"Maxie—"
"No. What options? Because I have one." I swallow. My throat clicks. "Me. I go to the police. I tell them what happened to me—the facility, the cell, the auctions, all of it. I put my name on a report and I give them a reason to open a case that doesn't need Santos or Hwang or anyone else. I'm a victim. I'm a witness. I can—"
"No."
Zero. One word. No inflection. No room.
"Zero—"
"No, Max."
"That's not your—"
"Half the cops in that precinct are on Kline's payroll." Bane this time, standing now, his voice low and careful. "If you walk into a station and put your name on a report, Kline knows within the hour. You become a target. Again. Not a theoretical threat—an active witness they have to deal with."
"I'm already a target. Talbot knows who I am. He's always known—"
"There's a difference between knowing and having a signed police report with your name and address on it sitting in a database his people have access to. We did what we could to get you and Wren out, wash you clean of his list. This would drag you back in all over again." Atlas. Quiet. Final. "The answer is no."
The three of them are looking at me.
United.
A wall.
I've seen this wall before. I've been managed by this wall—by foster parents who knew better, by social workers who meant well, by Margot who loved me so hard she forgot to ask me whatIwanted. By these three, who have been deciding what I'm ready for since the day I moved into their father's house.
My jaw works. I feel the argument building behind my teeth—hot, furious, righteous—and I swallow it.
Not because they're right.
Because fighting about it now, in this room, with Atlas still in his travel suit and Zero a lit fuse at the window, isn't going to change anything. And I'm learning—slowly,painfully—that there are times to push and times to let the push sit and grow roots.
This conversation isn’t over. But it is paused.
"Okay," I say.
Bane's shoulders drop a fraction. Atlas nods once. Zero turns back to the window, and I can feel his relief in the bond—bright, sharp, gone in a blink.
But the room is still thick with unanswered questions, unsettled plans. It’s almost choking. And all I want to do is curl up on Atlas’ lap, smell the scent pouring off his pulse point and remind him that he’shome.
"Can we go outside?" I ask.
Three faces turn to me.
"Margot's not here. Richard's not here. Can we just—can we go beusfor a while? I don't want to be in this office. I don't want to talk about Kline or Santos or any of it right now. I want—" I stop. Start again. "The beach. The night at the beach. We said we'd do it again. There's the pond. It's not the ocean but it's water and it's dark and I just—"
Nobody moves.
Atlas is still behind the desk. Bane is looking at his hands. Zero hasn't moved from the window. I'm standing in the doorway asking three men to come play pretend with me while their empire burns, and the silence is starting to feel like an answer.
I’m starting to second guess everything.
"Please," I say. "Just for a little while?"
Zero turns from the window.
He looks at Atlas. Looks at Bane. Some brother thing passes between them—the shorthand I'll never fully crack, the language of three people who've shared blood and a last name and a lifetime of shit I wasn't there for.
