Harrison is waiting with a notary and a woman I’ve never seen before, clipboard and pen in hand. Bam stands by the window, hands clasped behind his back, eyes on the mist over the quad. He doesn’t look at me.
“That was fast.” I almost balk. I wasn’t expecting everything to formalize so quickly.
“Sit,” Harrison says. His voice is raspier than last night, like he’s been screaming into a pillow for hours.
I sit. The notary slides a folder in front of me. The pages are dense, watermarked, covered in redacted lines. At the bottom of every page: my name, waiting for my signature.
“The transition plan,” Harrison says, monotone. “Sign every tab. We’ll review the rest after.”
I sign. The pen is heavy, the tip digging into the paper, leaving grooves that will outlast whatever ink they use. My hands don’t shake. I sign on the lines, flipping page after page. The urge to run is strong, but I don’t. My father is not a kind man, nor is he a good one. I’ve watched him sign away millions, watched him commit people to futures they didn’t ask for. Every contract is a confession. Every signature is a scar.
Bam glances over, just once. His eyes flick from the page to my face, then away. He was my father’s favorite from the moment he laid eyes on him in the ring.
One thing Bam is good at, is rolling with the pain and never letting it come between us.
Harrison paces behind the desk, hands folded in front of him like a pastor presiding over a funeral. “You understand what this means, Colton? You’ll be a voting member of the Board as soon as the Hunt is complete. You’ll have a seat at the table. You’ll answer to me, and the Board, and no one else.”
“I understand,” I say, not looking up.
He keeps talking, voice a drone. Stock options. Succession timeline. The fate of Ellis Global Tech depends on my ability to keep my dick out of the headlines and my face off the police blotter.
He thinks I care.
The notary takes the documents, checks the signatures, then leaves. Harrison waits until the door closes before circling to the window. The glass is icy cold; I can feel the chill from here. He looks at the quad, where students scuttle through the frost like rats in a maze.
“Your runner is ready,” Harrison says. “I expect you to finish the Hunt clean. No drama. No spectacle. Make it entertaining.”
Bam snorts, a small sound, but loud enough to earn a glance from my father.
“Is there a problem?” Harrison cocks his head.
Bam smiles, teeth white and perfect. “No, sir.”
Harrison’s attention returns to me. “Don’t get cute, Colton. She’s not one of us. She’s scholarship trash. You’re a hunter. Act like one.”
I nod, because that’s what he wants.
He moves to the door, hand resting on my shoulder as he passes. The pressure is immense, a warning and a claim. “Don’t fuck this up.”
The door closes behind him, leaving me and Bam alone. The silence is instant, total.
Bam moves to the desk, picks up the signed folder, and flips through the pages. He doesn’t read the words, just scans the signatures. “He thinks he owns you,” Bam says, voice quiet.
“He owns nothing,” I say.
Bam nods, then tosses the folder onto the table. “You want to win, or do you want to burn it down?”
I think of Eve. Her voice. Her smell. The way she screamed and never once looked away.
“Both,” I say.
Bam’s mouth splits into a feral grin. “First things first then. Get through the Hunt. Then we get back to planning how to end this shit once and for all.”
We leave together, steps echoing in the empty hall.
At the elevator, Bam cracks his knuckles, grinning. “You know, once you’re Board, you could work with me and Rhett to change all the rules.”
“Maybe I will,” I say.
