes.

“I can’t do this,” I whispered. “I can’t keep choosing in the dark.”

But deep down, I knew I would because I didn’t have a choice.

Later that night, I couldn’t sleep. The city’s noise faded into a dull hum. I sat by the window, staring at the rain, replaying my father’s words again and again.

Daniel knows the truth about the accident.

That sentence had cracked something open in me, something that refused to close.

I thought about the night Daniel disappeared all those years ago, how his phone went silent, how no one could find him. How, when I finally stopped waiting for answers, I told myself he was gone for good.

But what if he hadn’t vanished? What if he’d been forced to?

The questions piled up, sharp and heavy, until my chest hurt from the weight of them.

Then I remembered something, an old box in my father’s study, a box he never let me open. If there were answers anywhere, they’d be there.

Tomorrow, I will find it.

Morning crept in gray and slow. The rain hadn’t stopped.

I returned to the hospital before dawn, coffee in hand, heart thudding. My father looked the same, peaceful, fragile, and untouchable. I kissed his forehead and whispered, “I’m going to fix this, Dad. I promise.”

As I turned to leave, something caught my eye.

His left hand, resting on the blanket, looked different. The skin around his ring finger was pale, indented where his wedding band had always been.

It was gone.

My stomach dropped. I reached for his hand, gently lifting it.

Beneath it, folded into a small square, was a scrap of paper.

My pulse roared in my ears as I unfolded it.

“He lied to protect himself.”

My knees nearly gave out.

Was it Daniel?

Was it Pierce?

Or was the truth something darker, something even my father couldn’t bear to tell me?

The world around me blurred, and for the first time since this all began, I realized…

I might not survive knowing the answer.