"This is my world, Avery." The words come out cold, dismissive, and I watch her flinch like I've struck her. "I know how it works. You don't."
Her hand falls away from my arm.
For a long moment, neither of us moves. I can see her processing it all. The dismissal, the condescension, the way I just made her feel like a guest in a life she thought was hers too. Everything in me recoils at the wall I’ve just thrown up between us, but I have to do what I believe is right. For her. For us. For myself.
"Fine." Her voice is flat, empty, terrifyingly controlled. "Handle it your way. You always do."
She turns and walks toward the door. Spine rigid. Shoulders braced. She pauses at the threshold, only for a moment. I think she might turn back, might give me one more chance to be the man she deserves.
She doesn't.
I stand there, jaw locked, frustrated with the whole damned situation, and watch her disappear down the hallway.
Rachel clears her throat through the tablet speaker. "I'll draft some options anyway. Just in case." Her pause hangs over the room, weighted with everything she witnessed. "Take care of each other, Nick."
The screen goes dark.
Gabe rises, exchanging a look with Beck. "I should go check in with my team downstairs. Make sure the perimeters are clear and that everything’s buttoned up for the night."
He's gone before I can respond.
Beck doesn't move. "Nick." His voice is careful, the way it gets when he's about to say something I don't want to hear. "Maybe we should wait. Until you and Avery—"
"There's nothing to wait for."
He leans forward, elbows braced on his spread knees. "She's not wrong about the exposure. This strategy keeps the wound open."
"I have enough money to make sure it doesn’t."
Silence. Beck gathers his portfolio slowly, giving me time to change my mind. When I don’t, he stands up, ready to leave.
"You know I'll do whatever you ask," he says finally. "I always have. But I've known you long enough to see when you're fighting something other than the enemy in front of you."
His words sink in, straight to the point, making the pulse in my temple pound even harder. “I’ll be in the office early tomorrow. I’ll look for your email detailing the strategy we discussed.”
He gives me a flat nod. “All right. You’re the boss, Nick.”
He exits the room, closing the door behind him. The office is suddenly too quiet. The leather and wood and glass that felt like power ten minutes ago now feels like a mausoleum.
My hand aches. I've been making a fist for so long the scar tissue has gone rigid, the damaged nerves sending their familiar fire up my forearm. I force my fingers to uncurl, one by one.
Avery asked me to wait. To work together. To be her partner.
Instead, I dismissed her as though her voice didn't matter. As if she was just another obstacle between me and what I wanted. What the fuck is wrong with me? It shocks me, how easily the man I used to be—before her—can still rise to the surface.
But he’s there, lurking in the fear that’s coiled around me even now. The worry that if the day ever comes that my ugly past is dragged into the light, I might not be strong enough to withstand it.
Tomorrow, Beck will start the process. Acquire the debt. Pull the advertising. File the suits. Rennick Media will burn, and everyone who works there will lose their jobs, and the reporter who wrote that article will learn what it costs to come after Dominic Baine's family.
I should feel some sense of victory. Of relief.
All I feel is cold.
I stand in my empty office, surrounded by the trappings of my wealth and power, and I let the silence sit.
9
AVERY
