The Lover Has A Secret Identity

CHAPTER FOUR: THE LONGEST NIGHT

Finn was moving before Diane even finished the sentence, phone still pressed to his ear, sprinting past Magnus toward the door.

“Finn, wait—” Magnus called after him.

“I don’t have time,” Finn said, already yanking his jacket off the hook. “Richard’s crashing. I have to go.”

He didn’t wait to see if Magnus followed. He didn’t think about anything except the elevator, the street, the fastest way across the city at midnight. His hands shook so badly he could barely call for a car.

He was three floors down when he heard footsteps behind him, fast and even, and turned to find Magnus falling into step beside him, coat thrown on over the sweater from dinner.

“You don’t have to come,” Finn said.

“I know,” Magnus said. “I’m coming anyway.”

There wasn’t time to argue. A black car was already waiting outside — Magnus must have called it the second Finn had answered the phone — and they rode in silence through empty streets, the city blurring past the windows in smears of light. Finn’s knee bounced. His hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Somewhere beside him, close enough that their shoulders nearly touched, Magnus sat still and quiet, the same calm he wore in boardrooms, except his jaw was tight in a way that gave him away.

“He’s going to be okay,” Magnus said finally, not quite a question.

“You don’t know that.”

“No,” Magnus admitted. “But you needed someone to say it.”

Finn didn’t answer. He couldn’t. He just stared out the window and prayed to whatever might be listening that he wouldn’t be too late.

The hospital corridor was in chaos by the time they arrived — nurses moving fast, a doctor’s voice calling out numbers Finn didn’t understand, Diane standing outside Richard’s room with her hands pressed over her mouth, tears streaking down her face.

“Diane.” Finn caught her by the shoulders. “What happened?”

“His heart rate dropped,” she said, voice cracking. “All at once, out of nowhere. They said it wasn’t supposed to happen yet, not this fast, the disease isn’t supposed to move this fast—”

“Where is he now?”

“They’re stabilizing him. They won’t let us in.”

Finn turned toward the closed door, every muscle in his body straining to push past it, to do something, anything, even though he knew there was nothing he could do. He’d never felt so helpless in his life.

Beside him, Magnus had gone very still, his eyes fixed on the door with an intensity that looked almost like guilt.

“I need to talk to whoever is treating him,” Magnus said quietly, more to himself than to anyone. He caught the arm of a passing nurse. “I need Dr. Okafor. Now.”

“Sir, I can’t just—”

“Tell him Magnus Carter is here,” Magnus said, his voice dropping into the register Finn remembered from that first night in the hotel suite — calm, absolute, a tone that expected no argument. “And tell him I want to know why a patient scheduled to begin treatment tomorrow just went into cardiac distress tonight.”

The nurse’s eyes widened. She hurried off.

Finn stared at him. “You think this is connected? To the treatment?”

“I don’t think anything yet,” Magnus said. “But I intend to find out.”

Ten minutes later, a doctor emerged, pulling off his gloves, his face grim but not devastated, which Finn chose to take as a small mercy.

“He’s stable,” Dr. Okafor said. “For now. We managed to correct the arrhythmia, but I won’t lie to you — this is a setback. His body is weaker than we’d like heading into an aggressive treatment.”

Diane let out a broken sound of relief and grabbed Finn’s arm, burying her face against his shoulder. Finn held her, his own eyes stinging, his legs nearly giving out from the release of tension.

“Can we see him?” Finn asked.

“Briefly. He’s sedated.”

As Diane hurried inside, Finn lingered a moment and noticed Magnus pulling the doctor aside, his voice low and urgent.

“Walk me through the timeline,” Magnus said. “What triggered this?”

“We’re not entirely sure,” Dr. Okafor admitted. “His vitals were stable at the last check, four hours ago. Something changed quickly. We’re running tests.”

“I want copies of his chart. Every entry from the last twenty-four hours.”

The doctor hesitated. “That’s not standard procedure for—”

“I’m not asking as a visitor,” Magnus said. “I’m asking as the person whose drug this man is about to receive, and whose company will be liable if something happens here that shouldn’t have. Copies. Tonight.”

The doctor nodded slowly and left.

Finn stared at him. “You think someone did this on purpose.”

Magnus’s expression was unreadable, but something dark moved behind his eyes. “I think it’s a strange coincidence that a man stable enough for treatment tomorrow suddenly isn’t, the same week his family finally got access to that treatment. I don’t believe in coincidences that convenient. Not in my industry.”

A chill ran down Finn’s spine. “Who would want to hurt Richard?”

“I don’t know yet,” Magnus said quietly. “But I intend to find out. And until I do, I want security in this room around the clock.”

Finn opened his mouth to argue, to say that was excessive, that Magnus was letting old business instincts run away with him — and then he thought of the strange silence from MC Pharma over the past week, the way every door had closed a little too perfectly, a little too completely, as if someone had wanted Finn to fail before he ever got close.

“Okay,” Finn said instead, the word coming out smaller than he meant it to. “Okay. Do it.”

Magnus nodded once, already pulling out his phone, already becoming the man who ran an empire instead of the one who used to fall asleep against Finn’s shoulder. But before he lifted the phone to his ear, he looked at Finn one more time, and for just a moment the mask slipped.

“He’s not going to lose his father-in-law,” Magnus said quietly. “Not on my watch. I promise you that.”

Finn didn’t know what to say to that. He only nodded, throat too tight for words, and watched Magnus walk down the hall barking orders in a voice that made hospital staff move like soldiers.

It wasn’t until much later, sitting beside Richard’s bed in the sedated hush of the recovery room, that Finn let himself think about what Magnus had said. Someone did this on purpose.

If that was true, then this had never been only about a rejected drug request.

Someone wanted Richard Matthews to fail.

And Finn had no idea yet how close that danger was standing to him already.