My fingers brushed his. His skin was warm, dry, familiar now in ways it hadn't been a week ago. I had touched every inch of him during those eighteen months of recovery. But this was different. This was chosen.
"If Shaw knows about Shane," he began.
"Then we find out how he knows," I finished. "And we eliminate every source of that information."
The corner of his mouth tightened, not quite a smile. "Efficient as always."
"I serve at your pleasure." The familiar phrase carried new weight now, loaded with meaning beyond professional duty. The words had been true for thirty-two years. They were truer now.
"And if my pleasure requires blood?"
"Then blood you shall have," I replied without hesitation. "As much as necessary."
He nodded once, some of the tension leaving his shoulders. We stood together on the concrete slab where Jackson Wheeler had died, where Shane's blood had soaked into Oklahoma soil forty years earlier. Violence had created Algerone Caisse-Etremont. Violence would protect him now.
His fingers found mine again, the contact hidden from Xavier's team by our bodies. His touch carried heat, reassurance, possession. A physical connection that transcended words. I let myself lean into it, just slightly. Let myself have this one small thing.
"When we find Shaw," he said quietly, "I want to be the one who ends him."
"Of course. But not because of this." I gestured toward the desolation surrounding us. "Not for revenge."
His eyes narrowed slightly. "Then what for?"
"For the future." I held his gaze steadily. "For what comes after Shaw. After Oklahoma. After all of this."
His jaw relaxed. He nodded once.
"After," he repeated, and I understood the weight he placed on the single syllable.
"Yes." I didn't elaborate. Didn't need to. He understood what I was offering. Not just service. Not just loyalty. But a life beyond the wreckage Shaw had created. A future I had never dared to imagine before he had placed a paper crown on my head and told me I looked like royalty.
It was personal now. Shaw had not merely crossed a line. He had drawn one in blood. Had targeted the man I'd devoted my life to serving. The man who had finally claimed me after decades of waiting. The man who had held me through the night and whispered things I was still afraid to believe.
And now it was our turn to answer.
My tablet buzzed against my hip. I ignored it for once, keeping my hand in his. The messages could wait. The board could wait. The Pentagon could wait.
But I knew what vengeance cost. I'd counted the bodies over thirty-two years. Buried the friends. Watched violence hollow good men into empty shells. And I feared what it might take from us, this fragile thing we had only just begun to build. This love I had carried for three decades and had finally been permitted to name.
Shaw would pay for what he had done. That was certain.
I just prayed the cost wouldn't be everything we had left.
My leg hurt likehell.
Three days had passed since Oklahoma. Three days since Hardin's laptop had given us everything we needed. Three days of watching my empire bleed out while I smiled for cameras and pretended I wasn't planning murder.
The elevator doors opened onto the Diamond level, and every head in the corridor turned. I let them look. Let them see the silver-tipped cane striking marble with each step, the set of my jaw, the cold fury I wasn't bothering to hide. Their fear hung in the air, sharp and acrid beneath expensive cologne.
Maxime moved half a step behind me, half a step to the right. Inside the conference room, they were waiting. Patterson and Hendrik sat at the obsidian table, Xavier at the far end, his orange and blue hair like a middle finger to corporate conformity. Reid stood in his corner, watching security feeds.
The conversation died the instant I walked in.
"Status," I said. No preamble. I didn't have time for bullshit.
Patterson started talking before I'd even reached my chair. "Pentagon suspended all contracts. Stock's down sixty-eight percent. Three board members resigned. The FBI wants our files."
"Requested or demanded?"
