The concern in his voice stripped away my professional armor more effectively than any weapon. This wasn't my COO inquiring about an operation. This was the man who had waited three decades for my touch.
"I'm whole. Tired. Blood on my clothes. Nothing fatal."
His breath caught through the phone. "I've been at the office since the board meeting ended. Couldn't sleep, so I came in to manage the fallout." A pause. "I keep checking the secure line for updates. I'm sorry. I don't mean to hover."
The hesitation reminded me how new this was, how fragile. Just hours ago, I'd told him this didn't mean forgiveness, that the debt remained outstanding. Yet here we were, thousands of miles apart, and the careful distance we'd maintained for decades had somehow become unbearable.
"Have you eaten?" I asked.
"Does coffee count?" A soft laugh. "Pathetic, isn't it? Thirty-two years of discipline, and a few days of having you has ruined me."
"Not pathetic." I stared at the rain battering the windows. "I feel it too."
Silence stretched between us. Decades of professional partnership had given us a thousand ways to discuss strategy, but no language for this.
"Hardin's dead," I said finally. "She gave us what we needed first."
"Good." No judgment in his voice and no hesitation. Just acceptance of what I'd done, of what I'd always done. "And you're unharmed?"
"Some bruises. Nothing serious." I shifted, and white-hot pain knifed through my damaged leg. "The prototype's in Macau. Shaw's planning an auction in two weeks."
"We'll get it back." Calm certainty filled his voice. This was Maxime, confident and capable, believing in me with a devotion that still caught me off guard sometimes. "Come home, and we'll plan the next move together."
Home meant anywhere he waited for me, not the penthouse or Spade Tower.
"Shaw knows about my past," I said, the truth slipping out before I could stop it. "Not just the public narrative. He's been digging deeper."
"I know." His voice softened. " Our sources confirmed he's been investigating your background for months. Castellanos gave us enough to start unraveling Shaw's intelligence operation."
The rain intensified outside, sheets of water cascading down the windows. I leaned back and let my armor crack open in ways I permitted with no one else.
"Jackson James Wheeler," I said, and the name tasted foreign after decades of disuse. "He's telling people about the trailer park. About my origins."
Maxime scoffed. "He thinks painting you as 'trailer trash' will undermine confidence in Lucky Losers. Thinks your origins make you vulnerable."
"I wonder how deep he's gone." My mind drifted to darker corners. "If he's found out about Shane."
Suddenly, I wasn't in the SUV anymore but back in that trailer, seventeen years old again.
Rain hammered the metal roof while the sour reek of cigarettes and stale beer soaked every surface. Shane sprawled in his recliner with crushed cans scattered around his feet. The TV blared some rerun of Coach, laugh track too loud, his belly laugh even louder when he caught me flinching as he raised his hand.
His face contorted with rage as his knuckles connected with my cheekbone, and the familiar copper taste of blood filled my mouth.
King, loyal King, bared his teeth and inserted himself between us with a growl I'd never heard from him before.
"That fucking mutt..." Shane snarled.
The Louisville Slugger appeared in his hands, and what followed came in quick succession: a crack, a thud, a whimper from the dog I loved more than anything in that godforsaken trailer.
Rage flooded every cell in my body. The bat was suddenly in my hands, heavy and solid, and I swung it with surprising ease. Shane's skull made a sound I'd never forget.
His eyes changed from angry to afraid, and a strange calm settled over me as rain drummed overhead. Blood splattered across the TV screen while the canned laughter continued as if nothing had happened.
"That would be harder to uncover," Maxime said, pulling me back to the present. "No body was ever found. No investigation connected you to his disappearance."
"But there were questions." My fingers tightened around the phone. "The local police interviewed me. People in town talked. The official story was that Shane had left town, but there were always suspicions. Someone might remember. There might be notes in old police files, preliminary reports from when he wasfirst reported missing." I let the thought hang between us. "If it gets out I killed my stepfather..."
"It won't change anything," Maxime said. "If anything, it humanizes you. Shows you were capable of defending yourself even then."
