Chapter 1
My leg hurt like hell, but I wasn't about to let General Victor Kirsch see it.
I'd been back at Lucky Losers for five days, proving to my board, my employees, and every vulture circling this company that I was still the man in charge. Eighteen months was a long time to be gone. Long enough for people to get ideas. Long enough for competitors to smell blood in the water.
Long enough for everyone to forget who built this empire in the first place.
Kirsch stood beside me in the observation room, watching the demonstration like he was at a goddamn zoo.
The Banshee prototype hummed on the other side of the reinforced glass.
The device itself wasn't particularly impressive looking, little more than a sleek array of titanium cylinders, switchboards, and wires.
That was the point. Revolutionary technology shouldn't announce itself.
On the other side of the glass, the test subject was strapped to a table.
He was a nobody, just a low-level drug dealer Reid's team had pulled from county lockup.
The kind of scum nobody would miss if this went sideways.
I'd stopped caring about the ethics of these demonstrations years ago.
You wanted to see what a weapon could do, you needed a live target. Simple as that.
Dr. Hardin stood at the controls, her prematurely silver hair pulled back tight. I gave the signal, and she pressed a button.
The prisoner started thrashing immediately. His body contorted, back arching off the table hard enough I thought his spine might snap. Then came the vomiting, the debilitating headache, the confusion. For all intents and purposes, he was completely and utterly debilitated.
Kirsch's knuckles went white where he gripped the railing. "You're certain there's no lasting damage?"
"Not at this setting, no," I replied, keeping my tone professional. "But it is deadly at higher settings. At least with mice and pigs."
He turned to me. "And it's completely silent?"
I nodded. "Infrasound below the threshold of human hearing. No projectile. No chemical agent. Just physics. Imagine deploying this inside an enemy base, or where you suspect a terrorist cell of operating. Simply deploy the Banshee, deploy the troops, and clean house."
I shifted my weight, leaning harder on the silver-tipped cane. My hip was screaming at me. The same hip Maxime had worked on this morning before I came in. I shook the thought away. The last thing I needed to be thinking about right now was his hands on me.
Kirsch glanced at the cane, then looked away. My hand tightened on the cane. I wished he'd just mention it or ask me how I was feeling. Being politely ignored was worse than being treated as broken.
Dr. Hardin looked at me. "Demonstration of lethal capability, sir?"
"That won't be necessary," Kirsch said before I could answer. "What about urban environments? Does it carry through concrete? Steel? How deep underground will it penetrate?"
I held out my hand, and Maxime deposited the tablet in it, the schematics for the Banshee MK II already pulled up.
"You'll find all the technical information here, General," I said, handing it over.
"But the Banshee MK II is a scalpel, not a sword.
This model emits targeted beams that can penetrate most modern building materials aimed in a single direction.
For three hundred sixty degree deployment, you'll want the MK III.
Smaller radius, less powerful, but the same effect. "
Kirsch studied the tablet, rubbing his chin, and I knew I had him. "You know, I heard the Russians were working on something similar."
"They're at least eighteen months behind us in development," I announced proudly. "And the Chinese prototype is at least twelve months behind. I wouldn't have brought it to you if I weren't certain we could put America on the map with this. This is revolutionary technology, General."
He snorted. "For six billion dollars, it'd better be."
The door opened behind us, and one of Maxime's assistants entered to whisper in his ear. A strange spark of something ugly nearly caught in my chest as I watched the two of them whisper in hushed tones, heads bowed, as if they were… intimate.
But then I remembered Maxime's betrayal, how he'd hidden my children from me—my legacy—and then lied about it for twenty years, and I shut that jealousy down tight. Maxime wasn't mine. He never was and never would be.
Maxime nodded and dismissed his assistant, approaching me with another tablet in hand. "The contracts are prepared, gentlemen, whenever you're ready to sign, General."
Maxime moved to stand beside me. Too close.
He always stood too close, like proximity was its own language.
He was wearing a bespoke suit that fit him perfectly.
Lean frame, slim waist, broad shoulders.
Sharp cheekbones and dark eyes gave him a severity his mouth contradicted.
That mouth had spent three decades saying my name like worship.
I cut the thought off hard.
"The Pentagon wants exclusive rights," Kirsch said. "No civilian applications. No international sales. Not even to allies."
"That will be reflected in the price," I said.
A sharp pain shot down my leg, sudden enough that I had to lock my jaw to keep from reacting.
Maxime's arm brushed mine. The contact lasted barely a second, but it burned through my suit.
He'd noticed. Of course he did. The man had been there with me throughout recovery, even when I tried to send him away.
Part of me wanted to see if he'd reach for me here, in front of Kirsch. He didn't. He stood at exactly the right distance, close enough to help but far enough to be professional.
"Six billion for the complete system," Kirsch said. "With performance incentives that could push it to seven." Kirsch's eyebrows went up. "Those are ambitious numbers."
"America is an ambitious country with ambitious global military goals. Revolutionary technology demands revolutionary compensation, General. You know that."
Kirsch looked at me for a long moment, then nodded. "Have your lawyers talk to our lawyers. But I want working prototypes of all three variants in six months. And security needs to be ironclad. This cannot leave your facilities."
"Of course." I extended my hand. We shook. "Maxime will handle the details."
Maxime stepped forward with his tablet, guiding Kirsch through preliminary agreements.
I watched him work. Perfect competence. Perfect loyalty.
Yet all I could think about was Imogen Duchaucis, the mother of my children.
Maxime had threatened her when she tried to tell me she was pregnant, and his threats pushed a mentally ill woman over the edge.
She'd killed herself rather than face whatever she thought he'd do to her.
It was thanks to Maxime's competence and loyalty that my three sons grew up without knowing me.
The rage sat in my chest like a living thing. I wanted to hurt him, to make him understand a fraction of what he'd cost me. And I knew if I ordered him to his knees right here, he'd do it. The power I had over him was intoxicating, yet I refused to use it. Not since I learned what he'd done.
When Kirsch left, Maxime closed the door and turned to me. The professional mask dropped instantly. His shoulders relaxed. His whole stance softened. That look of absolute devotion filled his eyes.
"Congratulations," he said quietly. "This is the largest contract in Lucky Losers' history. You were magnificent."
"Our history," I said automatically, then regretted it. Hope flared in his eyes before I killed it. "A history you nearly destroyed."
The light went out of him like I'd flipped a switch. His shoulders slumped. The animation drained from his face. He didn't argue or defend himself. Just took it. The same way he'd taken every barb I'd thrown at him for eighteen months.
Silence stretched between us.
"Xavier called earlier," Maxime said finally. His voice was low. His fingers fluttered at his lapel before he caught himself. "Nothing urgent. Weekly check-in."
My oldest son was the head of security at Lucky Losers Inc., and the spitting image of me. It was Xavier who'd forced Maxime to confess what he'd done.
I stared at Maxime. How many other calls had he intercepted over the years? How many messages from Imogen had he buried?
"I'd never do it again," he said suddenly. Reading my mind, like always. "The boys. I'd never keep them from you again." His eyes were pleading. "What I did... it was to protect you. To protect what we were building. But I should have told you. That was my mistake."
"Your mistake." The words tasted like poison. "Twenty years of lies was a mistake?"
He didn't flinch. Never did. He leaned into my anger like it was better than indifference. "I would do anything to fix this. Anything. You know that."
I held his gaze and let the silence stretch. His devotion used to be my greatest asset. Now, it disgusted me.
Or that's what I told myself.
"Have the car brought around," I said, moving toward the door. As I passed him, our bodies came close enough that I caught his scent under the cologne. I paused, just for a heartbeat. "I'm going home. It's been a long day."
"Back to the penthouse?" he asked, tone hopeful despite everything. His fingers tapped anxiously against his tablet.
"No. To the house."
His fingers froze because Maxime knew what that meant. I tolerated his presence in the penthouse, but I'd made it clear he wasn't welcome at my home.
That didn't stop him from asking, "Will you need anything else tonight, sir? Anything else at all?"
For a moment, I let myself consider all the possible answers. The violent ones. The vengeful ones. The ones that would end with his suit in ruins and both of us finally dealing with the tension between us.
"No," I said, ice in my voice. "That will be all."
"Very well." He smoothed one hand down his suit. The gesture was both practical and distinctly effeminate, and it made me want him all over again. "I'll have the quarterly reports on your desk by morning. And I'll prepare everything for the DoD lawyers."
I left without answering. Security personnel snapped to attention as I passed.
Lucky Losers employed over five thousand people across three continents.
They'd all known who was in charge even during my absence.
Maxime had made sure of it. I wanted to hate him for it, but I couldn't. I had plenty of other things to hate him for.
The house in Hyde Park was dark when my driver pulled up to it, and my hip was screaming. He offered to help me to the front door, but I declined. This was still the one space where I was the undisputed master of my domain, and that wasn't going to change.
The place was both a mansion and a fortress, with eight empty bedrooms, bulletproof windows, reinforced walls, state-of-the-art security, and marble bathrooms with waterfall showerheads. It was both a luxury and a prison on my worst days.
I poured myself a finger of Japanese whiskey and tried to ignore the deafening silence. Six billion dollars was our largest contract yet. The victory should have tasted sweet, but all I could taste was the singular sour note of loneliness.
I stood at the back of the house, staring out the French sliding doors at the covered pool and designer furniture dotting the outside entertainment area. When was the last time I'd used any of it? When was the last time I'd wanted to?
I went through my evening routine on autopilot. Shower, then a soak to ease the pain in my hip. Pain medications. Fresh clothes. Another whiskey while I reviewed market reports. The pain in my leg had faded to a manageable throb.
My phone rang at 3:17 AM while I was lying awake staring at the ceiling.
"Sir." Commander Reid's voice was tight. "There's been a breach at the lab."
I sat up too quickly and regretted it. "What kind?"
"Physical. Forced entry through the east service corridor. Security protocols overridden. Three men down."
"Dead?"
"Unconscious. Same symptoms as the Banshee test subjects."
Ice flooded my veins. "What's missing?"
Reid paused. "The Mk I prototype. All the design specs from the secure server."
Fuck. This was bad, extremely bad.
"Lock it down. Protocol Omega. No one in or out." I was already moving, pulling on clothes. "Where's Dr. Hardin?"
"Missing, sir."
The whiskey turned to acid in my stomach, and my head swam thanks to the pain medication, but there was no time for recovery, not in a crisis. "I'll be there in five minutes." I grabbed my cane, my gun, and my phone. "Get Maxime."
"Already on his way, sir."
I ended the call. Rage and adrenaline hit me in equal measure. The specs. The prototype. Hardin missing. The timing was too perfect.
Someone had played me, and when I found out who, I'd burn everything they'd ever touched to the fucking ground.