Page 30 of Borrowed Pain
His voice trailed off.
"You want to slow down." It wasn't a question. Yesterday, Rowan had been pushing forward with single-minded determination. Today, I suspected he realized we stood at the edge of a cliff.
Rowan nodded. "We need to slow down." He scanned my face. "You're not ready for this. Michael's call rattled you. If we push forward now, we'll make mistakes that get us killed."
Relief flooded my chest, chased by disappointment. The investigation had given us purpose—a reason to sit with each other and share secrets in the dark. Without it, where were we?
"So what do you suggest?" I moved closer to the evidence wall, studying the faces that stared back at me. Iris's photo had been moved to the center, surrounded by the others like they were orbiting a sun.
"Research. Background checks. Following the money trail." Rowan joined me at the wall, his shoulder brushing mine. "Building a case that doesn't require us to walk into a trap."
His long, slim fingers traced connections between photographs and documents.
"The financial records show payments to something called Enhanced Therapy Solutions," he continued, pointing to a series of bank transfers. "It's a shell company registered in Delaware, but the money flows through accounts in the Cayman Islands before—"
I wasn't listening anymore.
Instead, I focused on his hands. Next was the slight tension in his shoulders when he leaned forward to point out a detail. His voice dropped into that measured cadence I knew from hundreds of podcast episodes.
"Miles?"
I snapped back to attention, realizing Rowan had stopped talking and was looking at me with raised eyebrows.
"Sorry. You were saying something about the Cayman Islands?"
A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "I'd moved on to talking about a facility in Phoenix that might be connected to the network. You're distracted."
Goosebumps appeared on my forearms. How long had I been staring at his hands instead of listening? "Long morning. Michael's call threw me off more than I expected."
"Your brother's protective."
"Aggressively so. All of them are." I turned back to the evidence wall, needing something to focus on besides how Rowan's Henley clung to his chest. "Sometimes it feels like I'm still twelve years old and they're trying to shield me from the worst parts of the world."
"But they aren't there every time you meet a client. You see so many bad parts of the world."
"You're right, and that's what's driving me here. I want to understand what happened to Iris. I want to know why she died. And I want..."
I stopped myself before I could finish the sentence. Before I could say that I wanted to keep working with Rowan and sit in his warehouse fortress while he navigated the evidence walls with those steady hands.
"What do you want, Miles?"
Rowan had moved closer, close enough to catch the fresh, unscented, no bullshit smell of him.
"I want to find the truth," I said, but we both knew that wasn't the complete answer anymore.
Rowan moved along the wall. "The coordination suggests they're not only targeting individual victims," he said, reaching up to adjust a photograph. The movement pulled his shirt tight across his back, defining the lean strength beneath. "They're mapping entire therapeutic networks, identifying the most successful cases for—"
He turned suddenly, catching me mid-stare.
We both froze. The warehouse electronics hummed around us.
"Miles?"
The pretense of professional collaboration evaporated. We weren't investigating partners anymore. We were two men standing too close in a converted warehouse, the air thick with unspoken attraction.
"I—" I started, then stopped. No joke came to mind. No deflection or clever quip to break the tension.
"This isn't about the investigation anymore," Rowan said.
