The smell of ozone, wet wool, and copper-laced blood invaded the sterile minimalism of Xavier Stoneās private office.
Joanne "Jo" Mercer sat on the edge of the leather sofa, her face smeared with dried harbor mud, her canvas jacket torn at the shoulder where a surgical white bandage now peeked through. She didn't look like a lucky star anymore; she looked like a survivor of a shipwreck.
"Iām out, Stone," Jo said, her voice raw, flat, and hard as granite. She tossed her compact 9mm pistol onto Xavierās pristine mahogany desk with a heavy, metallic clatter. "Iām pulling my people. I'm handing back the remainder of your retainer. I'm done."
Xavier didn't look up from his hands, which were clasped tightly in front of him. "Why?"
"Why?" Jo let out a sharp, cynical laugh that turned into a grimace as she adjusted her shoulder. "Because those boys in the harbor aren't street thugs, Xavier. Theyāre professionals. They had military-grade tactical gear, high-tensile climbing ropes, and they were shooting to kill. A bullet missed your high school teacher's chest by three inches. We nearly died in an abandoned boxcar because she wanted to play Nancy Drew. I signed up to run counter-surveillance, not to lead a civilian through a hot combat zone."
She stood up, ignoring the pain in her arm, and leaned over his desk, casting a long shadow under the recessed halogen lights. "You want to save your employee, Yian? Great. Hire a better PR firm. But tell his sister Zoe to go back to grading papers, because if she goes back into that dead-zone, the next time my 'cousins' find her, sheāll be in a body bag. And Iām not dying for your architectural bid."
Xavier remained perfectly still. The silence stretched between them, heavy and suffocating, punctuated only by the rhythmic drumming of the rain against the glass.
When he finally looked up, his dark eyes were hollowed out by a terrifying, absolute desperation.
"Triple," Xavier said quietly.
Jo blinked, freezing in place. "What?"
"I am tripling your personal rate," Xavier repeated, his voice low, steady, and deadly serious. "And I am doubling the security budget. I want eight active operators, four armored SUVs, and round-the-clock defensive escorts. Every time Zoe steps foot outside her apartment, I want a perimeter established before her feet hit the pavement. She doesn't go to the grocery store, she doesn't visit the jail, she doesn't breathe without your people shielding her."
Jo stared at him, her mouth slightly open. She looked at his expensive, tailored knit turtleneck, then at the sleek, expensive models of high-rises surrounding them, trying to calculate the astronomical daily cost of what he was asking.
"Eight tier-one private contractors on a 24-hour rotation?" Jo whispered, her voice losing its angry edge, replaced by genuine disbelief. "Stone... that's fifty thousand dollars a week. Just in logistics. You can't sustain that."
"I don't need to sustain it forever," Xavier said, standing up and looking her dead in the eye. "I just need to sustain it until Yianās trial is over. Do we have a deal, Joanne?"
Jo stared at him for a long, agonizing moment, searching his face for any sign of sanity. Finding none, she slowly reached down, picked her pistol off his desk, and slotted it back into her holster.
"You're out of your mind," she muttered, turning toward the double glass doors. "But yeah. For that kind of money, my 'cousins' will build a fortress around her. I'll have the first shift detailed by morning."
She pushed the door open and walked out, her damp boots leaving a faint trail of harbor silt on the polished floor.
As the door clicked shut, a soft sigh broke the silence from the corner of the room.
Lesley Croft stepped out from the shadows of the filing alcove, holding a thick, leather-bound accounting ledger. Her eyes were tired, carrying the heavy, exhausting toll of someone who spent her nights caring for a stroke-stricken father and her days trying to balance a collapsing empire.
She closed the ledger with a dull, heavy thud.
"Xavier," Lesley said, her voice trembling slightly as she looked at him. "You will be broke soon with that payment. The payroll account is nearly depleted. The banks are already flagging our commercial lines of credit, and if we miss the next interest payment on the office lease, they'll lock the doors. You are bankrupting this entire firm."
Xavier didn't look at her. His gaze slowly drifted back to the corner of his desk, where the silver frame of his brother's photograph sat face-down, hidden from the world.
He reached out, his long fingers gently sliding under the cold metal edge. He turned the frame back over, staring into the gentle, smiling eyes of the brother he had let die in a cold, lonely jail cell five years ago. He could still hear the ghost of his brother's voice screaming through the visitation glass, begging him to save him.
Xavierās jaw clenched, his knuckles turning stark white as he gripped the edge of the desk.
"I will handle it," he said, his voice ringing with a cold, terrifying determination that left no room for argument.
Lesley looked at his rigid back, swallowed her protests, and quietly walked out, leaving Xavier Stone entirely alone in the darkening room, standing guard over the dead.