“Yeah. On paper it’s PR. In practice…” I shrug. “It’s the kind of thing you hire when you want a problem to disappear.”
His gaze hardens. “What was the name of the group?”
“Fielding Group,” I tell him.
He doesn’t react. Not visibly. But his eyes shift slightly, like he’s filing it away.
“What?” I press. “You know it?”
“I know the type,” he says. That’s not an answer. But I let it go, because his face just tightened in that way it did in The Bridge when his phone buzzed.
His family.
I hesitate, then take a breath. “Sin, can I ask you something without you doing the whole ‘Rowan’ thing?”
His brow lifts. “Try.”
“Why are you… like this?” I gesture at him, at the calm vigilance, the way he seems built for danger. “You’re not just a bodyguard. You’re… intense.”
The corner of his mouth almost lifts, then stops. “That’s a compliment?”
“It’s an observation,” I say. “Compliments are earned.”
Sin holds my gaze for a long beat. Then, surprisingly, he answers. “My father,” he says. Just two words, and the air changes.
I straighten in my chair without thinking. “Your father.”
Sin uncrosses his arms, setting his mug down, and looks past me for a second like he’s seeing something that isn’t in this kitchen.
“He was presumed dead when I was a kid,” he says.
My heart slows. “I’m sorry.”
His eyes flick to mine. “Don’t be yet. The story doesn’t end there.”
He exhales once, controlled. “It was an accident. That’s what we were told. Wreck on a back road down by the river. No body recovered.”
My stomach twists. “No body?”
He shakes his head. “None. We were young. We believed what we were told because we had to. Our mother held us together. We moved forward.”
“And now?” I ask softly.
“Now there have been sightings,” he says. “A man who matches him. Same limp. Same scar. Same build. It could be a coincidence. It could be someone who looks like him.” His voice goes slightly quieter, like the words weigh something. “But it could be him. Yet, my mother wants us to stand down.”
A chill moves through me. “That’s… huge.”
“It is,” he says.
“Why wouldn’t your mom want you to look?” I ask, and immediately regret it because it’s personal, and I’m suddenly very aware I’m talking to a man who doesn’t do feelings.
Sin’s jaw flexes. His gaze drops to the counter, then returns to me. “Because she thinks he’s gone,” he says. “Or she wants him to be. Either way, she told us to stop. To let him stay dead.” The phrase hits me like a cold slap.
Let him stay dead.
I swallow. “That’s… brutal.”
“It’s self-preservation,” he says, but it doesn’t sound like he believes it. It sounds like he’s trying to.
