Se connecterMason's POV
The screen didn't change.I stared at it for a full thirty seconds, waiting for it to correct itself, for the system to refresh, for a filing error to resolve, for some technical explanation that would restore the numbers I had been looking at every morning for twenty years.The numbers did not restore.Maya Hargrove.... 80%Mason Hargrove.... 10%Others.... 10%I pressed refresh.The numbers stayed.I pressed it aSelina's POV The car was silent on the way home. Mason looked at the road. I looked at Mason. The moment the apartment door closed behind us, I turned "Why were you in that, corridor?" I said. "I went to ,check on her," he said. His voice was, the level one..... the managed version that he deployed when he anticipated the conversation and had prepared his register in advance. "You went, to check, on her," I said. "She's been through...." "Don't." I kept my voice even. Not loud.... precise. "Don't give me the concern framing. I saw your face. I saw where you were standing." I held his gaze. "I've been watching you for years, Mason. I know your face in every configuration. That was not concern" "It was a difficult night for everyone," he said.
Maya's POV The corridor quieted after ten. I sat in the chair outside Alex's room for another twenty minutes after Selina's elevator doors closed, and then I stood up and went in.The nurses had been in twice. They moved with the efficient quiet of people who had learned to do necessary things without disturbing necessary rest. I sat in the chair beside his bed. Looked at his face He looked like himself. That was the specific thing I had been afraid wouldn't be true... that the machinery and the pallor and the aftermath of surgery would produce a version of him that I couldn't recognise. But he looked like himself. Quieter than himself, the energy somewhere else doing what it needed to do, but the face was the face. The jaw. I looked at his hand on the cover Didn't reach for it yet. I had been pushing him away since the beginning
Maya's POVDetective Reeves left at nine-fifteen.The family room emptied after him.... Rivaldi had gone to coordinate with the legal team, Catherine had been persuaded by Olive to eat something in the hospital cafeteria, and rest.I sat in the chair beside his doorWatched the medical staff move through their scheduled checks with the professional precision of people who had a methodology for this and were applying it.The file was in my bag...Not the full file... Reeves had kept that. What he had left me was the photograph and a card with his direct number and an instruction to call if anything occurred to me that hadn't been covered in the past two hours.I looked at the corridor....I was very tired.Mason appeared at nine-forty.Not unexpected..... I had understood, from the shape of the situation, that he would find his way here eventually. The hospital was pu
Maya's POV The family room was small and deliberately quiet. The kind of quiet that hospitals built into certain spaces..... acoustic, intentional, the understanding that some conversations required the absence of ambient noise in order to be heard correctly. Detective Reeves sat across from me with the file closed on the table between us. "Before we go through the witness list and the standard questions," he said, "I want to tell you what we know so far. Not what we suspect... what the evidence shows." I looked at the file "The attack was planned," he said. "Not opportunistic. Not someone who arrived at a wedding and made a decision in the moment." He held my gaze. "The individual had pre-positioned himself in the venue over two hours before the ceremony. He had identified the specific location where the ceremony would take plac
Zara's POV The blood left my face. I felt it go... And Mason Hargrove standing in the doorway.... "What do you want?" I said. He moved into the corridor properly... the specific, deliberate movement of someone choosing to occupy a space rather than observe it from the threshold. "Let me tell you what I've noticed," he said. "Over the past several weeks" He was methodical. That was the thing I hadn't anticipated.... not Mason the emotional ex-husband, not Mason the wounded CEO. Mason the observer. The man who had watched the situation from his ten percent shareholder position and had been running a very different kind of assessment from the one everyone assumed. "You arrived at exactly the moment the relationship became public," he said. "Not before.... after. When the engagement was announced and the coverage started." He looked at me. "You didn't come back f
Maya's POV The surgeon's office was small... "The surgery addressed the primary injury," the surgeon said. "The bullet's trajectory was.... it could have been considerably worse. The damage was contained." He paused. "Mr. Voss is stable." Catherine's hand found the door frame. "However," he said, and the room adjusted again. "There was a period during the procedure where we lost him briefly. The blood loss was significant. He responded to intervention and we were able to restore and stabilise, but the episode has left him unconscious" He looked at me directly. "We expect him to wake up. The indicators are positive. But I cannot give you a timeline." I looked at my hands. The dress... The ring. "Can I see him?" I said. "Shortly," he said. "We're moving him to a private room. Someone will come for you" I nodded...







