16. Max
Max
I’m eight years old, standing in the doorway of my father’s study, watching him sign documents at his desk. The lamp casts harsh shadows across his face, deepening the lines around his mouth.
“What do you want, Maxwell?”
His voice is cold, like always, making my throat tighten the moment I hear it. I open my mouth to answer, but no sound comes out.
“Speak up, boy. I don’t have all night.”
But I can’t speak. I’m frozen, my feet rooted to the floor, my tongue heavy and useless in my mouth. The shadows in the room grow longer, darker, reaching toward me like grasping fingers.
“Worthless,” he says, turning back to his papers. “Just like your mother.”
I wake with a gasp, my heart slamming against my ribs.
For a moment, I don’t know where I am. Then the details filter in. The familiar weight of my blankets, the soft glow of moonlight through the curtains, the faint smell of woodsmoke drifting up from the fireplace downstairs.
Home. I’m home.
He’s been dead for twelve years. Why does this dream still come for me, every fucking year like clockwork?
I check my phone. It’s barely five in the morning, but there’s no point trying to go back to sleep now.
I throw off the covers and swing my legs over the side of the bed, sitting there in the dark until my breathing slows. The nightmare clings to me like cobwebs, sticky and suffocating.
Today is September 14th.
Twelve years ago today, a drunk driver hit my parents’ car head-on. My father died on impact. My mother lingered for three hours in the ICU before her injuries finally claimed her.
Happy fucking anniversary.
By the time I’m dressed I almost feel human again.
Almost.
The morning crawls by.
One of the department heads drops off a stack of reports himself. Normally he’d stand there and walk me through every line whether I asked him to or not. Today he just sets the folder on the edge of my desk, as if I might detonate if he gets too close.
“Anything else, Mr. Cavill?” His voice is soft and neutral, and when I look up at him, he immediately averts his gaze.
“No.”
He’s gone before I finish the word, easing the door shut so it doesn’t quite click.
They all know what today is. And every year it’s the same. The lowered voices. The pitying looks that follow me down every hall. It makes me want to put my fist through a wall, or throttle the next person who looks at me like I might shatter.
I know both are terrible ideas.
And so, instead, I sign off on a budget proposal, approve three new hires, and pretend the ghost of my father isn’t hovering at the edge of my vision, like a fucking dark cloud of misery.
I’m reviewing the latest projections when Finn walks in.
He doesn’t knock. He just pushes through the door like he doesn’t care if I’m busy with something, his expression carefully casual in a way that immediately puts me on edge.
“Max.” He nods at me, then tosses something onto my desk.
A newspaper. I look up and quirk an eyebrow.
“Page seven,” he says.
I look at the paper.
“What is this?”
“Just read it.”
I pick up the paper and flip to page seven.
The headline stops me cold.
REMEMBERING THEODORE CAVILL: A TITAN OF INDUSTRY AND PHILANTHROPY
Below the headline is a photograph. My father in his prime, that practiced smile he’s perfected for cameras, the one that never reached his eyes. He’s shaking hands with some politician, both of them radiating the kind of fake warmth that makes my skin crawl.
I start reading.
Twelve years ago today, the business world lost one of its most influential figures when Theodore Cavill, founder and CEO of Cavill Industries, was killed in a tragic automobile accident along with his beloved wife, Margaret.
Beyond his business achievements, Cavill was renowned for his philanthropy. The Cavill Foundation has donated millions to educational initiatives and medical research across the country.
“Ted always believed in giving back,” said longtime associate Gerald Whitmore. “He understood that true success meant lifting others up along the way.”
Cavill’s legacy lives on through his son, Maxwell Cavill, who has continued the family tradition of innovation and excellence as CEO of Synthera.
As we mark this solemn anniversary, we remember Theodore Cavill not just as a businessman, but as a husband, a father, and a man who left an indelible mark on our community.
He will always be missed.
I set the paper down.
My hands are shaking. I flatten them against the desk, pressing hard until my knuckles go white.
“Max—” Finn starts.
“Lifting others up along the way.” The words come out like venom, dripping with contempt I can barely contain. “A man who left an indelible mark on our community.”
“I know.”
“They have no idea.” I look up at him, and I can feel the rage burning behind my eyes, hot and bright. “They have no fucking idea what he was really like.”
Finn doesn’t flinch. He’s seen me like this before. “No. They don’t.”
“His beloved wife.” I laugh, and the sound is ugly, broken. “He treated her like property. Like a possession. And when she tried to have her own thoughts, her own opinions—” I break off, my throat closing around the words.
“Hey.” Finn moves closer, perching on the edge of my desk. “It doesn’t matter. It’s just bullshit written by people who never knew him.”
“That’s the problem, isn’t it?” I shove the paper away from me. “Everyone thinks they knew him. Everyone thinks he was this great man, this loving husband and father—and nobody—nobody knows the truth.”
“We know.”
“And what good does that do?” I push back from my desk, standing abruptly. The chair rolls back and hits the window with a dull thud. “He’s been dead for twelve years and he’s still winning. Still controlling the narrative. Still being celebrated while she—”
My voice cracks.
Finn is quiet for a moment. “While she what?”
“While she’s forgotten.” I turn to face the window, staring out at the grounds without really seeing them. “The article barely mentions her. ‘Along with his beloved wife.’ Like she was an accessory. Like she didn’t matter.”
“She mattered to you.”
“She was the only thing that mattered.” The words come out rough, scraped raw from somewhere deep in my chest. “And now she’s just a footnote in his fucking legacy.”
I can still see her face. My mother, young and beautiful and so achingly sad. The way she used to look out the window at nothing, her eyes distant, her fingers twisting in her lap. The way she flinched when she heard his footsteps in the hall.
“Your mother is delicate,” my father used to say. “She needs firm guidance. It’s for her own good.”
Firm guidance. That’s what he called it when he controlled every aspect of her life. What she wore, who she spoke to, how she spent her time. When he isolated her from her family, her friends, anyone who might have helped her see the prison she was living in.
She was an omega. In my father’s world, that meant she was his to command.
“Max.” Finn’s voice pulls me back. “Look at me.”
I turn. He’s still sitting on the edge of my desk, his blue eyes steady on mine.
“Your mother would be proud of you,” he says. “You know that, right? Everything you’ve built here. Everything Synthera stands for. That’s her legacy. Not his.”
“Is it?” The question comes out more bitter than I intend. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks like his name is still the one on everyone’s lips.”
“Fuck his name.” Finn’s voice sharpens. “You tore down his house. You built something new where it stood. Something that helps people, that helps omegas, in ways he never would have allowed.” He pauses. “That’s not nothing, Max. That’s everything.”
I want to believe him. I want to believe that what we’re doing matters, that Equinox and everything else is worth the weight I carry every day.
But on days like today, it’s hard to feel anything but the crushing weight of his shadow.
“Come on,” Finn says, sliding off the desk. “I’m taking you to lunch. Somewhere off campus. Somewhere you don’t have to be Max Cavill for a few hours.”
“I have meetings—”
“Cancel them.”
“Finn—”
“I’m not asking.” He’s already heading for the door. “You can yell at me in the car. It’ll be therapeutic.”
Despite everything, despite the rage and the grief and the bone-deep exhaustion, I feel the corner of my mouth twitch.
“You’re impossible.”
“That’s why you keep me around.” He holds the door open, waiting. “Now move your ass. I’m buying.”
At exactly eight o’clock, I’m waiting in the lobby. Night two of the sweep, and tonight it’s my turn.
The building is dark at this hour. Only the emergency lighting remains on, casting everything in a dim, amber glow that makes the familiar space feel foreign, almost haunted.
Footsteps echo from somewhere down the corridor. I push off the wall and wait.
Sophie comes around the corner, and my breath hitches the moment our eyes meet. She is stripped back, her long, wavy hair tied back, those eyes dark and as empty as ever. She doesn’t look like anyone’s assistant right now.
Her eyes go past me to the elevator before they come back, like she can’t wait to get this over with so she can get out of here.
Fine. That makes two of us.
“Mr. Cavill.” She looks me dead in the eye when she says it.
I hold her gaze, and a strange, unexpected relief moves through me, at being looked at like a man for the first time today, instead of a bomb about to go off.
“Ms. Dysart.” It comes out rougher than I had intended.
She nods and she moves to stand beside me.
“This way.”
We ride up in near silence. She stands perfectly still, eyes on the floor numbers as they climb.
“Anything on the fourth floor last night?” I say.
“No. It was clean.”
“Good,” I say.
The doors open onto the second floor.
She’s moving before they finish opening, straight for the main surveillance room. I swipe my badge and the lock clicks open.