Page 11 of Scarred By Sin

“Who is your patient?”

The shift in his voice stopped her cold, and he regretted the abrupt inquiry immediately. When she spoke again, the warmth had been replaced by something cooler and distinctly guarded.

“You know I can’t reveal that information, Theo. Why would you even ask me something like that?”

There was a beat of silence on the line. He could practically hear her mind working, rewinding through what she’d said, landing on the single word that had triggered him.

Leg.

Her last word faded as the realization hit.

“Theo.” Mia’s voice softened with immediate understanding. “It’s Mrs. Delaney. She’s seventy-two years old. She had a knee replacement back in March, and she’s here for an adjustment on her lower back. I was asking about her recovery. That’s all it was.”

The air left his lungs in a slow, deliberate exhale. He pressed his thumb and forefinger against the bridge of his nose and willed his heart rate to slow down.

“I’m sorry, Mia.”

“You don’t have to apologize.” The gentleness in her voice was the kind that most people had to practice, but it came to her as naturally as breathing. “I understand. Just be careful out there.”

“I will.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Theo disconnected and set the phone facedown on the table. Neither Bit nor Sylvie uttered a word, though the silence in the cabin had shifted. They’d heard enough to understand what had just happened, and they had the decency not to address it.

The fact that Jacob Walsh had reduced Theo to interrogating the woman he loved about the identity of her patients was something he couldn’t wrap his mind around. He wasn’t that type of person. Movement at the front of the cabin pulled his attention away from his thoughts. Brook had climbed the boarding stairs and was stepping through the narrow doorway.

She didn’t glance their way once.

Instead, she placed her leather bag in the seat nearest the cockpit, the one farthest from the group, and withdrew her tablet from inside. Her jaw was set, and the line between her brows hadn’t been there when she’d first taken Graham’s call.

From her expression, the conversation had gone about as well as Theo’s with Mia. Brook was now all business. The distance she’d placed between herself and the rest of the cabin was as deliberate as the glass wall she’d chosen for her office. Sometimes, she needed space to think. Other times, she needed space without an audience. Either way, the message was clear, and Theo respected it.

Brook leaned into the aisle and caught the flight attendant’s attention.

“Please let the pilot know we’re ready.”

5

Brooklyn Sloane

July 2026

Wednesday — 2:44 pm

The stone wall appeared first.

It ran alongside the road to Brook’s left, chest-high in some places, crumbling to knee-height in others, choked with ivy and wild growth. The kind of barrier a family erected when they intended to stay, but neglect had turned it into something closer to suggestion than boundary. The gaps were obvious, even from inside the SUV.

“That’s the entrance,” Sylvie murmured from the passenger seat, pointing toward a wide opening in the wall roughly thirty yards ahead. “I can see why someone would want to sell this place.”

Brook eased her foot down on the brake.

The entrance was flanked by two stone pillars that had once supported a gate. The hinges were still visible, rusted into the masonry, but the gate itself was gone.

She turned onto the unpaved drive.