Jessica got home and sat on her bed without taking off her shoes. She did not eat. Did not sleep. Did not call anyone. She just sat there staring at nothing for a long time thinking about her father's face when he said six months and thinking about Dean's face when he said you are the collateral and going back and forth between the two until her head hurt.

She picked up her phone and typed Dean Lance into the search bar.

She wished she hadn't.

Article after article. His name was attached to things that made her stomach turn. A man was found dead in connection with a business dispute linked to Lance Corporation. Two men were hospitalised after an altercation outside a Lance property. A court case that was dropped before it even started, witnesses suddenly unavailable, evidence suddenly missing. His face in photographs at events, always composed, always that same expression, like nothing in the world could touch him because nothing ever had.

She put her phone face down on the bed.

This was the man her father had handed her to.

She lay back and stared at the ceiling and thought about running. About packing a bag and disappearing somewhere Dean Lance had never heard of. But then she thought about her dad in that hospital bed with the tube in his arm and his chest rising and falling and she knew she wasn't going anywhere.

She must have fallen asleep because when her phone buzzed she jolted awake and the room was darker than it had been.

She looked at the screen.

Unknown number. SMS.

It's me, Dean. I'm at your door, quickly come and open it. I wouldn't like to be kept outside and I don't visit people's houses because of my personality. But I did visit your father's house again today because I need an answer. And you know what that means. If my answer is no, you wouldn't like - I'm sure you wouldn't like - the condition you would want to meet your dad in if you ever give me no as an answer. I don't like.

Jessica read it once. Read it again.

Then she got up and went to the door.

Dean was standing there in the corridor exactly the way he had been standing in that hospital room. Like he had all the time in the world. Like showing up at a woman's apartment was something he did without thinking twice about it.

"You got my message," he said.

"You went to my father's house," Jessica said. "He is in a hospital bed."

"I am aware of that. I went to collect something he had been keeping for me." He looked at her steadily. "Are you going to let me in?"

She stepped back from the door.

He came in and looked around her apartment the way he looked at everything, like he was assessing it, filing it away. He sat down on her couch without being invited and looked at her standing by the door with her arms crossed.

"Your answer," he said.

"I don't have one yet."

"You have had since this morning."

"You gave me twenty-four hours."

"And you have used most of them sitting in here searching my name online." He said it without blinking. "Did you find what you were looking for?"

Jessica stared at him. "You were watching me."

He didn't confirm or deny it. Just kept looking at her with that same expression that gave nothing away.

"My answer is no," Jessica said. Her voice came out steadier than she felt. "I am not marrying you. I don't care what my father signed. He had no right to sign anything with my name and whatever agreement the two of you made has nothing to do with me."

Dean looked at her for a long moment.

Then he stood up.

"Alright," he said.

Just that. Alright. Like she had told him something mildly interesting.

He buttoned his jacket and moved toward the door and Jessica almost felt relieved, almost believed it was that simple, almost let herself think that no was actually an option.

Then he stopped with his hand on the door.

"Your father is being discharged tomorrow," he said without turning around. "The hospital has been very helpful. Very accommodating. That accommodation ends tonight."

Jessica went cold. "What does that mean?"

"It means the doctors looking after him are no longer available." He opened the door. "It means the medication keeping him stable is no longer being administered." He finally turned and looked at her one last time. "It means you're no longer just becoming very expensive for Raymond Calloway."

He walked out and closed the door behind him.

Jessica stood in the middle of her apartment and could not breathe.

No was not an answer.

It had never been.

After Dean left, she grabbed her bag from the bed and started throwing things in. Clothes, her charger, her purse, anything her hands landed on. She didn't have a plan or a destination in mind but she knew she just wanted to leave. She just knew she could not stay in that apartment one more minute waiting for Dean Lance to decide what happened to her next.

She was out the door in five minutes.

She ended up at a small hotel twenty minutes across town. Somewhere that wasn't even popular and at the outskirts of the town so nobody would recognize her. She paid cash at the front desk and went straight to the room and locked the door and sat on the edge of the bed and for the first time in three days, she could breathe.

Like she's having a moment without panic that something will happen again

There was no Dean or hospital or even her father's face when he said six months. Just her and the walls with the bright light and silence and her own heartbeat finally coming down to normal.

She let herself have that for one night.

What she didn't know was that while she was sitting in that hotel room finding her first moment of peace, Dean was standing over her father's hospital bed.

And he was not there to check on him.

"I am only going to ask you this once Raymond. Where is she."

Raymond Calloway opened his eyes slowly. He had been drifting in and out of sleep for the past hour, the medication making everything heavy and slow. But the moment he heard that voice he was wide awake.

Dean was standing at the foot of his bed with no doctor and no nurse beside him. Just Dean in that same dark suit, hands in his pockets, looking at him the way you look at something you have already decided about.

"I don't know where she is," Raymond said.

"That is the wrong answer."

"I'm telling you the truth. She left this morning and I haven't heard from her since. She won't pick up my calls."

Dean moved to the side of the bed and looked down at him. Raymond had faced difficult men in his life. Men who shouted and slammed tables and made threats that filled the whole room. Dean was not like any of those men. Dean was quiet in a way that was so much worse because you could never tell exactly how far he was willing to go until it was already too late.

"She packed a bag and left her apartment tonight," Dean said. "You are going to tell me right now if you helped her plan that."

"I didn't. I swear to God I didn't. I have been in this bed since yesterday, how could I have helped her do anything."

"You have a phone Raymond."

Raymond went quiet.

"Did you call her," Dean said. "Did you tell her to run."

"She's my daughter and I will always concern myself with her wellbeing no matter what I signed. You want your money, fine, but you will not use my child as a pawn in this, I won't allow it."

"She is my collateral." Dean pulled a chair from the corner of the room and sat down beside the bed and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. Still calm. Still that same voice. "And when collateral disappears it means someone helped it disappear. So I am going to ask you one more time and I need you to think very carefully before you answer me. Did you tell Jessica to leave."

"I called her," Raymond said finally. His voice broke on the words. "I called her after you left her apartment. I told her to go somewhere safe. I told her not to stay there."

The room went very quiet.

Dean sat back in the chair and looked at him for a long moment without speaking. Raymond could feel his own heart monitor picking up speed and the sweat gathering at the back of his neck. Dean's silence was always worse than whatever came after it.

"You told her to run," Dean said.

"She is my child. What did you expect me to do."

"I expected you to remember what you signed." Dean stood up from the chair and straightened his jacket. "I expected you to remember that your signature is the only reason you are still breathing right now. I expected you to stay out of things that no longer concern you."

"She will always concern me."

"Not anymore." Dean moved toward the door and then stopped with his back to Raymond the same way he always stopped, that same pause that meant he had one more thing to say and whatever it was Raymond was not going to like it. "The doctors here have been really good to you, you know? Very thorough, very attentive, like they are actually trying to help." He turned his head slightly but didn't fully look back. "It would be a shame if that level of care became difficult to maintain."

Raymond stared at him. "You can't do that."

"I already did it once tonight when your daughter said no," Dean said.

He walked out of the room.

A nurse came in about ten minutes after Dean left. Young, clipboard in hand, the kind of face that was usually warm and easy. But when she looked at Raymond's chart something shifted in her expression. She checked it twice like she was hoping she had read it wrong the first time.

"Mr. Calloway," she said carefully. "I need to let you know that your treatment plan has been updated."

Raymond looked at her. "What do you mean updated."

"Some of your current medications have been removed from your plan effective from tonight." She kept her voice professional but Raymond could see she was uncomfortable. "The authorization came through about an hour ago."

"I didn't authorize anything."

"No sir." She paused. "It wasn't authorized by you."

Raymond felt something drop in his chest. "Show me the form."

She hesitated for a moment then turned the clipboard toward him. Raymond looked at the bottom of the authorization form where the approving party had signed off.

The name was Dean Lance.

Raymond stared at it for a long time without moving. Dean had not come to that room to make threats. He had come to deliver a message he had already acted on before he even walked through the door. The medication being stopped. The doctors becoming unavailable. All of it was already done before Raymond had said a single word.

He had walked in holding all the cards and Raymond had been sitting there thinking he still had options.

He never did.

He reached for his phone with a shaking hand and Jessica did not pick up.

He tried again and got nothing. He dropped the phone on the bed beside him and just stared at the ceiling. For the first time since all this mess started Raymond Calloway understood clearly there was no way out of this that wouldn't cost his daughter something. He had run out of road and this time he'd dragged her down with him.

I know my dad did me wrong, but I still had to check up on him. I didn't know how he was feeling, didn't know what Dean had done or said to him after I left, and didn't know if his condition had worsened overnight. I just needed to hear his voice and know he was still okay even if I was still furious at him.

I woke up and just sat there on the hotel bed for a while. I didn't even know what time it was. The room was quiet and for a moment I forgot everything, forgot my dad, forgot Dean, forgot all of it. Then it all came back the way bad things always do, rushing in before you are ready for it.

I knew I couldn't stay in this room forever.

I picked up my phone and dialed my dad's number.

It rang twice before he picked up.

"Jessie." His voice changed and I noticed it immediately.

"Dad." I pulled my knees to my chest on the bed. "How are you feeling. How is the medication, are they still taking care of you properly?"

"I'm okay," he said too fast unlike the way he talks to me. Everything felt congested between us and I couldn't figure out why.

"Dad are you sure because last night when I left you didn't look"

"Jessie listen to me." His voice dropped lower. "I need you to listen very carefully to what I am about to tell you okay."

"Dad you're scaring me what is"

"Just listen." He paused and hesitated before he could answer me and I guessed someone whom he wouldn't want to hear our conversation could be there. "I love you very much. You know that right? Whatever happens, I need you to know that."

My stomach dropped.

"Dad who is in that room with you?"

He didn't answer.

"Dad."

Nothing.

That was when I heard another voice on the phone.

"Good morning Jessica," Dean said. "I was wondering when you would call."

I couldn't speak for a second. He had been there the whole time. Sitting right there beside my father's bed while I called to check on him like everything was normal. Listening to every word I said.

"Where are you staying," Dean said.

"I'm not telling you that."

"You don't have to." His voice didn't change at all. "Your father already told me everything I needed to know."

I looked around the hotel room. The small desk by the window. The door with the chain across it. The bag I had packed in five minutes was sitting on the floor by the bed. None of it felt safe anymore.

"I didn't say anything," my dad's voice came back. "Jessie I didn't say anything I swear to"

"Put Dean back on," I said quietly.

A shuffling sound. Then it was Dean again.

"You have been in that hotel since last night," he said. It wasn't a question. "Room 14. Third floor. You paid cash at the front desk."

Immediately i screamed and my blood went cold.

Who's Dean and what does he want from me, he literally knows every step I take I'm no longer safe anymore.

He already knew. He had known before I even called. This phone call hadn't given him anything he didn't already have. He had just let me talk so I could figure that out for myself.

"What do you want," I said.

"The same thing I have always wanted," Dean said. "You have until I get there to decide whether I am walking into that room as someone you called or someone you didn't."

The line went dead.

I sat there for a long time after that staring at nothing. Then I got up and walked to the door and took the chain off because what was the point of it anymore and sat back down on the bed.

The knock came twenty minutes later.

I opened the door.

Dean was standing there in the corridor looking at me the same way he always looked at me, like he had never once doubted this moment was coming.

"I told you there is no way out of this," he said. "But you took my words for granted. Now look who follows you everywhere."

I stood there in that hotel doorway and looked at him and I had nothing. No words. No plan. No next move. Just the understanding settling into my chest like something heavy and permanent that this man was not going anywhere and neither was I.

I was trapped.

And we both knew it.

He didn't wait to be invited. He just walked in and I was still standing at the door and he moved past me like the room already belonged to him, like he had stayed here before, like everything in it was already his including me.

He started walking around the room slowly and there was a small smile on his face that made my skin crawl.

"I told your stubborn poor father," he said, moving around the room like he was inspecting it. "I told him but he thought I was joking. Now I have gotten you on a platter of gold."

I felt the heat rise up my neck immediately.

"Don't you dare call my dad those names again," I said.

He stopped walking and looked at me.

"But you know that is what he is," Dean replied.

Anger was boiling inside of me inside me. I turned around and faced him and before I even knew what I was doing my hand was already moving toward his face.

He caught my wrist before it landed.

His grip was firm but he didn't squeeze. He just held it there between us and looked at me with that same expression, not angry, not surprised, just calm in that way that was worse than anything else he could have done.

We stood there like that, my hand caught in his, my chest breathing heavily, his eyes on mine, neither of us moving.

It just dawned on me that I had tried slapping him. I didn't even know what Dean was going to do to me next