I'd taken it as a compliment then. Now the words haunted me.
If I died tomorrow, what would I leave behind? Not the man, just the systems he'd built. Spreadsheets didn’t grieve. No one would weep over a quarterly report. Efficient systems, profitable quarters, and security protocols would remain, but would anyone remember me kindly?
The HVAC unit clicked on, sending a cool draft across my skin. The mechanical hum filled the silence, unnaturally loud in the emptiness. No music and no footsteps, just the artificial pulse of a space where no one lived.
Another memory surfaced of Xion laughing at something I'd said during a rare visit to his auto shop, an unexpected moment of connection with the most withdrawn of Algerone's sons.
Xander's rage at the cemetery had been about more than just anger at what I'd done. They had been denied their mother's memory. They wanted what I had: connection, history, and the threads that tied past to present.
For a moment, I allowed myself to imagine a different future where Xavier stepped into a leadership role, his brilliance finally given proper scope. Xander at a negotiating table, leveraging their theatrical nature into diplomatic victories. Xion and Algerone in the garage together, heads bent over engine parts, their shared love of cars creating a bridge where words often failed.
And me, not merely adjacent to this family circle, but within it. Not through blood, but through choice. Standing beside them, belonging, part of something that would outlast spreadsheets and contracts.
Not as the servant clearing the plates afterward or the COO ensuring the catering arrived, but as someone with a seat at the table, someone whose presence didn't require utility but just invitation.
I hadn't dared to dream of a family since leaving Quebec.
And it was starting to sound strangely good.
I stood at thewindow of my office at Spade Tower, watching the afternoon light shift across Cincinnati's skyline.
The board meeting had ended hours ago. The Pentagon briefing at four o'clock had gone as well as could be expected given the circumstances. Reid's team was running surveillance on Shaw's known associates while Xavier traced the Banshee's digital footprint across three continents. Everything was proceeding according to plan, every piece moving into position for our strike on Macau.
And yet I couldn't stop thinking about the look on Maxime's face when I'd sent him home. I kept seeing the confusion in his eyes when I'd ordered him to leave, the raw vulnerability in his voice when he'd asked if he'd done something wrong. After all this time, the man still didn't understand that his value to me extended beyond his utility.
I pulled out my phone and checked the delivery confirmations. The tourtière from Maison Marcel had arrived at 1:47 PM. The massage therapist had departed at 3:15. The cashmere robe, theskincare products, the signed first edition, the 1987 Margaux—all delivered on schedule, all accompanied by cards bearing my handwriting.
Each item had been selected with purpose, chosen because I'd been paying attention even when I pretended not to be. I remembered the carbonation he hated, the grandmother who'd raised him, the Anne Rice novel he thought no one knew about. I'd caught him reading a battered paperback on a flight to Tokyo in 1994 and watched him shove it under his seat when he noticed me looking.
I'd sent people to deliver all of it. The professionals I'd chosen would execute my instructions flawlessly, present each gift with appropriate gravity, and report back that everything had gone according to plan.
But that wasn't what I wanted.
I wanted to see his face when he opened the door. I wanted to watch the confusion give way to something softer, something he'd spent decades training himself to hide. I wanted to be there, not receive a secondhand account filtered through professional detachment.
My phone buzzed. Reid, requesting authorization for additional surveillance assets. I approved the request without reading the details, my mind elsewhere.
The gifts had been easy. Expensive, thoughtful, perfectly curated to demonstrate that I saw him, truly saw him, in ways he'd never expected. But something was missing, something that couldn't be purchased from boutiques or sourced through dealers.
I thought about Maxime's face when I'd examined his injuries, the bruises he'd accepted from Xander without fighting back, the twenty-three years he'd spent visiting Imogen's grave while carrying a guilt he'd never asked me to absolve.
What did you give a man who'd spent his entire adult life in service? What gesture could possibly communicate that I wanted him, not his competence, not his loyalty, not his perfectly orchestrated support, but him?
The answer came to me as I stared at the Cincinnati skyline, watching the late afternoon sun paint the buildings gold.
I stopped pacing, grabbed my cane and headed for the elevator.
The Burger King onVine Street was gone, replaced by a craft cocktail bar with exposed brick and Edison bulbs. Of course it was. Nothing from those early days had survived except Maxime and me.
I had Williams drive me to the nearest location, a franchise near the university that catered to students and late-night stragglers. The parking lot was half-empty, the golden arches of the McDonald's next door casting competitive shadows across the pavement.
"Wait here," I told Williams. "This won't take long."
He didn't question the order, though I caught the slight widening of his eyes as I stepped out of the Escalade with my cane. Algerone Caisse-Etremont did not visit fast food restaurants. Algerone Caisse-Etremont had people for that.
But Jackson Wheeler had once counted pennies for a value meal, and tonight I needed to remember what that felt like.
The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead as I pushed through the glass doors. A handful of college students occupied the booths, laptops open, textbooks scattered across tables sticky with spilled soda. The cashier, a young woman with bright purple hair and a nose ring, looked up from her phone with an expression of profound disinterest.
