Chapter 29
The cabin of my private jet felt like a mausoleum. We were thirty-seven thousand feet above the Pacific, and every muscle in my body was demanding payment for the violence I'd dealt out in Macau. I'd built boardrooms where men bled money instead of blood, but tonight my body wanted both.
I stretched my damaged leg out, wincing as the movement pulled at rebuilt ligaments. My hand found the worst spot on my hip where the old explosion injury throbbed, aggravated by our fight with Shaw and the chaotic escape. The muscle was knotted tight as steel cable.
Shaw had gotten a few hits in. The damaged hip and thigh that had never healed properly after the mill explosion now screamed with every shift in pressure. My ribs ached like I'd gone ten rounds with a prizefighter and lost. Each breath was a negotiation with agony.
Up here, wrapped in engineered silence, I could finally relax. There were no witnesses except the man kneeling beside my chair, sleeves rolled back like he was preparing for surgery.
"Strip," Maxime commanded.
I lifted an eyebrow.
"You heard me."
I unbuttoned my shirt with fingers that wanted to shake. I wouldn't let them. I didn't show weakness, even when my body was a roadmap of fresh violence.
Maxime sucked in a sharp breath at the sight of my bare torso. The bruising had deepened during the flight, spreading across my chest in ugly patches of purple and black. His breathing quickened as he stared, and something hot coiled low in my stomach at the hunger in his dark eyes.
I cut the thought off. Business first.
"Rosewood," I said, because he was calculating damage behind those dark eyes. "Shaw's desk. Solid piece. Probably eighteenth century."
"Probably worth a fortune," he murmured, hands already moving. "This is going to hurt."
His fingers found my shoulders, digging into the knotted muscles there.
The pain that followed was immediate, overwhelming, necessary.
Like being broken apart and rebuilt by someone who understood exactly how much pressure to apply.
Those same hands had signed death warrants in my name, had held my empire together through careful calculation.
Now they worked me like clay that needed reshaping.
The intimacy of it made my blood run hot despite the pain.
Every press of his fingers against bare skin sent dual signals through my nervous system: agony and arousal, punishment and worship.
My cock stirred as he leaned closer, his breath warm against my neck.
I let myself have it this time. I let myself think of what I'd denied for thirty years. These hands, this attention, this careful reconstruction of my ability to function… All mine. They had been mine for decades without me realizing it was mine to claim.
My cock hardened despite the pain, despite the exhaustion.
Then footsteps in the corridor reminded me that privacy was always temporary.
"Sir." Reid stood at the threshold between sections, black suit replacing tactical gear. "We need to discuss the welcoming committee."
Maxime's hands anchored me as I reached for my shirt. His touch lingered longer than necessary, fingers trailing across my skin like a brand. "How many microphones?"
"Full circus. Pentagon wants a press conference before your feet hit American soil.
The FBI's got questions, but the friendly kind: you put down a terrorist who murdered over a thousand innocent Americans.
" Reid's tablet glowed in his hands. "Stock's up fourteen percent since news broke about Shaw's Oklahoma attack. "
Shaw's market manipulation had backfired so spectacularly it almost made the body count worthwhile. Dead terrorists sold weapons contracts better than live salesmen.
"Statement?" I asked.
"Legal's prepared three versions, depending on how much operational detail you want bleeding into the public record."
"Team status?"
"Breathing. Proud of it. Ready to go home and pretend they solve problems with spreadsheets instead of bullets." Reid's grin turned predatory. "Clean work, sir. Surgical. Minimal collateral damage, maximum impact, objective secured."
The Banshee prototype rode in our cargo hold, never again to roast wheat fields or turn suburban neighborhoods into open-air morgues. Shaw's auction house was permanently out of business.
More importantly, everyone I gave a damn about had survived. Maxime, who'd taken a bullet and turned it into theater. My sons, who'd watched their father choose blood over diplomacy one last time. Reid's team, who'd followed me into hell and dragged salvation out by its throat.
"Outstanding work," I said sincerely. "That'll be all."
He nodded and melted back into the forward cabin shadows. Maxime resumed his work, hands finding stress patterns that had formed during our conversation. The pain was lessening, muscles unclenching under attention they'd never received in three decades of accumulating damage.
"Press conference," I said. "How functional do you need me to be?"
"Functional enough for thirty minutes of theater." Maxime's certainty could have stopped bullets. "Then home. Then healing."
Home. The word tasted different now, carrying implications that hadn't existed a week ago. Not just my house and his sterile mansion, but shared territory. Space claimed and defended by two predators instead of one calculating bastard's careful isolation.
I caught myself dwelling on it and forced my attention back to logistics.
"Your children are waiting," Maxime said. "Xavier called during your power nap. Airport pickup confirmed. All three. Together."
His hands moved lower, finding the junction where spine met pelvis, where Shaw's violence had compressed vertebrae into agony.
His fingers worked so close to areas I wanted them to explore.
Those hands were inches from my ass, but I could imagine them gripping, claiming, marking territory they'd never been permitted to touch.
His breath hitched slightly as he worked the sensitive area.
I filed the reaction away for later. When we got home, I'd make him pay for every hitched breath, every flush, every moment of professional restraint.
The plane banked slightly, reminding me that we were descending toward Cincinnati. Toward my children waiting at the airport.
"Xander's temperature?"
Maxime considered this with the same care he applied to hostile acquisition contracts. "Different. Better. He needed proof you could choose me over pride. Children require evidence of their parents' capacity for forgiveness before they risk their own."
I'd provided that demonstration in blood, bullets, and Shaw's final breath.
"Ten minutes," Reid called from forward. "Time to become immortal again."
Maxime helped me get into my shirt. His touch lingered on my collar. When his fingers brushed my throat, I caught his wrist, grip tightening around delicate bones.
"These marks have faded," I said quietly, thumb pressing against the pulse point where I'd left bruises days ago. "That needs correcting when we get home."
His eyes darkened, pupils dilating as my grip tightened slightly. A soft sound escaped his throat. My cock throbbed at the sound. "Yes, sir."
The formality in his voice, even here, even now, sent electricity straight through me.
"Ready for immortality?" he asked, and his mouth curved just enough to suggest he knew exactly how mortal I felt.
I tested my range of motion, rolled shoulders that no longer ached, found authority settling back into my bones like armor. The pain remained but was manageable now. Useful, even.
"Ready," I said.
The plane began its descent, engines shifting pitch as we dropped through the cloud cover. The city spread below us, towers and contracts and employees whose paychecks had depended on decisions I would no longer make after tomorrow.
Tonight, it would become Xavier's kingdom. By all logic, the prospect of losing control should have triggered an existential crisis. Instead, it felt like finally exhaling a breath I'd held since my twenties.
Though letting go wasn't the same as not caring. Thirty years of blood and calculation had built that empire. Part of me would always be listening for the phone call that said it was burning down without me.
Ground crew swarmed the aircraft before the engines finished their death rattle, rolling stairs into position. The media encampment sprawled below: lights and cameras and reporters held behind expensive security cordons.
Beyond the chaos, three familiar figures waited beside an expensive black sedan.
My sons. My legacy. My future, waiting for their father to return from the last war he'd ever fight.
"Curtain up," Reid murmured, checking his sidearm out of habit.
I stood slowly, testing my body's renewed cooperation. The massage had worked its magic. I could move without broadcasting damage, could project the invincibility these people needed to see. Maxime handed me my cane, our fingers brushing.
His eyes held questions I answered with the slightest nod.
The cabin door opened. Cincinnati's humid air rushed in, heavy with summer storms and new possibilities. I stepped into the lights, into the hurricane of questions and strobing cameras. Maxime stayed at my shoulder like he'd been for three decades.
"Mr. Caisse-Etremont!" The voices crashed together like competing symphonies. "Can you comment on Macau? What was recovered? How many dead?"
I raised my hand. The cacophony died immediately.
"Ladies and gentlemen." I pitched my words to carry across the tarmac. "A terrorist named Gideon Shaw stole classified technology and used it to murder over a thousand innocent Americans in my hometown. Tonight, that terrorist is dead, and the weapon he stole has been recovered and secured."
The questions erupted like gunfire, but I'd been ready for wars like this my entire career.
I gave them standard answers to expected questions.
Yes, the operation was successful. No, there would be no further attacks.
Yes, Lucky Losers would continue serving American interests under new leadership.
No, operational details remained classified.
It took fifteen minutes to feed their hunger and establish tomorrow's narrative. Shaw would be remembered as a terrorist, Oklahoma as a tragedy, Lucky Losers as the heroes who delivered justice.
When it ended, when the final question died and the cameras stopped their electronic cannibalism, my sons were exactly where strategic thinking had positioned them.
Xavier approached first.
"I'm glad you made it home," he said, shaking my hand.
Xion followed, offering a slight nod of acknowledgment.
Xander stopped in front of Maxime first, and the tension stretched between them. Finally, slowly, Xander smirked. "You look like death warmed over," he informed Maxime. "But marginally less corpse-like than the last time I saw you."
Maxime went still beside me. "Xander..."
"Relax." My son waved his hand. "I'm not planning additional reconstructive surgery. Though you probably earned it with that theatrical dying routine. No dying on us yet, Max. We were just starting to get along."
"Transportation awaits," Xavier announced, gesturing toward the sedan. "Dinner's waiting, and Xander brought wine that cost a fortune."
"Worth every penny," Xander protested. "That bottle cost more than your car."
"Your car cost three hundred dollars," Xion observed.
"Exactly my point. Premium wine."
I smiled at the banter, at how normal it felt. Reid and his team would handle cleanup, debriefings, and the thousand details that followed successful operations. For the first time in my adult life, that wasn't my responsibility.
Maxime's hand brushed mine as we walked toward the sedan, the touch hidden from cameras by the angle of our bodies. I didn't pull away.
Xavier held the door open. Xander was still arguing about wine. Xion had already claimed the front seat, probably to avoid being caught in the crossfire.
I slid into the back, my damaged leg protesting the movement, and Maxime followed. The door closed behind us, cutting off the last of the media's shouted questions.
The sedan pulled away from the tarmac, leaving the circus behind. Through the tinted windows, I watched the city lights blur past, and I let my hand find Maxime's on the seat between us.
Tomorrow would bring new battles. The transition of power, the media fallout, the long work of rebuilding what Shaw had tried to destroy. But tonight, I was going home with my family.
All of them.