Ryan's hands gripped the steering wheel as he drove Marcus home from the hospital, his knuckles white with tension that had nothing to do with traffic.
Marcus sat in the passenger seat, staring out the window at the city passing by. He hadn't said a word since they'd left Owen's hospital room, his face blank and distant in a way that made Ryan's chest ache.
But Ryan's mind was racing, spinning through implications and possibilities and a terrible, urgent realization that had hit him the moment Sam mentioned Owen's failing organs.
Owen Jensen might die.
Not from Ryan's hand, not from justice or revenge or any of the plans Ryan had been carefully building for years. Just from illness, from organs shutting down, from his body giving out before Ryan could get the answers he needed.
And that was unacceptable.
