"What is it?" Maxime's voice had shifted, the sleepy softness replaced by something sharper. The COO had emerged from beneath the man who'd just knelt at my feet.
"Xavier found Shaw." I was already pulling up the details. "Vancouver. Warehouse district. He's moving the prototype."
Maxime went still beside me. "Moving it where?"
"Doesn't say. But there's activity. Trucks, equipment being loaded." I checked the timestamp. "This was twenty minutes ago."
"Reid's team is supposed to be wheels up at midnight." Maxime pulled out his own phone, fingers flying across the screen. "If Shaw's relocating..."
"We lose him."
I pushed myself out of the chair, ignoring the protest from my leg. "Call Reid. I want that team in the air in fifteen minutes."
"Already on it." Maxime had his phone to his ear, pacing toward the window. "Reid. Vancouver. Shaw's moving the prototype. I need wheels up in ten, not fifteen. Yes, I understand the... no, I don't care. Make it happen."
He hung up and turned back to me. The transformation was complete now, the vulnerable man who'd confessed his shameful desires replaced by the ruthless operative who'd run my company for two decades. Both versions were real. Both versions were him.
My phone buzzed again. Then his. Then both at once.
Maxime looked down at his screen, and his face went pale.
"What?"
"Shaw leaked it." His voice came out flat. "Wall Street Journal got an anonymous tip about the theft. Story's already live. Stock's down eighteen percent in after-hours trading."
Eighteen percent. Billions of dollars in market cap evaporated while we stood here in my bedroom.
"Board members are demanding an emergency meeting." Maxime scrolled through his messages. "Patterson's already circling. Pentagon wants answers. Legal is activating crisis protocols."
Shaw. That smug bastard had outmaneuvered us again. While I'd been sitting in a chair stroking Maxime's hair, he'd been burning my empire to the ground.
"When's the meeting?"
"One hour. Boardroom Level Diamond."
It was four hours to Vancouver if we pushed the jets. By the time I got back, the board would have had all day to scheme and plot and decide my fate without me there to defend myself.
"He's forcing us to choose." I grabbed my cane from where it leaned against the chair. "The prototype or the board."
"Yes."
Maxime's eyes met mine, and I watched him work through the same calculations I had. He knew what was at stake. He knew what Shaw was doing. And I could see the moment he arrived at the same conclusion I had.
"You go to Vancouver," he said.
"And leave you to face the board alone?"
"I can handle the board." His chin lifted, and there it was: the predator beneath the servant. The man who'd destroyed Imogen because she was in his way. "I've been managing them for twenty years. I know their weaknesses, their pressure points, their fears. I can buy you twelve hours."
"And if they decide to move against me in my absence?"
"Then they'll regret it." His voice went cold in a way that sent heat down my spine. "I'll destroy anyone who tries to take what's yours."
The possessiveness in his tone was inappropriate. He was my COO, not my attack dog. But I'd stopped pretending our relationship was professional the moment I'd told him to kneel.
"You're sure you can control them?"
"I'm sure I can make them too afraid to act." He stepped closer, and his hand came up to rest against my chest, over my heart. "Trust me. Please. Let me prove I'm worthy of it."
