“Well? We’re all waiting.”
Now, I can feel their full attention like heat lamps. “She’s sick,” I say almost inaudibly. “Going blind. Some genetic thing.”
“Jesus.” The word leaves Zeke in a rush of air. “That’s… Fuck, Bastian. That’s terrible.”
Sage goes very still. We don’t talk about medical issues in this house if we can avoid it. He and I have spent too many nights in hospital corridors and had too many conversations with doctors who spoke in careful euphemisms about spinal cord injuries and adaptive equipment and the difference between paralysis and paraplegia. About what life looks like when a twelve-year-oldboy has his lumbar vertebrae crushed by hitting a telephone pole at eighty miles per hour.
“So she wanted to quit,” Sage says carefully, “to, what, make the most of the time she has left?”
“Something like that.”
“And you said no.”
“I said I’d make it worth her while to stay.”
“How worth her while?” Zeke asks, though something in his tone suggests he already suspects the answer will be ridiculous.
“A million dollars to stay through the Project Olympus launch.”
Sage whistles low. Zeke just stares at me.
“Are you out of your goddamn mind?” Zeke sets his beer down hard enough that foam sloshes over the rim. “The woman is facing the loss of her eyesight and your response was to throw bundles of cash at her?”
My anger flares. “That’s a funny fucking way to describe ‘offering her financial security during a difficult time.’”
“As if you’d ever be that thoughtful! You’re bribing her into staying so you don’t have to deal with the inconvenience of finding a replacement this close to launching Project Olympus.”
I don’t particularly like being called out by my best friend and kid brother. The issue is that they’re not wrong. The investors are breathing down my neck, the permits are a clusterfuck nightmare, and losing Eliana now would be catastrophic.
But that’s not the only reason I couldn’t let her walk away.
“No one else has her experience,” I argue.
“Don’t bullshit me, man.” Zeke stands up, pacing to the kitchen island. “You could train someone new. It would be a pain in the ass, sure, but you could do it. Hell, you could poach someone from another company with the kind of money you’re throwing around.”
“The timeline?—”
“Oh, fuck your timeline, Bastian. We both know this isn’t about any goddamn timeline.”
Sage has gone quiet. He’s toying with his knee, rubbing at the old scars the way he always does when he’s in deep thought.
“So what isitabout?” Z presses.
I tip the glass up and swallow the very last of the whiskey in one go, feeling the burn all the way down. I can sense their eyes still on me the whole time.
Watching. Waiting.
Zeke was there during the worst of it after Sage’s accident, when I was barely sleeping, barely eating, throwing myself into work with manic and damn near suicidal intensity.
And Sage… Sagelivedthrough all of it. The guilt, the overprotection. He had a front-row seat to watch as I rebuilt my entire life around making sure nothing could ever hurt him again.
“I built this company from nothing,” I say. “Fifteen years ago, I was washing dishes in a kitchen that violated every health code in the book, sending every penny I could save to cover Sage’s medical bills and physical therapy. Now, we have twenty-threelocations, five Michelin stars, and a valuation that puts us in the top tier of hospitality groups in the country. And I’m on the brink of taking us to the very top. Olympus will get us there. So I’m not letting someone’s petty little meltdown ruin me when I’m this fucking close to success.”
“Success for who, though?” Sage asks quietly.
“For who? For us, of course! For everyone who works for us. What are?—”
“For everyone who cansurviveworking for you, you mean.”
