Chapter 1790:


    She intended to exin the arrangement with Alban to Bain privately, when there was time and space for it. For now, she needed him to hold back.


    He always listened to her. He said nothing further, but the look he gave Alban made his feelings abundantly clear.


    When they arrived at the hospital room, Bain positioned himself in the doorway, inly unwilling to let Alban through. Christina intervened again. Bain didn’t fully understand her reasoning, but he had never stopped trusting her judgment, and he stepped aside.


    The moment Henrik registered that Alban had appeared — again — he was on his feet, seizing his grandson’s arm and attempting to physically redirect him out of the room. He had seen the way Gillian’s expression tightened the second Alban stepped in, and thest thing he wanted was for Alban to unsettle her or Adide.


    “You impossible boy — out,” Henrik said, pulling at his arm.


    “Grandpa, nobody else seems to have a problem with it,” Alban said, sounding genuinely worn out.


    “Let them speak,” Christina said gently.


    Bain folded his arms and looked at Alban with open skepticism. “I don’t trust what he’s after.”


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    Christina held her brother’s arm and murmured close to him, “This is between them. We don’t have the right to interfere — they need to handle it themselves. We’re outsiders here.”


    She also knew, privately, that Alban had been poisoned, and that she was the only person other than the one who had done it who could reverse it. The person responsible would never hand over an antidote willingly. With his life depending on her cooperation, she was confident he wouldn’t step out of line.


    “We’ll be right outside,” Bain said, directing the statement at Alban with a stare that made it something considerably more than informational. “Don’t try anything.”


    Henrik added his own parting re. “And don’t you dare frighten them — or you’ll hear from me directly.”


    “I understand, Grandpa,” Alban said, with the tone of a man who has epted his circumstances. “I know what I’m doing.”


    Did everyone genuinely trust him so little? Apparently so.


    Gillian hadn’t caught most of the exchange. She had simply watched, in quiet bewilderment, as the others filed out one by one until only she, Adide, and Alban remained.


    And then, without invitation, the memory of the night they had spent together surfaced — vivid and unbidden. Heat rose into her face and ears. She forced herself to look up, her eyes meeting Alban’s for a fraction of a second before she looked away, her heart picking up its pace against her will.


    “Mommy,” Adide said, her small voice carrying its usual candid curiosity. “Who is this man?”


    She studied Alban with wide, unblinking eyes, her head tilting slightly. There was something about him — something she couldn’t name — that made her feel as though she had seen him before somewhere, though she couldn’t have said where.


    Since the operation, Adide had been struggling to ce unfamiliar faces, and small pieces of memory would sometimes surface and then slip away again before she could hold onto them.


    “He is…” Gillian paused, searching for the right framing. After a moment, she continued, “He’s Henrik’s grandson — the elderly gentleman who came to see you a few times.”


    Adide tilted her head slightly, her bright, clear eyes full of open curiosity.


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