chapter 179

chapter 179
Maverick's POV:
The doorbell's insistent chime cut through the morning quiet like a blade, sharp enough to make me pause mid-reach for my coffee.
Grace had left early for rehearsal, her goodbye kiss still warm on my lips, and I'd been savoring the rare moment of solitude in our home.
The bell rang again, and I felt my jaw tighten as I set down the cup with deliberate care and made my way to the entrance hall.
Through the security monitor's grainy feed, I recognized the silver-haired figure on my doorstep immediately.
David Cross. My father. The man who'd spent my entire childhood treating me like a chess piece to be moved at will, who'd brought a bastard into our lives and expected me to smile through the humiliation, who'd stood by while my mother tried to break me into something manageable and profitable.
I let him knock three more times before I opened the door.
He looked older than I remembered—the lines around his mouth had deepened into permanent grooves of displeasure, and there was a frantic energy in his eyes that I'd never seen before.
"Where is he?" David demanded without preamble, shouldering past me into the foyer with the presumption of someone who still believed he had authority here. "Where the fuck is Sebastian?"
I closed the door with a soft click that somehow felt louder than a slam, turning to face him with the kind of calm that I knew would infuriate him more than any shouting match.
"I'm sorry," I said, my tone perfectly polite and utterly empty, "but I don't recall inviting you into my home. If you're missing someone, I suggest you file a police report. Shall I call the authorities for you?"
"Don't play games with me, Maverick." His voice climbed higher, cracking slightly on my name, and I watched with detached interest as his face flushed an unhealthy shade of red. "I know you have him. Your people grabbed him at the airfield last night—there were witnesses—"
"Then you should have no trouble proving it to the police," I interrupted, already turning toward the stairs with the kind of dismissive casualness. "In fact, I hear they're looking for him too. Something about outstanding warrants? Drug charges? "
"Maverick!" The desperation in David's voice made me pause three steps up, one hand resting on the bannister.
I didn't turn around, just waited, letting the silence stretch until it became its own form of pressure. When he spoke again, his tone had shifted into something that might have been pleading if it weren't so calculated. "He's your brother. Your own flesh and blood. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"
The word brother hit something raw and visceral in my chest.
I turned slowly, descending one step so I could look down at him properly, and let him see everything—the fury, the contempt, the absolute certainty that he'd lost any right to appeal to family bonds the moment he'd chosen his bastard over his heir.
"You talk about blood like it's sacred," I said, my voice soft and cutting, "but you spilled it first."
" And where was this brotherly concern when Sebastian hired someone to run me down in the street? Where was your lecture about family bonds when he tried to have me killed?"
I let out a harsh laugh, the sound bitter even to my own ears. "Your hypocrisy is fucking breathtaking, David. You want to talk about the blood we share? The thought that I have even a drop of yours running through my veins makes me sick."
"Maverick, please—"
"I'm not finished." The words cracked like a whip, and I watched him flinch. Good. "You want to know where Sebastian is? You want to beg for his safety?"
I descended another step, close enough now that he had to tilt his head back to maintain eye contact, and I let a slow, cold smile curve my mouth.
"Rest assured, I'm not going to kill him. I value my life too much—I have decades ahead of me with Grace, a whole lifetime of happiness that I refuse to jeopardize for the satisfaction of ending his miserable existence. So no, Father, your precious boy won't die by my hand."
Something like relief flickered across David's face, premature and pathetic, and I leaned in just enough to make sure he heard every word of what came next.
"But I will make sure he wishes he had."
The shift in his expression was immediate—relief curdling into horror as he processed the implications, as he realized that death might have been the kinder option.
David took an involuntary step backward, and I saw the moment he truly understood that the son he'd dismissed and controlled and tried to mold was now something far more dangerous than he'd ever imagined.
"Daniel," I said without breaking eye contact, my voice returning to that pleasant, conversational tone that somehow made the threat worse, "Mr. Cross is leaving now. Please ensure he finds his way out. "
I didn't wait to see him escorted out, just continued up the stairs.
Behind me, I heard the scuffle of Daniel's polite but firm guidance, the protest that died in David's throat when he realized no amount of bluster would change what was happening, the final click of the door sealing him outside where he belonged.
Only when I reached the second-floor landing did I let out the breath I'd been holding, my hand curling into a fist against the wall as the rage I'd kept leashed threatened to break free.
But no. Not here, not in the space Grace and I had built together. I had a better place for this particular brand of violence.
---
The basement of the old factory district warehouse was exactly as cold and lightless as I'd requested, the kind of space that existed in the gaps of the city's consciousness, forgotten and forsaken.
Perfect for what needed to happen here.
My footsteps echoed against concrete as I descended the metal stairs, each clang of my Italian leather shoes against the grating a deliberate announcement of my arrival, a countdown that I knew Sebastian could hear even before he could see me.
The single bulb hanging from the ceiling cast harsh shadows across his face, highlighting the purple bruising along his jaw where Daniel's men had been a bit too enthusiastic during the extraction.
He was secured to a reinforced chair with industrial chains. His clothes were rumpled, expensive fabric now creased and stained, and there was a wild quality to his eyes that suggested the withdrawal had already begun to gnaw at him.