Neither of us speaks for a long moment. The clock ticks. The silence fills with everything we're not saying—that we both want him, that we both failed him, that the wanting and the failing might be the same thing.
Zero's jaw works. He looks away first.
"What about Richard?" he asks. The deflection is almost graceful. "If he finds out we handed Kline the coastal corridor, he'll—"
"He won't find out. Not yet." I straighten the blueprints on my desk. A gesture of control in a situation where control is an illusion. "The concessions run through shell companies. The revenue share routes through offshore accounts Bane set up last year. On paper, it looks like a standard distribution partnership. Richard would need forensic accountants to untangle it."
"Richard has forensic accountants."
"Richard is semi-retired and playing golf three days a week. And he has Margot. He's not auditing active operations."
"You hope."
"I know my father."
Zero huffs—not a laugh, not quite. An exhale that acknowledges the gamble. "It's by sheer luck and my willingness to do ugly things at three in the morning that this mess hasn't surfaced already. Every operator I leaned on, every distributor I cracked—any one of them could have flagged it up. Could have run to Richard."
"They didn't."
"Because they're terrified of me. But terror has a shelf life, Atlas. Eventually someone calculates that Richard's protection is worth more than my threats."
He's right. The clock isn't just ticking on Talbot's forty-eight hours. It's ticking on the entire architecture of secrecy we've built around Max's kidnapping—the fake texts to Margot, the cover story about Bane's campus commitments, the violent cleanup of every intelligence leak Zero has plugged with his fists.
"We get them back first," I say. "Then we shore up the gaps. One crisis at a time."
Zero nods. Barely. His hand tightens into a fist against the window frame, and I watch his knuckles go white, and I think about Max in the kitchen. The heat overwhelming him. His legs giving out. The way he looked up at me from the floor with those dark eyes—terrified, ashamed, searching for something solid to hold onto. And I was solid. I was the thing he reached for.
I carried him to my bed that night. Watched him sleep in my sheets.
I chose him. Somewhere between the kitchen floor and the sound of his breathing in my sheets, I chose him. I just didn't have the courage to say it out loud. Said no instead. Said itgently, measured, like I was being responsible—and watched the light leave his eyes and told myself I was protecting him.
From what? From me? From wanting something that might actually be good?
I will say it. When he's home. When he's safe. When the machine can shut down long enough for the man behind it to speak.
A knock at the door.
We both go still. Zero straightens off the window frame—shoulders squaring, expression flattening, the mask sliding on with practiced speed. I straighten my collar. Smooth my expression.
"Come in."
The door opens. Margot.
She's wearing the cream cardigan she always wears in the evenings—the one Max bought her for Christmas, the one with the loose thread at the cuff she refuses to cut because he told her it gave it character. Her hair is down. Her face is composed in that careful way women learn when they've spent years managing households where the real business happens behind closed doors.
Mom had that look down too.
But her eyes are wrong. Red-rimmed. The skin beneath them puffy in a way that powder can't fully conceal. She's been crying. Recently. And she's trying very hard to make sure we don't see it.
"I'm sorry to interrupt," she says. Her voice is steady, but practiced. "I just wanted to let you boys know that dinner's ready. I made roasted chicken and it smells amazing." A smile that doesn't reach her eyes. "I'd love it if you both came down."
"We'll be right there," I say. Automatic. The polite response, the expected one.
Zero shifts by the window. I can feel his energy change—the predator's tension replaced by something more complicated. Margot has that effect on him. She's the closest thing to a mother he's acknowledged since ours died, and he handles that proximity the way he handles everything soft: with distance and denial.
"I'll pass," Zero says. His voice is rough but not unkind. "Not great company tonight."
Margot looks at him. Really looks—the split knuckles, the torn collar, the exhaustion carved into every line of his face. I can see her cataloging it, the social worker's instinct that never fully retired.
