The words echoed as we descended into the private garage, as Commander Reid approached with his report, as the elevator carried us upward through the building I'd helped create. By the time the doors opened onto the executive level, I had locked away everything that wasn't useful. The ache between my legs, the throb of hidden bruises, the echo of his dismissal. All of it was compartmentalized and stored where it couldn't interfere with the work that needed doing.
"I need fifteen minutes,"I informed Algerone as we stepped from the elevator. "The Pentagon briefing requires final adjustments."
"Fine." He moved toward his office without looking back, his cane tapping against marble. His gait was worse than this morning.
I watched him go, fighting the urge to follow, to offer assistance, to do any of the thousand small things I'd done for eighteen months without acknowledgment. But that wasn't my role anymore. Now I was just his COO, convenient for business and nothing more.
My office waited in its usual configuration with a comfortable temperature, soft lighting, and a desk cleared of everythingexcept essentials. I moved to the private bathroom and locked the door behind me.
The mirror showed a man who should have been destroyed but somehow wasn't. I loosened my tie, unfastened buttons, and revealed the edges of Algerone's marks beginning to peek above my collar. The concealer had held, but now I needed to see them again.
I wiped away the makeup, watching each bruise reappear: the one below my ear, the cluster on my throat, and the mark on my collarbone where he'd bitten down while spending himself inside me. I pressed my fingers against the lowest bruise until pain bloomed through my chest.
He had marked me here. His teeth had broken these blood vessels. This evidence existed regardless of what he claimed afterward.
I had bathed him during the weeks when he couldn't stand, helped him to the toilet, and performed every intimate act of caregiving while maintaining perfect professional distance because that was all he would permit. I had learned the new geography of his damaged body while pretending I didn't want to learn it with my mouth, my tongue, my desperate devotion.
And then Zurich had happened. Shaw's drugged wine and the kiss that had shattered something in Algerone's careful control. The way he'd looked at me afterward, not with hatred but with hunger. He had chosen to take what I'd offered, to use my body the way he'd used my service for thirty-two years, and then to walk away afterward as if it meant nothing.
I re-buttoned my shirt, reapplied concealer, and transformed myself back into the mask. By the time Archer knocked on my office door with his security briefing, no evidence remained of my momentary weakness.
Xavier Laskin waited inthe diamond level conference room, hunched over a laptop with his fingers flying across the keyboard. His hair had changed since last week, with the orange streaks brighter and the blue sections more vivid. He kept reinventing himself as if he could outrun his father's shadow through sheer chromatic force.
I paused outside the door. Xavier had every reason to despise me. I had stood at Algerone's side while his mother unraveled, had helped maintain the silence that kept Imogen isolated, had watched her destroy herself and done nothing because I'd seen her as an obstacle rather than a person. Her son carried that knowledge, and he wielded it whenever we occupied the same space.
I entered without knocking.
"Your father will join us momentarily. He's reviewing the Zurich surveillance footage."
"Don't care." Xavier didn't look up from his screen. "I'm here for updates on Shaw's movements, not a family reunion. Algerone already filled me in on the basics."
I settled into the chair across from him. "Singapore is a decoy. We believe the prototype's in Vancouver."
"Already figured that out." He finally looked up, spinning his laptop to show satellite feeds. "His digital footprint shifted twelve hours ago. Tell me something I don't already know."
Before I could respond, the conference room door opened, and Algerone entered.
The effect was immediate. Xavier's posture shifted from aggressive boredom to wary attention. Algerone commanded space simply by existing in it, the way he always had, the way he had since the first day I'd met him thirty-two years ago. His gaze passed over me without acknowledgment, settling on Xavier with an expression I couldn't read.
"Xavier. Thank you for coming on such short notice."
"Didn't have much choice when your goons showed up at my door."
"A necessary precaution. The situation is more complex than you've been told."
I moved to stand near the wall, three feet behind Algerone's right shoulder.
"Shaw has made threats against you and your brothers," Algerone continued. "He believes he can use you as leverage to obtain activation protocols."
"The Volkov evidence." Xavier's expression shifted from hostility to calculation. "How extensive is it?"
"Comprehensive," I replied. "Surveillance photos, financial trails, and documentation of your brothers' activities. He's been collecting it for years."
Xavier's fingers began moving across the keyboard again. "And what exactly does he think I can do about the protocols? He must know they're tamper-proof."
"He believes you can provide a workaround. He doesn't understand the full scope of your security design."
"Explain it to me again," Algerone commanded. "I want to understand exactly how your system works."
