Adrian was beyond himself with rage.

His plan had been ruined by Colin Donnelley as the boy had helped Roxanne and gotten her saved by involving the police as well as a group of vigilantes from Gotham. As a result, Adrian couldn't take his revenge to completion and instead was turned over to the police under the charges of first-degree attempted murder and arson.

He had tried to escape but couldn't as a fiery-headed Tamaranean and an archer stopped him in his tracks. There was no way out.

The sirens of the police car drew closer and he could see that he had no other option but to surrender.

His sister was also quite shaken, already worried to see that her son was no longer in his room and the open window indicated that he had left. Adrian had been angry at her as well due to Colin's decision to inform the police about them, blaming her for not being able to keep Colin on their side. But the woman was barely listening to him, worried about her missing son and the police that were swarming inside the house.

The police took both Anya and Adrian into custody, putting their wrists in handcuffs as they led them out to the cars waiting to take them to the headquarters. Both of them were linked to a high-profile case that had been forcefully shut down due to the Donnelley family's influence, so there was nothing much the police could do until they were sent back to Dublin for the case to reopen.

But in the meantime, Jason could investigate him in regards to the link the case had to Roxanne. He had shown up at the headquarters with Colin who requested to meet his mother shortly after those two had been brought in. 

Jason felt a bit suspicious of Colin Donnelley still but knew that the boy had helped them in finding Roxanne and by going against his mother, he had taken a very difficult step. So he was giving him some leverage over that, intending to question him personally afterward.

At the moment, he had to interrogate Adrian and it was a huge help that the investigative officer knew him and had agreed to let him interrogate the suspect in the holding cell where he was being kept.

The police would be recording that meeting and that too would be submitted as evidence in the case that would eventually be reopened against the Donnelleys.

He stepped inside the holding cell, flecked irises meeting Adrian's irritated green ones. Over the years, Jason had learned the tact of being intimidating towards the person that they would never try escaping and do as he said.

He intended to use the same tact with Adrian Castellan, in order to get him to confess to the revenge plan he had made for Roxanne.

***

Tim cautiously opened the door to the private suite she was kept in and stepped inside. She was covered in bandages as she had suffered third-degree burns and it would take a long time for her to heal completely.

The doctors had told him that her condition had been very severe and she had miraculously returned from the jaws of death. 

He stepped closer to the bed where Roxanne was lying unresponsive, an IV attached to her and the bandages hiding the deep red and black burns from view.

His heart wrenched to see her like that, knowing she had gone through a lot in those few hours. He had a fair idea of the scorching feeling that fire could leave on exposed skin; he had felt it himself on several nights encountering blasts and explosions on patrol.

But right then, the situation was different. Unlike him, Roxanne hadn't had anything to protect her from the flames. No layer of kevlar, no gas mask, nothing to keep her safe from the flames licking at her skin and the smoke filling her up.

It was indeed a miracle that she had survived but her state was critical still and she had to be kept under observation.

A chair was placed close to her bed so he carefully sat down on it, not wanting to disturb the sleep that she had been put in to recover. His eyes flickered to the heart rate monitor to assess that her breathing and pulse rate were normal.

He knew she wasn't going to wake up anytime soon but he couldn't bring himself to leave her.

It was almost as if a contract was binding him to her still, even though she had terminated the contract they had signed days ago. An invisible force that kept him close to her even after everything that had happened between them.

He knew he cared too much and Roxanne was one of those people for whom he had started to feel much deeply.

Her hand was also wrapped in a bandage and Tim considered but then very carefully, he took her hand in his, making sure not to cause her any pain. She stirred slightly at which he froze but she didn't wake up.

Tim took in a deep shaky breath, looking down at the unconscious form of the woman that had come to mean so much to him in such a short time. If he had any idea that one contract could result in such a connection between them, he would have thought twice before signing it.

But then if it hadn't been for that contract, he wouldn't have been with her at the moment, agonizingly waiting for her to open her brown eyes and tell him that she was going to be alright.

He didn't want anything else right then. He didn't care about the Castellan case that had brought him to Scotland in the first place.

All he cared was for her to wake up.

Right then as he was sitting beside her, it dawned on him with striking force that his heart had gotten too entangled in every fiber of Roxanne Donnelley's existence. He might have teased her that she was the one who should be wary of catching feelings for him but it was clear that he wasn't exempt from his own warning either.

Holding her hand in his, he prayed for her to recover soon because there was no way he would be able to let go of her. The fake relationship that had existed between them had blurred into reality so much so that it felt impossible to go back to the way they used to be before that fated contract.

At that very moment, he realized what was meant by the saying that there was a very thin line between reality and pretense. And that thin line that used to exist between their lives had faded into nothing long ago.

There was no use in trying to differentiate the reality and pretense that had merged into one by then. And he couldn't deny that regardless of the contract, he had fallen for Roxanne just as much as she had fallen for him.

***