Chapter 123: What She Did

Chapter 123: What She Did
Max was already at the table when Valerie came in for a late breakfast, which was already closer to eleven. Valerie had taken the chair at the far end of the table, which sat eight and was therefore a considerable distance from anywhere else.
Max looked at her, then at the empty chair closest to him at the other end.
"You could have taken that one," he said.
“I’m fine right here.” She poured him coffee.
Max looked at her across the length of the table.
Valerie shifted in her seat. “Stop staring at me like that.”
“Can’t help it,” he said, smiling. “I keep thinking how good you looked covered in chocolate.”
Valerie felt her face heat up. “You’re such an asshole.”
He just smiled a little and kept looking at her until she couldn’t take it anymore.
“Max, seriously.” She pointed her fork at him. "Eat your breakfast."
"I'm enjoying the view," he said.
She put the fork down and looked at him for a second, and the corner of his mouth moved, and she looked back at her plate. "You're impossible in the morning."
"You haven't seen me in the morning," he said. "This is late morning."
She kept her eyes on her plate and her face carefully neutral. Then she heard him pick up his plate, and then she heard the chair closest to her scrape back, and she looked up, and he was settling into it, setting his plate down, and pouring his coffee from the pot she'd been using.
She looked at him.
"The table's big," he said. "It's a long way to shout across."
"I wasn't shouting."
"You would have eventually." He cut into his eggs. "And I know you prefer me this close to you as well.”
She looked at his plate, then at his face.
"You're very sure of yourself," she said.
"Most of the time," he said. "Around you, less."
She didn't answer that. She went back to her breakfast.
They ate for a while without talking, which had started to feel less uncomfortable than it used to.
Valerie looked up from her plate. “Any news about your sister?”
Max set his fork down. “Half-sister.”
“Okay… any news about her?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No news.”
Valerie put her own fork down and looked straight at him. “You know, I’m starting to think you’re not in any hurry to get her out of there. You put her in a really dangerous spot, and now that everything’s gone to shit with Damon, you don’t even seem that bothered.”
Max didn’t say anything. He just watched her.
“I’m curious, though,” she continued. “How did you manage to plant her so easily? It couldn’t have been simple getting her that close to Damon.”
He took a drink of coffee and set the cup down. "One of his clubs was opening. I knew he'd be vetting people, but I also knew he'd be moving fast because the opening had a deadline. Lindsay applied for a position. The whole thing was coordinated on our end—her background, her references, everything someone would find if they looked. It held up because we built it to hold up."
"And she got in," Valerie said.
"She got in within the first week," he said. "After that, she was feeding information back: his schedule, his contacts, which meetings happened at the club, and who attended. For a while, it was exactly what it was supposed to be."
Valerie was quiet.
"Then she slept with him," Max said.
Her jaws clenched, but she stayed silent.
"I didn't confront her,” he said. “I pulled back and watched to see if it was a one-time thing or something else. It kept going, though; she was feeding me information at the same time, which meant she thought she could manage both sides of it."
“I’m not going to be surprised if she did fall for him,” Valerie said.
He looked at his coffee cup. "Then you found out about her and confronted her."
“I don’t even want to ask whether you knew all along.” Valerie looked at the table. "Well, she still betrayed me," Valerie said. "Whatever her reasons were."
"Yes," Max said. "She did."
Valerie was quiet for a moment. Then she said, "Are you angry at her?"
"Yes," he said. "For different reasons."
She picked up her coffee and held it without drinking. "You might be wondering if I’m angry at Damon because I love him."
"Are you?"
"I've been thinking about it." She looked at the cup. "I don't know if what I felt for him was ever love. I'm not sure it was, honestly. But I tried. I want you to know that."
“Val, I think we’ve already had this conversation…” Max said.
She glanced at him. "If we have, well, you need to hear it again….” She paused. “When we got married, I tried to be a real wife to him. Not just someone going through the motions. Even when it was hard. Even when things were obviously not what they were supposed to be.”
They looked at each other for a moment.
“Even when you came along,” Valerie added. “I was still trying to make it work with him. I thought that was what I was supposed to do."
Max said nothing. He was still watching her.
"So when I found out about Lindsay," she said, "and Kayla—it wasn't just about love. It was about the fact that I was over there trying, and he was—" She put the cup down.
Max looked at her. "If you could talk to her, Kayla, what would you say?"
She thought about it for a real moment.
"I don't know," she said. "I genuinely don't know if I'd yell at her or just ask her why." She shook her head. "But the second I'm out of your house, that's the first thing I'm doing. I'm finding Damon, and I'm asking him about Kayla. To his face."
Max looked at her for a moment and then nodded once.
Then Valerie said, "What are you going to do about Lindsay?"
He picked up his coffee.
"She made choices," he said. "Choices that put the operation at risk. People who do that—" He set the cup down. "There are consequences."
Valerie stared at him. "She's your sister."
"Half," he said. "She knew the rules when she took the job," he said. "She knew what the line was, and she crossed it anyway. More than once."
"She's being tortured by my husband right now," Valerie said. "And you're talking about consequences."
Before Max could respond, the door opened, and Lydia walked in. She looked serious.
“Sir, we just got confirmation. The associate Damon is dead. Whatever he knew, Damon has it now.”
Max went completely still. He stared at Lydia for a long second, then spoke, “Get me a full list of everything that man had access to. Everything.”
Lydia nodded quickly. “I’ll have it for you in an hour.”
She turned and left the room.
Valerie watched Max’s face. The man who had just been sitting next to her, eating breakfast, was gone.