Steel and Ashes
The travel from Mercer Industries, main boardroom to Underground parking garage, Mercer Industries consumed the next hour. Headlights cut cold through the gathering dusk.
The concrete of the underground parking garage smelled of oil and stale exhaust. Alexander’s footsteps echoed off the low ceiling as he walked, each step a deliberate hammer blow against the silence. Freya stayed two paces behind him, close enough to feel the heat radiating off his back, far enough to see the gun he had tucked into his waistband beneath his jacket.
She had never seen him carry a weapon before.
“Reid,” Alexander said into his earpiece, his voice flat and cold as a surgical blade. “Status.”
A crackle. Then Reid’s voice, breathless but controlled. “Toby is in the panic room. Quinn is with her. The bomb—I’m looking at it now. C4, military-grade detonator, wired to a pressure plate under the bed frame. If he’d rolled over in his sleep—”
“Defuse it.”
“I’m working on it. Give me three minutes.”
Alexander kept walking. The garage stretched ahead, rows of cars gleaming under fluorescent lights. At the far end, near the exit ramp, a black sedan sat idling. Grant Pemberton leaned against the driver’s door, arms crossed, a smirk playing at the corners of his mouth.
Alexander didn’t slow. Didn’t blink. He walked straight toward Grant as if the man were a speed bump on a road he intended to drive through.
“You’re early,” Grant said, pushing off the car. “I thought the fireworks would keep you busy for another ten minutes at least. What happened? Did the nanny screw up the timing?”
Alexander stopped three feet from Grant. He was taller by four inches, broader in the shoulders, and his eyes held none of the polished restraint that had defined his father. These were the eyes of a man who had just been told his son was one bad wire away from being vaporized.
“Where is Beckett?” Alexander asked.
“Dad sends his regards. He wanted me to tell you that bloodlines matter. Yours—your bastard’s—they’re a stain on the Mercer name. He figured a clean sweep was the humane approach.”
Freya’s stomach turned. She thought of Toby stacking blocks, clapping his hands, asking if she’d watch him build a castle. She thought of the bomb ticking beneath his bed.
Grant was still smiling. “Don’t look so shocked, Reyes. You knew what family you were marrying into. Or were you too busy spreading your legs to read the fine print?”
Freya saw Alexander’s hand twitch toward his waistband. She stepped forward before he could draw, her voice cutting through the garage like a blade. “I have a recording.”
Grant’s smirk faltered. “What?”
Alexander turned his head slightly, just enough to catch her eye. She pulled her phone from her pocket, the screen lit with a waveform that pulsed in rhythm with a voice she had captured forty-eight hours ago. Quinn had planted the wiretap in Beckett Pemberton’s office the night before—a risk that could have gotten her arrested, or worse.
Freya pressed play.
Beckett Pemberton’s voice filled the garage, rich and unhurried, the voice of a man accustomed to being obeyed. *“Grant, I need you to listen carefully. Alexander Mercer has a son. A six-year-old boy named Toby. The child is a liability. If he survives, the Mercer bloodline survives. If the Mercer bloodline survives, our claim on the joint-venture contract dies. I want the boy eliminated. Cleanly. Make it look like an accident. A house fire. A gas leak. I don’t care. Just get it done.”*
The recording continued. Grant’s voice answered, tinny through the speaker. *“What about Alexander?”*
A pause. Then Beckett: *“If Alexander is in the building when the device detonates, so be it. He should have never come back to this city. He should have stayed in London and let the company die with his father.”*
The clip ended.
The silence that followed was absolute.
Grant’s face had drained of color, his smirk replaced by something raw and cornered. “That’s—that’s not admissible. You don’t have a warrant. You can’t use that in court.”
“I’m not taking it to court,” Alexander said. His voice was low, almost gentle, which made it infinitely more terrifying. “I’m taking it to your father.”
He looked past Grant, toward the exit ramp, where a second sedan had just pulled into view. The rear door opened, and Beckett Pemberton stepped out, flanked by two men in tactical gear. He was immaculate in a charcoal suit, silver hair combed back, hands clasped in front of him as if he were attending a board meeting.
“Alexander,” Beckett said, his tone warm and paternal. “I was hoping we could resolve this like gentlemen.”
“You put a bomb under my son’s bed.”
“Allegedly.”
“I have it on tape.”
Beckett’s eyes flicked to Freya’s phone. His expression didn’t change, but something behind his eyes went still and alert. “That recording is inadmissible. You know that. You’ve been out of the country too long; you’ve forgotten how the legal system works here. I can have you arrested for illegal surveillance.”
“You can try,” Alexander said. He pulled out his own phone, pressed a single button, and spoke into the microphone. “Reid. Status.”
Reid’s voice came through, steady and final. “Bomb is neutralized. Toby is safe. Quinn is reading her a story about a dragon. He’s asking when you’re coming home.”
Alexander closed his eyes for half a second. Freya saw the tension leave his shoulders, a tremor running through him that he masked almost instantly. When he opened his eyes again, they were fixed on Beckett.
“You lost,” Alexander said. “Not because of the recording. Not because of the bomb. You lost because you thought you could kill a six-year-old boy and walk away clean. That level of arrogance tells me you’ve been running this city on fear for so long, you forgot what justice looks like.”
Beckett’s jaw set firmly. “Justice is a fairy tale for people who can’t afford lawyers.”
“Then let me introduce you to a new kind of lawyer.”
The garage doors slid open. Three unmarked police cruisers pulled in, lights flashing but sirens silent. Two detectives stepped out, badges displayed, hands resting on their service weapons.
Grant took a step back. “Dad—”
“Shut up,” Beckett snapped. He turned to Alexander, his composure cracking at the edges. “You think this changes anything? You think a single arrest undoes the network I’ve built? I own this city. I own the judges. I own the prosecutors. By sunrise, I’ll be out on bail, and your son will still be a target.”
Alexander looked at him with something close to pity. “You don’t own anything anymore. I transferred every asset in the joint-venture contract to a blind trust this morning. The Mercer board voted unanimously to cut all ties with Pemberton Industries. Your creditors are calling. Your partners are running for cover. By the time you post bail, you won’t have a company to go back to.”
Beckett’s face went white.
The detectives stepped forward. “Beckett Pemberton, Grant Pemberton—you’re both under arrest for conspiracy to commit murder and attempted homicide. You have the right to remain silent.”
Grant started yelling. Beckett stood frozen, his eyes locked on Alexander, burning with a hatred so pure it looked like grief. The detectives cuffed them, read them their rights, and guided them toward the cruisers.
Freya watched them go. She watched Grant’s head duck into the back seat, watched Beckett’s shoulders slump as the door closed. She watched the cruisers pull away, sirens cutting through the garage, and she kept watching until the taillights disappeared up the ramp.
Then her knees gave out.
Alexander caught her before she hit the ground, his arms wrapping around her, pulling her against his chest. She pressed her face into his shoulder and felt the rapid beat of his heart, the tremor in his hands, the ragged breath he let out against her hair.
“He’s okay,” Alexander whispered. “Toby is okay. We’re okay.”
Freya shook her head. “I heard the recording. I heard Beckett say—he wanted Toby dead. He wanted you dead. And I was standing in that boardroom, thinking about quarterly reports, while a bomb was ticking under my son’s bed.”
“You got the recording. You saved us.”
“I should have known sooner. I should have seen—”
“Stop.” Alexander pulled back, cupping her face in his hands. His eyes were red-rimmed, his voice rough. “You didn’t fail. You didn’t miss anything. You fought for Toby. You fought for me. You walked into a room full of men who wanted us dead and you didn’t flinch.”
Freya stared at him. The dust from the garage clung to his jacket. His tie was crooked. There was a smear of something dark on his knuckles. He looked nothing like the polished CEO she had met in London, and everything like the man she had fallen in love with in the dark hours of the night, when the world fell away and it was just the two of them, breathing together.
“I love you,” she said. “I should have said it sooner. I should have said it every day.”
Alexander’s breath caught. He pressed his forehead to hers, his voice breaking on the next words. “I love you too. I’ve loved you since the moment I saw you in that conference room, pretending you weren’t terrified. I’ve loved you through every secret, every silence, every mile between us. I’m not letting you go again.”
He dropped to one knee.
Freya’s heart stopped.
“I don’t have a ring,” Alexander said. “I don’t have a plan. I have a son who wants a mommy, a company that needs rebuilding, and a woman who walked through fire for me today. That’s all I have. That’s all I need.”
He took her hand. His palm was warm, calloused, steady.
“Marry me, Freya. No contracts. No prenups. No secrets. Just us. Just Toby. A family.”
Freya’s vision blurred. She opened her mouth to answer, but the words wouldn’t come. Instead, she nodded, once, then again, then pulled him to his feet and kissed him with every ounce of fear and relief and love she had held inside for six years.
When they broke apart, the garage was silent. The dust from the police cruisers had settled. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. Somewhere above them, in the panic room, Toby was building another castle.
Alexander held Freya against his chest, both of them shaking. He whispered into her hair: “This is over. No more running. No more secrets. Marry me before the sun rises—or I will spend every day of the rest of my life proving I’m worth your trust.”