"You were fighting about me." Not a question. "About what I am."
The hallway goes silent. The kind of silence that has weight. That presses against your eardrums.
Atlas doesn't deny it. Doesn't try to spin it. He just stands there, bleeding from the knuckles, his shirt torn at the collar, looking at me with those gray eyes that see too much and feeling—what? Guilt? Pity? That possessive, primal thing I heard in his voice through the door?
I open my mouth to say something—I don't know what, something angry, something defensive, something that will put the walls back up—
"What thehellis going on up here?"
Richard's voice booms up the staircase like a cannon shot. Authoritative. Furious. The voice of a man who's walked into his home and found chaos where there should be order.
Footsteps on the stairs. Two sets. Fast. Heavy.
Richard appears at the top of the landing. Margot right behind him. Her hand on the railing, her face already tight with worry.
They take in the scene.
The busted office door, hanging wrong on its hinges. The broken glass on the hallway floor—bourbon, from the smell, the Blanton's bottle in amber shards. Atlas with blood on his hands and murder still fading from his expression. Zero on the floor with a split lip and the look of someone who's been caught doing something unforgivable. Bane pressed against the wall, pale, frozen. Picture frames crooked. Plaster dust on the carpet.
And me. Standing in the middle of it. Crying.
"Jesus Christ." Richard's face goes from confused to furious in the space of a heartbeat. His jaw sets. A vein pulses at his temple. I've never seen him angry before—really angry—and it transforms him. The warm, affable man who makes Margot laugh disappears, replaced by someone harder. Someone who built an empire from nothing and doesn't tolerate disorder. "Somebody better start talking. Right now."
Margot pushes past him. Her eyes find me immediately—mother's instinct, zeroing in on the one who looks most broken. She crosses the hallway in three quick strides, her hands reaching for my face, my shoulders, checking me for damage.
"Are you hurt?" she asks. Her voice is steady but her hands are shaking. "Max, are you hurt?"
"I'm fine." The lie is automatic. Practiced. The same lie I've been telling since I was nine years old. "I'm okay. I wasn't—it wasn't about me."
"Then what the hell was it about?" Richard demands. He's looking at Atlas now. The eldest. The responsible one. The one who's supposed to keep this house running when Dad's away.
Atlas straightens. I watch it happen in real time—the mask reassembling. Piece by piece. The bleeding knuckles tucked casually behind his back. The torn collar smoothed. The expression settling into something calm and controlled and absolutely, convincingly false.
"Business disagreement," Atlas says. His voice is steady. Level. Like he didn't just have his brother pinned to a wall by the throat. "Zero and I have different opinions on how to handle the Tacoma distribution issue. It got heated. I'd been drinking." He pauses. Lets the words land. "It was stupid. I'm sorry."
He's lying.
Lying so smoothly, so effortlessly, that if I hadn't heard the real argument through the door I would believe every word.
Richard stares at him. Reading him. Searching for cracks.
"A business disagreement," Richard repeats. Flat. Skeptical.
"Yes."
"A business disagreement that put a hole in my wall." Richard gestures at the dented plaster behind Zero. The impression of a body. "And broke a bottle on my hallway floor."
"I'll replace the bourbon." Atlas doesn't flinch. "And the wall."
"That's not the goddamn point, Atlas."
"I know." Atlas holds his father's gaze. Doesn't waver. "It won't happen again."
Richard's jaw works. The vein at his temple is still pulsing. His eyes sweep the hallway again—Zero still on the floor, Bane still frozen, me still standing there with Margot's hands on my shoulders.
Zero hasn't said a word. Hasn't moved. Just sits there against the wall with blood drying on his chin and his eyes fixed on the carpet. Whatever fight was in him is gone. He looks—
Hollow.
