"Afterward, we'll see." I let the ambiguity hang between us. "But I expect you at the penthouse tonight. We have unfinished business."
"Yes, sir."
The formal address stirred something in me that had no place in a phone call conducted from an airstrip in Vancouver. Even now, even after everything that had changed between us, that word in his mouth still carried the weight of three decades of submission disguised as professionalism.
"Nothing could change this," he said. "Not distance. Not Shaw. Not the past. I've been yours for thirty-two years, Algerone. The only difference now is that you've finally claimed what was always waiting for you."
I ended the call and stared out at the rain. I thought about the mother I'd believed dead, about the past Shaw thought could destroy me, about the man waiting for me in Cincinnati. The skinny boy from Oklahoma had come a long way and had transformed himself into someone who mattered, someone who commanded respect and fear.
Yet, for all the power I'd accumulated, for all the empire I'd built, the thing I found myself most eager to return to wasn't Spade Tower or Lucky Losers' global reach. It was a man who had spent thirty-two years showing devotion in ways I'd been too blind to recognize.
I parked the Auditwo blocks from the cemetery entrance, where there were no security cameras. I'd verified that detail personally. Twice.
My fingers tightened around the tablet resting on my lap. The device had rarely left my possession since I began working for Algerone. My lifeline.
Powering it down was almost sacrilegious. The screen flickered beneath my fingers. The subtle electronic hum I'd grown accustomed to fell silent, leaving me momentarily disoriented. Without data flowing through my hands, I existed in a vacuum, disconnected from the corporation that gave my life structure.
I placed the tablet in the glove compartment alongside my silent phone. My fingers lingered on the metal edge before I closed the compartment. For the next hour, I would exist unmonitored, the closest thing to invisible I ever managed to be.
From the backseat, I retrieved a simple black wool coat. Nothing like the tailored pieces that comprised my usual armor.It was deliberately anonymous, purchased from a department store three years ago and altered just enough to fit without drawing attention. I slipped it on over my suit. The Glock's weight settled against my ribs. Two pounds, four ounces. Fifteen rounds in the magazine, one in the chamber.
Not that I was expecting trouble, but preparation was its own form of prayer.
I buttoned my coat against the autumn chill as I stepped out. The street was empty, not a single observer to witness where Maxime St. Germain disappeared to when he vanished from the digital grid.
The lilies waited on the passenger seat, wrapped in brown paper from the florist on Eighth Street who never asked questions. I gathered them, the paper crinkling under my fingers while waxy stems pressed cool against my palm. I’d used the same florist, the same order, the same route for twenty-three years.
My breath fogged the air as I approached the cemetery. The wrought-iron gates stood open. Just me and the dead and the weight I carried.
Left at the marble angel with the chipped wing. Right at the ancient oak that had been struck by lightning in 2019 but somehow survived. I’d memorized the route after countless monthly pilgrimages.
Headstones emerged from the mist. Names and dates blurred as I passed. Birth years, death years, the inadequate hyphens between them. I knew what those dashes contained. First steps, graduations, weddings, children. All the markers of lives properly lived. All the milestones I'd denied her.
My stomach tightened as I approached the eastern corner. The lilies suddenly felt absurd. What offering could possibly matter to the dead?
Yet I continued forward. The headstone came into view gradually. It was black granite, eighteen inches wide, twenty-four inches tall, smaller than the monuments surrounding it. I'd paid for something larger, but she'd specified modest in her will. One of the few wishes I'd honored.
IMOGEN MARIE DUCHAUCIS
1972 - 2000
"Emily Dutch"
Beloved Daughter, Mother, Artist
"The flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long"
I stopped before it. Cold shock rippled through my body at the sight of her name carved in stone. All these years, and still the impact never diminished.
The grass beneath my feet was damp with dew as I lowered myself to my knees. The wet immediately soaked through my Valentino pants.
I brushed away fallen leaves from the base of the headstone and adjusted the bronze vase before arranging the lilies.
My throat tightened as I stared at the name. "Hello, Imogen Marie."
I waited, as I always did, for a response that would never come.
"I know. I'm late this month." My voice sounded different here. Softer. No trace of the man who commanded boardrooms and crushed opposition. "It's been complicated."
