"I know, Zero."
He looks at me. The rage from earlier is gone—not extinguished, just banked. Buried under something quieter. Something that looks, if I'm being honest, like the thing I see in my own reflection when I let the machine slip.
"We get them back," he says. "Tomorrow."
"Tomorrow."
He moves toward the door. Stops. Turns back.
"You going down there?" he asks. Meaning dinner. Meaning Margot. Meaning sitting across from a woman whose son is in a concrete cell and eating roasted chicken like the world isn't ending.
"Someone has to."
He studies me for a second. Something close to respect—or maybe just recognition of a kind of endurance he doesn't share.
"Better you than me." His jaw works. "I wasn't lying when I said I'd lose it. Five more minutes of her asking about Max and I'd have stormed out."
"Go hit the bag," I say. "Or don't. Just—be ready tomorrow. I need you sharp."
"I'm always sharp."
"You're running on no sleep, split knuckles, and whatever you did to Caruso's face. That's not sharp. That's a blade with no handle."
He leaves. The door clicks shut.
I stand in the empty office. The blueprints are scattered. The broken glass glitters against the baseboard. The bourbon I poured sits half empty, catching the lamplight, amber and still.
I pick up my phone. Open the text chain with Margot—the one running through the burner, the one where every message is a carefully constructed lie in Max's voice.
Her last message is from two hours ago:Goodnight sweetheart. I love you. Please call me tomorrow. Just want to hear your voice.
I stare at it until the screen dims.
Then I set the phone down. Walk to the window. Press my forehead against the cold glass the way I've seen Max press his forehead against walls when the world gets too heavy to hold upright.
Somewhere in this city—twenty minutes by car, an infinity by every measure that matters—Max is in a cell. Bane is beside him. And the only thing standing between them and the rest of their lives is a phone call I'll make in the morning to a man I intend to destroy.
I'll make the call. Sign the papers. Shake the hand.
Smile.
And then I'll spend every day after that building the machine that takes Talbot Kline apart.
Not for the empire. Not for the corridors or the ports or the revenue.
For Max. For the one who somehow captured my entire fucking heart.
I won't say no again.
Now let me bring you home.
Chapter 9
Iwake up warm.
Not heat-warm. Not the feverish, desperate burn that was eating me alive last night. Just warm. The ordinary, animal warmth of another body pressed against mine—chest to back, arms looped over me, breath slow and steady against my hair. Bane's heartbeat thumps between my shoulder blades. Slow. Even. The rhythm of someone deeply, completely asleep.
I don't move.
