"Shaw." I moved further into the room, cane tapping marble. "Still playing dress-up in my castoffs."
His smile faltered before returning with forced confidence. "The same arrogance. Even when you're breaking into my office."
"Recovering stolen property requires access to the thief." I noted the security cameras at each corner.
Shaw swirled his liquor. "Twelve of the world's most motivated buyers are assembling as we speak."
His gaze shifted to Maxime, whose weapon remained trained on Shaw's chest. "Maxime. Still the loyal attack dog." His eyes lingered on the visible bruises above Maxime's collar. "I see Algerone has finally taken what you've offered so pathetically all these years."
Something murderous flashed in Maxime's eyes. His finger tightened on the trigger.
"The buyers will be expecting their demonstration." I stepped forward, drawing Shaw's attention back to me. "Too bad your merchandise has already been recovered."
Shaw's expression flickered as uncertainty crept in before he masked it. "You're bluffing."
"Reid's team secured the prototype ten minutes ago. Your auction is over."
"Whoever orchestrated your little heist had inside knowledge." Shaw's smile turned predatory, though it no longer reached his eyes. "Guard rotations, security protocols. I've been watching your team's footprints across my systems. You're getting careless in your rush for vengeance, Algerone."
His left hand moved beneath the desk toward what had to be a silent alarm, and I noted the time constraints tightening.
"The bidding was supposed to start at six billion," Shaw said. "Matching what your Pentagon contract was worth before they terminated it. But I suppose that hardly matters now."
"We're here to end this," Maxime said, his voice steady and lethal. "Not discuss your failed business ventures."
Shaw leaned back in his chair as the leather creaked beneath him. "We could have been unstoppable together. I offered you a partnership in Dubai. But you had to own everything. Control everyone." His eyes flicked to Maxime. "Even your precious right hand. That's always been your weakness, Algerone. Your pathological need for dominance."
My jaw tightened, and my grip on the cane whitened my knuckles. "Your point?"
"We're not so different, you and I." He moved toward the wall behind his desk, where a subtle seam revealed a concealed compartment. "Both willing to do whatever necessary. Both creators of empires."
His smile turned smug. "Though I suppose some would say I had advantages. Greenwich prep school while you had Shane's trailer park. Harvard legacy admission while you were hustling pool halls. But we ended up in the same place, didn't we? That must burn."
My molars ground together. Shaw rarely mentioned his privileged upbringing and even less my origins. These were old wounds I'd cauterized decades ago.
"The difference," I said, advancing another step, "is that I don't use weapons of mass destruction to settle corporate grudges."
"No?" Shaw laughed, the sound sharp and brittle. "What about the Caracas operation? Fourteen civilians dead because the Venezuelan minister wouldn't approve your mining rights." His eyes narrowed. "We're not so different. I'm just more honest about what we are."
"You murdered over a thousand people to prove a point," Maxime said, his voice steady and lethal.
Shaw's eyes flicked to my face, searching for weakness. He found it when a muscle twitched beneath my eye, and his expression shifted from irritation to hunger.
"Always the conscience of the operation." Shaw turned his focus to Maxime. "The morality to balance Algerone's ruthlessness. The perfect complement." He reached into the desk drawer. "Tell me, Maxime. Does he value your loyalty as much as you value his approval?"
Maxime didn't answer because he didn't need to.
The question wasn't his to answer, and that was the problem. Shaw had found the hairline fracture, the invisible space between what Maxime offered and what I allowed myself to take.
"You know," Shaw continued, pulling a tablet from the drawer, "your entire relationship fascinates me. The loyal second-in-command who would die for a man who sees him as furniture." He tapped the screen and turned it toward us. "Much like this prototype. Your creation, Algerone, but improved under my care. I wonder which of you will prove more adaptable."
The tablet displayed modified Banshee schematics. My weapon had been crudely altered, with Shaw replacing precision engineering with brute force and sacrificing targeting accuracy for raw destruction. The modifications were amateur, made by someone who understood the market but not the mechanics.
"Enough," I said, and stepped forward. "You're coming with us. The auction is over, your prototype is gone, and you have nothing left to bargain with."
Shaw's eyes flicked to my chest, then back to my face. His smile changed, sharpening into something I recognized too late.
His hand moved beneath the desk.
