The director's office was too warm, too still. It felt like a room designed to erase sound and suspicion, a sealed box curated to feel untouchable. Rowan stood just inside the doorway, his shoulders squared but tense, a file folder gripped so tightly between his fingers that the corners had begun to bend and curl inward. He didn't sit. He didn't greet. He walked forward and dropped the folder directly on the polished desk.
"It's from 2012," he said.
Dr. Brenner didn't look surprised. He didn't even glance at the folder. Instead, he reached for the glass of water near his hand and took a long, deliberate sip before answering.
"That was a long time ago."
Rowan's voice stayed calm, but there was an edge to it now, cold and sharp like a scalpel. "Not long enough for you to forget what's in there."
Brenner's expression didn't move. "I've handled hundreds of cases. You'll have to be more specific."
"A girl. Fifteen years old. Lily Keane. She died of respiratory failure after receiving the wrong medication. Your name is on her file."
There was a pause, just long enough to register the weight of what had been said. Then Brenner set the glass down, the sound quiet but deliberate.
"It was a tragic case."
"No," Rowan said, his voice steady. "It was negligence. And the intern under your supervision that day? No records. No digital ID. No full name. Just two letters."
Cardinal.
Brenner's voice was almost a whisper, but it rang with something like recognition. Rowan caught it immediately.
"You knew."
"I know many things, Rowan. And I also know that revisiting the past won't change what happened."
"You didn't just let it happen. You buried it."
There was a long beat of silence, the kind that cracked tension wide open. Brenner sat straighter, a flicker of warning in his eyes.
"Be very careful, son."
The word hit Rowan like a slap.
Son.
He had never used it here. Not in this office. Not within these walls where no one was supposed to know.
"Don't call me that," Rowan said, his voice low and steady. "Not here. Not while you're still lying."
"You think this is about lies? It's about survival," Brenner said, folding his hands calmly. "You're not ready to understand the decisions I've had to make."
"I understand more than you think," Rowan said. "And I'm done protecting what you built."
He turned, walked out, and didn't look back. The door clicked shut behind him, but the echo of it stayed in his chest like a second heartbeat.
Nora hadn't planned to be in that hallway. She had been on her way to the research wing, her mind half-lost in thought, when she noticed the soft, amber light leaking from beneath the door. The tone was too warm for Westbridge's usual sterile palette. Something about it made her stop.
Then she heard voices.
She couldn't make out the words, not clearly, but she recognized Rowan's voice. The rhythm of it. The tension. The crack that appeared just as it started to rise. She didn't breathe. Didn't move. She just stood there, spine straight, eyes locked on the door.
Then silence.
A few seconds later, it opened.
Rowan stepped out, his eyes darker than she had ever seen them. There was no blood, no bruises but he looked wounded. Not in the body. In the spirit.
He didn't notice her at first. But when he did, he stopped. Their eyes met.
"Everything okay?" she asked.
He hesitated. Then nodded. "Yeah. Just needed air."
She didn't believe him. Not really. But she didn't press either.
"You sure?"
"I'm fine, Nora."
He moved past her. No glance back. No touch. Just a storm walking on legs, too contained to collapse but too angry to stay still. And as he disappeared down the hall, something in her stomach twisted.
That night, Nora sat cross-legged on her bed, surrounded by old papers and scanned pages she had dug up from the archives. Most of them she had seen before. Staff lists. Rotation schedules. Notes scribbled in the margins of old reports. But then her hand stopped on a page she hadn't noticed before.
It was tucked between two stapled training logs. A photocopied staff list. No names, just initials. But one line stood out.
R. Cardinal.
No full name. No image. Just the letters. As if someone had gone out of their way to scrub the rest from existence.
She kept flipping. Slower now. Her fingers trembled slightly as she turned another page and caught a glimpse of something wedged between the documents.
A scanned trainee chart.
On the bottom, next to a list of names and assignments, was a low-resolution photo. The scan was blurred, old, but not beyond recognition.
Her breath caught.
The shape of the jaw. The line of the brow. Even the angle of the mouth, frozen in what looked like an almost-smile.
It was Rowan.
Younger. Less guarded. But unmistakably him.
She stared at the photo, her heart thudding in her chest like a warning.
"No…" she whispered, but the word meant nothing.
Because in that instant, it was already too late.
The truth was out.
And it wore a familiar face.