“I’m here to speak to your father.”

President of his father’s bank, Andy Royal is a big man of thirty-five with more gut than muscle. He takes a couple of steps toward me, his face turning scarlet. “You’ve got some damn nerve, Cage.”

“You don’t understand the situation. Where’s your dad?”

Andy Royal grinds his jaws with fury. “My sister’s lying in there in a coma, thanks to your goddamn girlfriend. And you—”

“I’m sorry about your sister, Andy. More than you know. But your dad is going to want to talk to me. If he doesn’t, he’s not going to like what he reads in tomorrow’s paper.”

His eyes bulge. “What? Man, we’ve already talked to our lawyers about what happened this afternoon, and they think we’ve got a hell of a case against your girlfriend and her father’s media group.”

“Then you didn’t tell your lawyers the whole story. But of course you don’t know it. So how about you take me to the man who does?”

Andy points at Kirk, who decided to wear a sock cap in the hope of concealing his identity. “Who’s this guy?”

“A Good Samaritan. Come on, Andy.”

“Dad’s in 119,” he says, still eyeing Kirk, whose powerful physique is a little too obvious to ignore.

Three doors down from the ICU, the patriarch of the Royal clan is holding court from a padded chair beside a buffet of sandwiches, doughnuts, fruit, and cheese. A half-empty fifth of Maker’s Mark stands on a table beside him. Compared to his son, who looks like a high school tackle who never matured into a man, Brody Royal looks like a weather-beaten falcon. His slim face and aquiline nose contribute to this impression, but it’s the deep-set, predatory eyes beneath sleek gray brows that first mark me in the doorway. They flit to Kirk for a second, then lock back on me as though gauging the distance for a killing dive. My peripheral vision registers five other people in the room, three of them women. I glance away from Brody long enough to recognize two red-faced Royal nephews in their fifties—both employees of Royal Oil.

“Everybody out,” Brody says with the casual authority of a monarch.

Nobody questions his order. They don’t even hesitate. Brody glares at Andy, who has lingered in the doorway, and says, “Shut the door.”

Andy steps inside to obey, but his father says, “From the other side.”

After an awkward silence, his son yields. “Holler if you need me,” Andy says, backing out of the room.