FAZER LOGINGunfire echoed off the warehouse's metal walls, making it hard to tell where it had come from.Marco ducked instinctively. Dane's hand shoved his shoulder. Both men fell beside the door, and glass broke behind them.Dane tried to get up immediately. His right arm didn't follow.Marco looked at him. Blood was spreading across the shirt at his shoulder. Dane tried to reach for it, only to discover again that he couldn't move his arm. Pain spread belatedly, stiffening him up to his neck.“Boss.”Marco called. Dane tried to point toward the employee inside, but only his fingers moved. The employee was facedown on the floor. From here, they couldn't immediately tell whether he was alive or injured.The officer shouted for the gun to be put down. One man at the entrance disappeared backward; another froze where he stood. Everyone reduced their movements, afraid of
On the island, Evelyn returned to the room with Leo.The boy chose the dinner seats first. He put his uncle by the window and Evelyn beside himself, then switched their places again. Evelyn said she still didn't know when Dane would return.“Late?”“He might be.”Leo erased one of the chairs he'd drawn on the paper. Evelyn didn't tell him to draw it again. Small crumbs fell from the eraser he'd been rubbing for so long.When the phone rang, both looked up. Evelyn showed him the screen and answered outside the room. Dane. He'd arrived at the port and was still meeting people, he said.“The injured man?”“They're checking his condition.”He answered. She couldn't hear a boat. Far away, men were arguing. Evelyn waited for him to tell her he was safe, then thought it was dangerous to ask only to obtain that answer.
Picking up his coat, Dane told Marco to secure the entrance where they would meet the medical staff first. He didn't tell him to put more guards on his boat. Evelyn remembered the instructions from his recent follow-up.“If anything physical needs doing there, leave it to someone else.”“Marco and I have divided it up. My job is to get the door opened.”While he checked inside his coat, Evelyn took his arm. Hearing that he'd divided the work hadn't eased her worry. Instead of pulling his coat away, he turned toward her.Dane pressed a deep, warm kiss to the forehead of the woman holding his hand.“I'm going to the mainland. I'll confirm when I can return and call you.”Evelyn didn't release his coat. She was glad he hadn't promised an impossibly short time, but that made her more anxious too.“Come back alive. Dane, that's not a request.”
Dane didn't take out his phone as he watched her. Only when Evelyn smiled first did his arms tighten. From the far side of the greenhouse came the sound of Leo's spade digging in the soil. Evelyn looked over Dane's shoulder toward the boy. When Leo lowered his head to his own game, she turned back to Dane too.As the wind strengthened, Evelyn went to close the vent. Instead of reaching ahead of her, Dane supported the handle she was working. The bottom wouldn't shut properly, and they pressed close together to push.“Do you stick this close every time you're working?”“Didn't realize I was working right now.”He answered from right behind her. Evelyn released the handle and turned. The frame behind her left no room to retreat, but the space beside her was clear. Instead of stepping out through the opening he'd left, she picked a small leaf from his coat collar.“Don't say you wan
“It's good news.”Even after saying it, she couldn't smile. She remembered the family's shoes as they waited in the corridor for an explanation. The question the child had asked her to pass on to his dad before surgery—she still hadn't spoken it in front of his father.“They'll have gone back to the same house today too.”Evelyn's breath broke. Dane came closer. She started to hide her face, then caught his shirt instead.As she bent forward, she lost her balance. Dane reached around her waist and back. When her weight fell against him, he moved a foot back and braced himself to keep them both from sinking to the ground.His shirt smelled of soap. Unable to raise her face, Evelyn held his collar.Supporting her weight, Dane moved toward the bench. Evelyn sat with him without lifting her head. Her wet cheek pressed against his shirt.“Dane... I... the child...”She couldn't continue. Dane rested a hand against the back of her head, then lowered it to her back when she shook her head.E
On the day the meeting ended, Evelyn went to her accommodation on the mainland. Only after unpacking did she tell Dane she'd arrived. He acknowledged it but didn't add his usual question about food. The next day, the hospital explained the surgical course she would be reviewing.Further questions came, and she wrote out the stages she remembered again. She also arranged to give a statement to the investigators. Submitting material that challenged the foundation's allegations hadn't ended every process at once.Adrian maintained that there had been nothing wrong with the record changes. He no longer said Evelyn had left the scene after surgery. Instead, he said their accounts of the decisions at the time differed. While the wording shifted little by little, no one apologized first.The foundation amended part of its official statement. It withdrew the explanation that had given the impression Evelyn had fled with 300 million Westmere marks in research funds and announced that the accou







