Page 117 of You Owe Me

And I don’t push her.

Not yet.

Because I can see what’s happening in her head. She’s processing what I’m asking her to do, what it means, and what comes after. She’s realizing that once she makes this call, there’s no going back. We cross a line together, and Carter Mills becomes just another casualty of loving Maverick Lexington.

Her weight shifts slightly, knees tightening around my hips, like she’s grounding herself on me. As if she knows the moment she pulls away, she has to become something else. Tactical. Calculated. The girl who plays pretend with monsters.

But right now, she’s just mine.

I slide my hand up her back, slow and steady, until my fingers are tangled in her hair. “You don’t have to call him yet.”

She swallows hard. “I want to. I just… I needed a second.”

“I know.”

Because I can read her like sheet music. Every fear, every doubt, every moment of hesitation. She’s not scared of Carter; she’s scared of how much she wants to watch me destroy him.

Her lips twitch. “You always know.”

I raise a brow. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“It’s annoying as hell,” she mutters, dragging a lazy finger down the center of my chest. Her touch skims the healing scar, reverent but unafraid. “You sit there, calm as a storm before landfall, acting like the whole damn world bends around you.”

“That’s because it does.”

It’s not arrogance. It’s observation. I’ve spent years building the kind of reputation that makes reality conform to my will. When I speak, people listen. When I move, obstacles disappear. When I decide someone needs to be removed from the board, they get removed.

Carter Mills is about to become Exhibit A.

She laughs, but it catches at the edges. I can feel the worry lingering under her sarcasm—just a shadow of fear crawling through her thoughts. Not about Carter. About me.

“You could’ve died.” Her voice is low, sharp, and raw. “Three days ago, you were on a table with wires in your heart. And now you’re here in a kiddie pool, planning a fucking takedown like you didn’t just walk away from death.”

The fear in her voice is palpable. She’s terrified that I’m pushing too hard too fast, that the man who almost died on an operating table is about to charge into battle like nothing happened.

She doesn’t understand that the surgery didn’t weaken me—it unleashed me.

I don’t flinch.

I meet her eyes, steady as stone. “I didn’t walk away. I beat it.”

She blinks once. Twice. Then she exhales in this slow, uneven way, like that answer knocked something loose in her chest. Her hand moves from my scar to my face, thumb dragging across my cheekbone with a tenderness that makes something inside me ache.

“You scare the shit out of me sometimes.”

Good. Fear keeps people honest. Fear keeps them careful. Fear reminds them that love and danger often wear the same face.

“Good,” I whisper. “Means I still have your attention.”

She narrows her eyes. “You already had that, you arrogant bastard.”

“Then why are you shaking?”

Her breath stutters. “I’m not.”

“You are.” I grip her hips tighter, my thumbs digging into the soft flesh there. “Not because of Carter. Not because of the favor.You’re shaking because I’m letting you see all of it. The real plan. The real me.”

This is the moment of truth. The choice between the version of me that protects her from my world and the version that pulls her into it completely. She’s seeing the calculating, ruthless strategist who builds empires on other people’s fear.

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