Thane waits until we’re alone near the private elevators.
“You didn’t hear a word in there,” he says.
I don’t bother denying it. “They didn’t need me to.”
“No. But you need you to.”
He studies me again—this time longer.
“I’m taking you for a drink,” Thane says.
“I have work.”
“You’re done working for tonight.”
“The fuck? I don’t—”
“Don.” His tone sharpens just enough to cut. “This building can run without you for two hours. You, however, are running yourself into the ground.” A beat. “And I didn’t fly halfway across the world to watch you implode in a glass tower.”
I exhale slowly. “Fine. One drink.”
Takes me several seconds before I decide to head out.
On the way to my motorcycle, which I’ve been riding a lot more lately, I take the stairs, bypassing the elevator down to the garage.
Forty flights later, suit jacket slung over my shoulder, pulse already pounding—not from exertion, but from the pressure sitting in my chest like aclenched fist.
By the time I reach the private garage beneath Titan, the air smells like oil, concrete, and something faintly metallic. The echo of my footsteps follows me past a row of vehicles, and I go straight for the bike.
My prized possession among the many I have at my penthouse.
The 1972 Triumph Bonneville waits where I left it.
It’s sleek. Blacked-out, and restored down to every bolt.
Swinging a leg over, I secure my helmet and gloves, the familiar weight between my legs grounding me in a way boardrooms never do.
Beneath me, the engine roars to life, the sound low, hungry, vibrating straight through bone and muscle, the rumble cutting through the fog in my head like a blade.
I pull out into the evening traffic just as the city shifts gears—the workdaybleeding into night.
The air is thick with summer heat, exhaust, hot asphalt. Neon flickers on storefront windows. Sirens wail somewhere distant, threading through the noise.
I take the West Side Highway, the river to my right reflecting the city in broken shards of light. Traffic moves fast, aggressive, impatient.
Everyone trying to get somewhere. Everyone certain they matter.
The wind cuts against my chest as I accelerate, thoughts blurring.
Emma’s face.
The ultrasound screen.
The way she looked at me the last time I peered into those golden-green orbs she calls eyes.
“I should have never told you about the baby.”
My jaw tightens as I push the accelerator, my speedometer ticking past numbers fast.
