Daniel POV
The gunfire stops and Rowan moves Daniel away from the window with a grip that's not quite gentle.
They're in the safe room now. The reinforced concrete walls. The secure door. Rowan is doing a perimeter check while Daniel sits on the floor trying to remember how to breathe. The bullets are still coming from outside but they're hitting the reinforced glass. Not breaking through.
Rowan's expression is professional and controlled and completely full of lies.
Daniel watches him work and realizes something is cracking underneath that mask.
Over the next three days something shifts.
Rowan stops acting like a normal bodyguard. He starts acting like someone who cares. Like someone who knows what Daniel needs before Daniel knows it himself.
When Daniel comes home from a senate session looking destroyed because the healthcare bill finally died in committee, Rowan's expression shifts into something like concern. Real concern. Not the professional kind. The kind that comes from actually knowing what failure feels like.
Daniel sits on the couch feeling three years of work collapse and Rowan brings him water without being asked. Sits nearby without hovering. Just waits while Daniel falls apart.
"I'm sorry," Daniel says because he doesn't know what else to say.
Rowan looks at him with an expression that says he understands more than he should. Like he's seen what it looks like when someone loses something they believed in.
The next day Daniel mentions something about his father's business deals. About how his dad made money in developing nations through contracts that probably weren't legitimate. About how Daniel has spent his entire career trying to be the opposite of that.
Rowan's jaw tightens.
Not a small movement. A complete shutdown of his expression. Like Daniel just said something that reached into Rowan's chest and twisted.
"Your father knows dangerous people," Rowan says carefully.
"How would you know that?"
Rowan doesn't answer. Just walks away leaving Daniel with the certainty that James Morrison knows something about Daniel's family that he shouldn't know.
That night they're eating dinner when Daniel starts talking about something he hasn't talked about in three years.
"There was someone," Daniel says quietly. "Before I became a senator. Before I dedicated my life to work as a distraction. Someone I loved."
Rowan sets his fork down. Slowly. Carefully. Like he's afraid it might break if he moves too fast.
Daniel keeps talking because he needs to say this out loud to someone.
"He left without explanation. Just left a note. Four words. I'm sorry. I can't stay." Daniel's voice cracks. "I spent years trying to understand what I did wrong. How I wasn't enough. What was so terrible about me that someone could just walk away."
Rowan looks at Daniel with eyes full of pain that has nothing to do with current events.
Nothing to do with assassination attempts or shadow organizations or any of the chaos happening around them.
This pain is old. This pain is personal. This pain looks exactly like Daniel's.
"He probably had reasons," Rowan says carefully. "Good reasons."
"I don't care about reasons. I care that he disappeared and left me alone."
Rowan flinches like Daniel just struck him.
"Maybe he thought he was protecting you," Rowan says.
Daniel stands up. He can't sit across from this man anymore. Can't look at the way Rowan's mask is slipping and revealing something underneath that feels like recognition and terror mixed together.
"Who hurt you?" Daniel asks.
Rowan doesn't answer. Just watches Daniel walk away.
That night Daniel can't sleep.
He lies in his bed listening to the city and the sounds of Rowan moving through the penthouse. Checking security. Protecting. Watching.
Daniel gets up at three in the morning and walks to the wall that separates his bedroom from the guest room. He presses his hand against it.
On the other side of this wall, Rowan is awake. Daniel can hear him. Breathing. Moving. Existing in the same space but separated by concrete and drywall and three years of distance.
Daniel stands there with his hand on the wall and realizes something that terrifies him more than any assassination attempt.
Rowan is exactly where Daniel's hands remember needing someone to be.
The shape of him. The energy of him. The way he moves through space like violence and protection are the same thing. It's all achingly familiar in a way that shouldn't be possible.
Daniel knows this man.
Not his name or his face. But his hands know him. His body knows him. Some deep part of Daniel that's been broken for three years is recognizing its other half.
And that means either Daniel is losing his mind or this bodyguard is connected to the man who abandoned him.
The possibility is so terrifying that Daniel pulls his hand away from the wall.
He can't think about this. Can't let himself believe that the universe is cruel enough to bring back the one person who destroyed him while trying to kill him.
Daniel gets back in bed and lies awake until sunrise.
When morning comes Rowan is different.
His mask isn't just cracked anymore. It's shattering.
He looks at Daniel like he's seeing a ghost. Like every moment they spend together is costing him something he can't afford to lose.
"We need to talk," Daniel says at breakfast.
"No we don't," Rowan says.
"Yes we do. Something is happening and I need to understand what it is."
Rowan stands up abruptly. "Nothing is happening. You're my client. I'm your security. That's all."
But his hands are shaking while he says it.
Before Daniel can respond Rowan's phone rings. He takes the call in the other room but Daniel can hear his voice getting tighter. Getting more controlled. Getting more dangerous.
Rowan comes back and his entire demeanor has changed.
"Your father is about to testify to federal investigators about illegal government operations," Rowan says flatly. "Within hours this entire situation is going to be exposed. We need to move you to a secure location immediately."
"What kind of illegal government operations?"
"The kind that trained me to kill people," Rowan says.
The words hang in the air between them.
Daniel's heart stops.
"What are you talking about?"
Rowan looks at him with those gray eyes full of grief and something else. Something that looks like goodbye.
"I need you to pack a bag," Rowan says. "Everything you need for disappearing. Passport. Cash. Anything irreplaceable. We have maybe two hours before this building is compromised."
"Rowan," Daniel says.
He doesn't know why he said that name. Doesn't know how he knows that name.
Rowan's face goes completely white.
"How do you know that name?" Rowan whispers.
And Daniel realizes that he just said something he didn't know he knew.
That he's been remembering all along. That some part of him has known exactly who James Morrison is.
And that they're both in terrible danger.