She wants to ask. She doesn't.
"Another time, then." She pauses in the doorway. Her hand finds the frame—gripping it, I realize. Holding on. "Have either of you heard from Max?"
The question lands in the room like a grenade with the pin still in.
"He texted this morning," I say. The lie comes out smooth. Practiced. I've told it enough times now that it almost doesn't taste like poison. "Said he's been busy with classwork. Staying with his friend a few more days."
"He texted me too." Margot's chin lifts slightly—the gesture of a woman determined not to crumble. "But he hasn't called. I've asked him to call three times now and he just... texts back." She swallows. "That's not like him. He always calls. Even when he's busy. Even when it's just thirty seconds to say hi."
I reach for the bourbon and take a strong swig.
"I'm sure he's fine," I say. The words are ash. "Sometimes kids just need space."
"I know." She nods. Too quickly. "I know that. I do. It's just—" She stops. Her hand tightens on the doorframe. I watchher knuckles go white and think about Zero on the floor outside Max's door at three in the morning, listening to him breathe.
Everyone in this house is holding on to something.
"He's a good kid." Her voice softens. Drops into something private—a register I don't think she uses with many people. "I don't think you boys know that. Not really. Not the way I mean it."
"Margot—"
"He doesn't know what it's like to have people who care about him." She says it plainly. Not accusing. Just stating a fact she needs us to hear. "Truly care. Not out of obligation. Not because they're paid to. He doesn't know what that looks like. He's never had siblings. Never had—" She gestures vaguely at the office, at us. "This. Any of this. People who check on him. People who notice when he's gone."
The irony is so sharp it draws blood. I've noticed. I've noticed every second. I've been counting the minutes since he disappeared like a man counting down to his own execution.
"When he comes home," Margot continues, "I'm asking you both to make an effort. A real one. Not the polite distance. Not the surface-level courtesy. Really try to connect with him." Her eyes move to Zero. Then back to me. "He won't make it easy. He'll deflect. He'll say he's fine. He'll make himself small and quiet and try to disappear into the wallpaper because that's what kept him safe for all those years." Her voice cracks onsafe. Seals over. "But he needs people who don't let him disappear. Who see him even when he's trying not to be seen."
My throat tightens. I think about the kitchen—Max on the floor, the heat overwhelming him, his eyes wild with panic.Breathe with me. Match my rhythm.The way he looked at me like I was the only solid thing in a dissolving world. The way his hand found my wrist and held on.
The way I said no when he begged me.
"We will," I say. And I mean it with every cell in my body, and the guilt of what I'm withholding from this woman—her son in a concrete cell, gagged and beaten, his body used as a demonstration for a buyer—is so enormous it fills the room like a sound I'm the only one who can hear.
"Where's Bane?" Margot asks. Casual. An afterthought. A mother counting heads.
"Campus," I say. "He's got a financial law exam tomorrow. Decided to stay in the library and study through the night. You know how he gets about exams."
She nods. Believes it. Why wouldn't she? Bane is the reliable one.
"Tell him to eat something," she says. "He forgets."
"I will."
She lingers. Just for a moment. Her eyes sweep the office—the blueprints I should have hidden, the phones in a row, the shattered glass against the far wall. I see her clock the broken glass. See her decide not to ask.
"See you at dinner, then." Softer now. The voice of a mother who knows she's missing something and has chosen, for tonight, to trust her sons with whatever it is. "Don't stay up too late, Zero."
The door closes behind her.
The silence that follows is a different texture than before. Heavier. Stained with something neither of us wants to examine—the particular shame of lying to a good woman about her missing son.
Zero breaks it first.
"Fuck." His voice is barely audible. "She’s totally catching on."
"I know."
"And we're sending her text messages from a burner."
