Rain, Wolves, and a Hidden Father
The travel from office desk to motel hideout consumed the next hour. Headlights cut cold through the gathering dusk.
The silence that followed Grant’s words was not the empty kind. It was the kind that settled into bones, heavy as wet wool, and pressed against the inside of Rowan’s skull until he heard nothing but the low hum of the motel’s dying fluorescent light.
Nova stood with her back to them, her arms wrapped around her middle as if she were holding herself together. Oliver was on the bed, cross-legged, watching his mother with the careful patience of a child who had learned too young to read adult silences.
Rowan’s gaze swept the room—the threadbare curtains, the single window with its cracked latch, the door he’d already memorized the lock mechanism of. Habit. Survival. The same instinct that had kept him alive through every challenge, every boardroom ambush, every would-be assassin who thought a Winslow could be taken in the dark.
“Cole Sterling doesn’t want your apology,” Grant repeated, quieter now, as if the walls themselves had ears. “He wants Nova. And he’s willing to burn Winslow to get her.”
Rowan turned his attention back to his security chief. Grant’s face was a mask of professional neutrality, but the tightness in his shoulders betrayed what his expression would not. The man had stood beside Rowan through coup attempts and hostile takeovers. He had never once looked like he was delivering news that might break his Alpha.
Until now.
“How long do we have?” Rowan asked.
“Until he finds us through conventional means? Forty-eight hours, maybe less. His network is extensive, but it’s not infinite. I’ve routed us through three dummy locations, paid in cash, no paper trail. The motel’s a dead zone for most tracking software, and I’ve disabled the Wi-Fi router in the office.”
“And if he uses drones?”
Grant’s silence was answer enough. The Sterling Corporation had invested heavily in surveillance technology over the past decade. Cole Sterling, in particular, had a reputation for knowing things he shouldn’t—the kind of knowledge that could only come from watching from above, patient and predatory.
“Then we move,” Rowan said. “We keep moving until I can figure out how to end this.”
“You can’t end Cole Sterling.” The words came from Nova, still facing the window. Her voice was quiet, but there was steel beneath it. “You don’t understand what he’s like when he wants something. When he’s decided that something belongs to him.”
Rowan watched the rise and fall of her shoulders, the way her fingers pressed harder into her sides. Eight years. Eight years of wondering why she’d vanished, why she hadn’t answered a single one of his calls. Eight years of convincing himself that what they’d had wasn’t real, that he’d imagined the way she looked at him like he was the only man in the world.
And now she was here, standing in a rundown motel room, carrying his son—their son—and telling him that Cole Sterling wanted her like a possession.
“Tell me everything,” Rowan said.
Nova turned. Her eyes were wet, but her jaw was set. “Not here. Not in front of him.”
They both looked at Oliver. The boy had picked up a crayon from the small pile Nova had produced from somewhere—a battered backpack, maybe—and was drawing on the back of a motel receipt. His tongue poked out slightly as he worked, focused.
“I can go,” Grant offered. “I’ll do a perimeter sweep, check the blind spots.”
“No,” Rowan said. “Stay close. I don’t want you far if something happens.”
Grant nodded, a single sharp movement, and moved to the window. He peeled back the curtain an inch and scanned the parking lot. Rain had begun to fall, a soft patter against the glass that did nothing to soothe the tension winding through Rowan’s chest.
Rowan crossed the room and crouched in front of Oliver. “What are you drawing?”
The boy looked up, and for a moment, Rowan saw his own eyes staring back at him—that same shade of gray-blue, the same stubborn set to the brow. It was like looking into a mirror that reflected the past.
“A wolf,” Oliver said, holding up the paper.
It was rough, childish strokes, but unmistakably a wolf. A large one, with a bushy tail and sharp ears. The boy had even added a crescent moon in the corner.
“That’s a good wolf,” Rowan said.
Oliver studied the drawing, then looked at Rowan. “Are you a wolf too?”
Nova made a small sound, something between a gasp and a sob. She pressed her hand to her mouth, and Rowan saw the tremor that ran through her.
He looked at his son—his son—and made a choice. “I am. But I didn’t shift until I was thirteen. That’s when a wolf’s body is ready. It can’t happen before then. Not for anyone.”
“So I can’t turn into a wolf yet?”
“No. But you will.” Rowan reached out, slowly, and placed his hand on Oliver’s head. The boy didn’t flinch. “When you’re ready. Not a day before, no matter how much you wish for it.”
Oliver considered this, his small brow furrowing. “But you said I’m a wolf.”
“You are. It’s in your blood. It’s who you are, even before you can shift. The wolf is there, inside you, waiting. You just… have to grow into it.”
The boy seemed satisfied with that answer. He turned back to his drawing and picked up another crayon, this time adding a smaller wolf beside the first. “Can we draw more?”
Rowan smiled—actually smiled, a feeling so foreign it almost hurt. “Sure. I’ll draw one with you.”
He settled onto the floor, crossing his legs beneath him, and accepted a crayon from Oliver’s outstretched hand. The boy’s fingers were small, sticky with something—juice, maybe—but they were steady. Confident.
Nova watched them from across the room. She had folded her arms again, but there was a softness in her expression now, a vulnerability that cracked something open in Rowan’s chest.
“You never told him,” Rowan said quietly, not looking away from the wolf he was sketching. “You never told him about me.”
“I couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
Oliver kept drawing, seemingly absorbed in his work, but Rowan caught the flicker of his eyes. The boy was listening. He was always listening.
Nova sank onto the edge of the bed. “Because I was afraid. Not of you—never of you. Of what would happen if Cole found out his bloodline mattered to someone else. To me. To a child.”
Rowan’s hand stilled on the paper. “What does Cole have to do with Oliver?”
“He doesn’t know about him.” Nova’s voice cracked. “That’s the only reason he’s still alive.”
Rowan set down the crayon. He looked at Grant, who had turned from the window, his face unreadable. The silence stretched, thick and heavy, until Oliver yawned and leaned against Rowan’s shoulder.
“Tired?” Rowan asked.
The boy nodded, his eyelids drooping.
“Come here.” Rowan shifted, positioning Oliver against his side. “You can rest. I’ll finish the drawing.”
Oliver snuggled closer, his small hand clutching the crayon even as his eyes closed. Within moments, his breathing evened out, soft and rhythmic.
Rowan looked at Nova. She was watching them with a mixture of wonder and devastation, tears streaming silently down her face.
“I loved you,” she whispered. “I never stopped loving you. But Cole… he was obsessed with me. It started after your father announced the merger plan. He saw me at a gala and decided I was going to be his. A trophy. A possession.”
“Why didn’t you come to me?”
“Because I knew what you would do.” Nova swiped at her cheeks. “I knew you would fight him. Declare a war that would destroy both families, burn the company to the ground. And I couldn’t let that happen. Not to Winslow, not to the people who depended on it. So I ran.”
“You could have told me.”
“I tried.” Her voice broke. “I wrote you letters. So many letters. But every time I tried to send them, I saw his face. The way he looked at me, like I was already his. If he’d found out I was pregnant—if he’d found out you had an heir—he would have done anything to eliminate it. Anything.”
Rowan’s jaw—no, he caught himself. He didn’t let it tighten. Instead, he looked down at the sleeping child in his arms, at the wolf drawing curled under Oliver’s hand, and felt something fierce and primal unfurl in his chest.
“No one is going to touch him,” Rowan said. “No one is going to touch either of you. I won’t allow it.”
“You can’t stop Cole by wanting to.”
“I can stop him by being smarter. By being faster. By being the wolf he never had to be.” Rowan’s voice was low, hard. “I’ve handled men like him before. Men who thought money and power made them untouchable. They’re all in prison. Or worse.”
Nova shook her head. “Cole isn’t like other men. He’s cold, Rowan. Empty. There’s no conscience there, no line he won’t cross.”
“Then I’ll cross it first.”
The rain picked up, drumming harder against the window. Grant’s phone buzzed, the sound cutting through the quiet like a blade. He checked it, his face going pale.
“What is it?” Rowan asked.
Grant looked up. “We have a problem. Sterling’s drones just pinged a signal. Here. The motel.”
Rowan’s blood went cold. He pressed a kiss to the top of Oliver’s head, then gently, carefully, eased the boy onto the mattress. Nova moved to cover him with a thin blanket, her hands shaking.
Rowan crossed to the window. Through the glass, he could see the rain falling in sheets, blurred lights in the distance. Streetlights. Headlights.
And there, just out of sight, the faint buzz of rotors.
Grant’s phone buzzed again. He read the message, and when he spoke, his voice was steel.
“They’ve already locked onto the motel. You have ten minutes to move.”