I tasted him, bitter coffee and a hint of blood.
People stared. I didn’t care.
Until Calvin’s voice boomed behind me: “Are you fucking kidding me?”
I froze. Gabriel’s hand stayed on my back, anchoring me.
Calvin’s face was red, lips peeled back in a snarl I’d only seen once, the time a guy tried to mug us at the Jersey City station.
He stalked up, and for a split second I thought he’d hit me. He didn’t.
He punched Gabriel. Hard. Right in the jaw.
Gabriel staggered but didn’t hit back. Just straightened his jacket and stared at Calvin.
“Calvin!” I shrieked, grabbing his arm. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
He jerked his arm free, eyes wild. “He’s my friend. You’re my sister. There are rules.”
I wanted to laugh. Instead, I shoved him in the chest. “There are no rules. Not for me. You want to be pissed, fine, but don’t pretend you ever get to decide who I-” I broke off, breath ragged. “Don’t you ever pull that patriarchal shit on me again.”
He stood there, fists shaking, then turned and walked away without a word.
Gabriel touched his jaw, blood bright on his thumb. “I had that coming.”
I stared at him. “You really did.”
He smiled, slow and painful, like someone learning how to use his face again.
I took his hand, and this time, I didn’t let go.
It wasn’t perfect. But it was honest. And it was ours.
Chapter Twenty
Gabriel
The war room smelled like threats: polished glass, spent adrenaline, scorched egos. Twelve pairs of eyes cut to Eliza as she advanced on the table, heels precise, mouth set like a guillotine. Every executive in the building had gathered here for the quarterly status review, but it felt like a public execution: hers.
If she made any mistakes, there was no one to take the blame. It would be her mistake, and she’d have to own it. But I knew there were no errors in her work. Not since the resignation of her mentor-turned-backstabber.
She clicked a remote, summoning the next slide. Numbers bled crimson across the screen, the loss column pulsing like a wound.
"Any questions?" she asked. Her voice was surgical, stripped of pleasantries. Her pulse was probably somewhere near lunar escape velocity, but only I could tell, because only I had studied her enough to catch the microtremors in her jaw.
Silence. Two directors stared at their hands, and the new VP from San Jose pretended to reread his notes. Only Reese, the CFO, pressed.
"Q4 looks bleak. Did you-" Reese began.
"If you had read the attached, you’d see Q4’s downstream was baked into the model," Eliza said, not even glancing his way. "But it’s fine, Reese. Let’s all pretend the memo got lost in the mailroom."
Her eyes flicked to mine; permission, challenge, and maybe a glimmer of that old collegiate rivalry: dare you to interrupt me.
I didn’t. She had it under control, and after the last seventy-two hours, she'd earned the right to take her own scalpels to this boardroom.
Instead, I sat back, arms folded, let the hum of power circle her. She was performing surgery on a living company, and the only thing she needed from me was to stand the fuck out of her way.
Reese tried again, flustered now. "It’s still a significant risk to-"