"I'm glad you made it home," he said, shaking my hand.
Xion followed, offering a slight nod of acknowledgment.
Xander stopped in front of Maxime first, and the tension stretched between them. Finally, slowly, Xander smirked. "You look like death warmed over," he informed Maxime. "But marginally less corpse-like than the last time I saw you."
Maxime went still beside me. "Xander..."
"Relax." My son waved his hand. "I'm not planning additional reconstructive surgery. Though you probably earned it with that theatrical dying routine. No dying on us yet, Max. We were just starting to get along."
"Transportation awaits," Xavier announced, gesturing toward the sedan. "Dinner's waiting, and Xander brought wine that cost a fortune."
"Worth every penny," Xander protested. "That bottle cost more than your car."
"Your car cost three hundred dollars," Xion observed.
"Exactly my point. Premium wine."
I smiled at the banter, at how normal it felt. Reid and his team would handle cleanup, debriefings, and the thousand details that followed successful operations. For the first time in my adult life, that wasn't my responsibility.
Maxime's hand brushed mine as we walked toward the sedan, the touch hidden from cameras by the angle of our bodies. I didn't pull away.
Xavier held the door open. Xander was still arguing about wine. Xion had already claimed the front seat, probably to avoid being caught in the crossfire.
I slid into the back, my damaged leg protesting the movement, and Maxime followed. The door closed behind us, cutting off the last of the media's shouted questions.
The sedan pulled away from the tarmac, leaving the circus behind. Through the tinted windows, I watched the city lights blur past, and I let my hand find Maxime's on the seat between us.
Tomorrow would bring new battles. The transition of power, the media fallout, the long work of rebuilding what Shaw had tried to destroy. But tonight, I was going home with my family.
All of them.
The sedan moved throughCincinnati's wet streets below the speed limit. Xavier drove with white knuckles on the steering wheel. Xander strained against their seatbelt, drumming their fingers on the dash. Xion sat completely still, arms crossed.
Algerone's hand on my thigh possessed weight beyond flesh and bone. It was a claim, a warning, and a promise all at once. The heat burned through expensive wool. We still carried the scent of violence on our skin—Shaw's blood and my near-death and the feral thing Algerone had become when he thought I'd stopped breathing.
"Hey Max,” Xander started, “how's it feel knowing Dad literally beat a man to death with his cane because he thought you were dead? That's some Romeo and Juliet shit, except with more spinal fluid."
"Xander." Xavier's warning came sharp.
"What? We're all thinking it. Shaw's brains painted that marble like a Pollock." They leaned forward, jewelry jingling."Though I gotta say, I’m sad I didn’t get to watch Maxime play dead."
Algerone's fingers tightened on my thigh hard enough to bruise. This was the first acknowledgment since Macau that he hadn't forgotten.
"Your daddy issues are showing," I said quietly.
Xander's laugh came out sharp as glass. "Pot, meet kettle."
His house materialized through the rain, not the steel and glass monument of Spade Tower but something real, something that smelled like his cologne and my cooking and the gunpowder residue we'd never quite scrubbed from our skin.
"Out," Algerone ordered as Xavier killed the engine. "All of you."
"But we were just getting to the good part," Xander protested. "The part where you two fuck away the trauma of almost losing each other. Again."
"Get out," Algerone repeated.
Xander's grin widened. "Fine, fine. We know when we're not wanted." They climbed out, followed by the others. Xavier paused at the window, meeting my gaze briefly before turning away. I filed the expression as concern or calculation, though with Xavier the distinction always blurred.
Xander waved as they headed for their parked cars.
