Chapter 37

Evelyn read the email four times before the words stopped looking unreal.

Stop trusting the doctor.

That was all.

No signature.

No explanation.

Sent from Lena’s account three hours earlier.

Rain moved softly against the apartment windows while Mara stood frozen beside the desk, pale beneath the bluish light from the laptop screen.

“It could be scheduled,” Mara whispered finally.

Evelyn didn’t answer.

Because the message didn’t feel automated.

It felt immediate.

Urgent.

Personal.

Like someone reaching through years of silence just long enough to pull her away from something dangerous.

Or someone.

Mara crossed her arms tightly.

“You have to consider the possibility this is real.”

“I know.”

“And if it’s real…”

She didn’t finish the sentence.

She didn’t need to.

Adrian.

The name already sat heavily between them.

Rain tapped steadily against the glass while Evelyn stared at the screen again.

The doctor.

Not Adrian.

Not Cross.

The doctor.

Victor used to call Adrian that mockingly during treatment sessions.

Another fragment surfaced—

Victor standing in a hallway saying coldly:

You’re not her protector. You’re just another doctor now.

Gone again.

Evelyn grabbed her coat immediately.

Mara’s eyes widened.

“Oh, absolutely not.”

“I need to hear him explain it.”

“At four in the morning?”

“Yes.”

“That is the exact time emotionally damaged people make life-ending decisions.”

But Evelyn was already moving toward the door.

Because beneath panic and exhaustion and memory fragments, one impossible truth still remained:

She needed Adrian’s version before she could survive anyone else’s.

The city looked drowned beneath rain.

Streetlights reflected gold across soaked pavement while thunder rolled softly somewhere over Manhattan, distant now but constant.

Adrian buzzed her into the building without asking questions.

That frightened her more than if he sounded surprised.

Like he’d been expecting this moment eventually.

The elevator ride to his apartment felt endless.

Evelyn’s pulse beat violently through every floor.

The email still glowed in her mind.

Stop trusting the doctor.

When the doors opened, Adrian already stood waiting near the apartment entrance.

Barefoot.

Dark sweater.

Exhaustion visible openly now beneath his eyes.

He looked like he hadn’t slept at all.

For one dangerous second, seeing him hurt made Evelyn want to forgive him before speaking.

She hated that instinct.

Adrian stepped aside quietly to let her enter.

No games.

No confusion.

He already knew.

“You saw the email.”

Not a question.

Evelyn turned sharply toward him.

“You knew Lena still had access to her account?”

“No.”

“Then explain why she told me not to trust you.”

Rain moved softly against the floor-to-ceiling windows behind him while the city glowed silver-gray beyond the glass.

Adrian didn’t answer immediately.

And somehow that calmness ignited anger faster than denial would have.

“Say something.”

He looked tired suddenly in a way that made him seem years younger and older at once.

“I don’t know if the message came from Lena.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Silence.

Then Adrian crossed quietly toward the kitchen counter.

Evelyn’s pulse tightened instantly.

Not fear.

Expectation.

Because somewhere inside her, she had already started bracing for another lie.

Instead Adrian opened a drawer and removed a thin black folder.

Worn at the edges.

Old.

He placed it carefully on the table between them.

No hesitation.

No bargaining.

“What is this?” Evelyn asked quietly.

“My father’s private files.”

Cold spread instantly through her chest.

Adrian looked at the folder for several long seconds before speaking again.

“The records Black Hollow officially destroyed.”

The room seemed to narrow around the words.

Evelyn stared at him.

“You’re just giving them to me.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Rain streaked softly down the windows behind him.

“Because you were right.”

The honesty hit harder now than any manipulation could have.

“You said I collected people,” Adrian continued quietly. “And maybe I did.”

His voice remained calm.

But Evelyn realized suddenly that his calmness wasn’t control.

It was trauma.

Years of learning emotional restraint inside rooms where vulnerability became leverage.

Victor’s son.

Conditioned differently, but conditioned all the same.

“I kept believing I could protect you if I controlled the information carefully enough,” he said. “But all I really did was decide which truths you were allowed to survive.”

The ache inside her chest sharpened painfully.

Because he understood it now too.

Not savior.

Participant.

Evelyn looked down at the folder.

“What’s in here?”

Adrian’s jaw tightened slightly.

“Everything Victor hid.”

A pause.

“Treatment notes. Recordings. Transfer files.”

He stopped briefly.

“And me.”

The room fell silent except for rain.

Evelyn frowned slightly.

“What do you mean?”

Adrian finally looked directly at her again.

And for the first time since she met him, she saw something close to self-hatred underneath the restraint.

“My father documented my attachment to you as treatment interference.”

Cold moved slowly through her chest.

“He made files about us.”

“Yes.”

The word barely sounded louder than breathing.

Evelyn crossed slowly toward the table.

The folder remained closed between them like something alive.

“Why would Victor keep records on you?”

Adrian gave a faint humorless smile.

“Because I became proof his methods were failing.”

Rain rattled softly against the windows.

Evelyn stared at him carefully now.

Not psychiatrist.

Not manipulator.

A man raised inside the same machinery that broke her.

Just older.

Sharper.

Better at hiding the damage.

“You think Lena was warning me about you,” she whispered.

“I think Lena knew I would always choose you over objectivity.”

The answer hollowed the room.

Not because it sounded romantic.

Because it sounded dangerous.

And true.

Evelyn looked toward the rain-dark skyline beyond the windows.

“I don’t know how to trust you anymore.”

Adrian nodded once.

“I know.”

No defense again.

No pleading.

Just acceptance.

Somehow that hurt more.

Because part of her wanted him to fight harder for himself.

Instead he stood there looking exhausted enough to collapse under the weight of years he never properly survived either.

Evelyn looked back toward the folder.

Then toward him.

“You said Victor documented you as treatment interference.”

“Yes.”

“What did he call me?”

Adrian’s throat tightened visibly before he answered.

“Subject Nine.”

The clinical coldness of it made her stomach twist.

“And you?”

A long silence followed.

Then Adrian said quietly:

“Failed Subject A.”

The room seemed to stop around the words.

Not son.

Not assistant.

Failed subject.

Evelyn suddenly understood something terrible:

Victor hadn’t only experimented on children.

He’d experimented on Adrian too.

The realization hit with almost unbearable force.

Because it explained the calmness.

The control.

The obsession with monitoring danger before it arrived.

Adrian hadn’t escaped Black Hollow either.

He had simply learned how to function inside the aftermath.

Rain moved softly through the city outside while silence stretched painfully between them.

Then, before she fully understood why—

Evelyn reached across the table.

And took his hand first.