"Who," I say. The word is barely a whisper. Barely human.
"Come on, Atlas." Bane's voice is quiet. Almost gentle. Like he knows the answer is a knife and he's handing it to me blade-first. "You know who."
Zero.
Of course it's Zero.
Zero, who crosses every line before most people even see it. Who takes what he wants and leaves wreckage in his wake. Who looks at rules as suggestions and consequences as other people's problems.
Zero, who's been wound tighter than I've ever seen him these past weeks. Snapping at everyone. Disappearing at odd hours. Coming back with that feral, unfocused look in his eyes—the one he gets after bad jobs, after violence, after something breaks inside him that he won't talk about.
Zero, who's been circling Max since the day he moved in. I've watched it happen. The way he finds excuses to be in the same room. The barbed comments. The way his eyes track Max across the kitchen, the foyer, the hallway—not with the hostilityhe performs, but with something hungrier underneath. Like a predator that's stopped pretending it isn't hunting.
I told myself it was nothing. Told myself Zero was just being Zero—antagonistic, territorial, pushing back against change the only way he knows how.
I'm a goddamn fool.
"When?" My voice comes out in a register I don't recognize. Low. Dark. Something that vibrates in my chest before it reaches my throat.
"Last night, I think. Based on how Max was moving this morning." Bane's hands are fisted on his thighs. Knuckles bone-white. "I don't have proof. But Zero's been gone all day. Won't answer his phone. And Max—" His voice tightens. Constricts. "Max looked like someone who'd been taken apart and couldn't figure out how to put himself back together."
I close my eyes.
Behind them, I see Max. Not in my bed. In the kitchen. The night I bandaged his hands. Shredded knuckles. Blood on white marble. The way he flinched when I reached for him. Not a startle. Not surprise. The specific, practiced recoil of someone who expects reaching hands to hurt.
I assumed it was his past. His foster homes. The years of abuse that live in his body like scar tissue under the skin.
What if it was fresher than that?
What if it was mybrother?
"Atlas." Bane's voice. Far away. Then closer. "Your hands."
I look down. My fingers are wrapped around the edge of my desk. The wood is creaking under my grip. Groaning. My knuckles are white. My forearms are corded with tension—every vein standing out, every muscle locked.
I let go. Slowly. Deliberately. Finger by finger.
There are crescent-shaped indentations where my nails bit into the wood.
"What are you going to do?" Bane asks. Careful. Like he's realized he just pulled the pin on something and isn't sure how big the blast radius is.
"Talk to Max first." The words come out measured. Each one placed precisely. "I need to know what happened."
"And then?"
"Then I deal with Zero."
"Deal with him how?"
The question hangs in the air.
I think about my hands on the desk. The marks in the wood. The rage simmering just below my carefully constructed surface, held back by nothing more than years of practice and the knowledge that losing control never solves anything.
I want to lose control.
The realization is staggering. I have never—never—wanted to lose control. Not when Mom died and I held Bane while he screamed. Not when I found out what Dad's business really was and had to decide whether to walk away or take the wheel. Not when rival syndicates threatened our territory and I had to order things done that keep me up at night.
I have always been the steady hand. The cold head. The one who holds.
