[Maverick’s POV]
The morning of the wedding arrives like an execution I've scheduled myself.
I stand in the groom's suite, tie knotted with military precision, expression carefully emptied of everything that might betray the chaos underneath.
The mirror reflects a man who looks like he belongs here—polished, appropriate, the perfect Finley heir about to secure his perfect Finley future. I barely recognize him, and I definitely don't like him.
James hovers three feet away, radiating concern with the subtlety of a neon sign. He's been doing that all morning—hovering, watching, waiting for me to crack. I appreciate the loyalty even as I wish he'd stop looking at me like I'm a bomb about to detonate. Which, to be fair, I might be.
"You don't have to do this," he says quietly, not for the first time. "There are other options. The board isn't unanimous about Hale. We could fight the succession terms, challenge the—"
"James." I adjust my cuffs, checking the alignment for the seventeenth time. "I appreciate the optimism, but we both know how this ends. Harrison doesn't bluff, and I don't have leverage anymore. The only card I had was time, and I've officially run out of it."
"There's always another play," he insists, but his voice lacks conviction.
The venue is immaculate—I'll give Harrison that much. Through the window, I can see the gardens transformed into something from a society magazine, all white flowers and tasteful candles and three hundred guests who probably care more about the open bar than witnessing my romantic imprisonment.
Somewhere out there, Priscilla is being photographed, being perfect, being everything my grandfather ever wanted for me wrapped in designer silk.
I check my phone again. Nothing. No calls, no texts, no middle finger emoji that would at least confirm she's alive and angry rather than simply done with me. I've checked it a hundred times since waking up—probably more, if I'm being honest with myself, which I'm trying very hard not to be.
"Still nothing?" James asks, watching me pocket the device with more force than necessary.
"She's made her choice. I made mine first, apparently, by being a coward who couldn't tell the truth when it mattered." I laugh, but it comes out hollow and sharp. "Funny how that works. Spend your whole life learning to negotiate billion-dollar deals, and you can't manage a single honest conversation with the woman you love."
"Maverick—"
"It's better this way," I interrupt, because if I let him finish that sentence with sympathy, I might actually lose the fragile composure I'm barely maintaining.
"Clean break. She deserves someone who doesn't come with a grandfather-shaped ball and chain. Someone who can love her in daylight instead of sneaking around like she's something to be ashamed of."
James doesn't argue, which tells me everything about how convincing my performance isn't.
The music starts—a string quartet playing something classical and appropriately matrimonial. My cue to walk, to perform, to become someone's husband in front of three hundred witnesses and a God I'm fairly certain has given up on me entirely.
I adjust my cuffs one more time, checking the boutonniere that probably cost more than Floris's monthly rent, and prepare to become the man my grandfather always wanted.
James's phone buzzes in his pocket. He ignores it, focused on me with that worried expression I'm getting very tired of seeing. Then it buzzes again. And again, insistent and demanding in a way that cuts through even his concern for my emotional state.
He frowns, pulling it out with an apologetic glance. "Sorry, let me just—" The words die in his throat. I watch his face go white, actually white, like someone's drained the blood from his body in real-time. His eyes widen, then flick to me with something that looks terrifyingly like horror.
"Maverick..." His voice sounds wrong. Distant. Like it's coming from very far away, or underwater, or some dimension where terrible things happen to people you love. "I think you need to see this."
Something in his tone makes me stop. Makes everything stop—the music filtering through the walls, the distant murmur of guests, the mechanical countdown to my own personal doom. He turns the phone toward me, and I see a news alert, a photograph that doesn't make sense at first.
A crumpled car at an intersection. Emergency vehicles surrounding it, lights flashing red and blue against morning sunlight. The car is old, the kind of vehicle that makes concerning noises and has opinions about highway speeds.
The car is blue, a particular shade I've memorized from seventeen nights of watching her windows stay dark.
The car is familiar in a way that makes my heart stop beating entirely.
"Isn't that..." James's voice comes from somewhere outside my body, outside this room, outside any reality I'm willing to accept. "Isn't that her car?"
I grab the phone from his hands, staring at the screen, reading words that refuse to arrange themselves into meaning.
Serious accident. Driver in critical condition. Transported to St. Mary's Hospital. The photograph shows twisted metal and shattered glass and something that used to be a driver's side door, now crumpled inward like a crushed aluminum can.
Floris. That's Floris's car. That's Floris.
I'm moving before I've decided to move. The boutonniere tears from my lapel—expensive flowers scattering across the marble floor like confetti at a funeral. The wedding coordinator appears in my path, clipboard clutched to her chest, mouth forming words I don't hear because I'm already shoving past her, already running.
"Mr. Finley!" Her voice fades behind me, replaced by footsteps, by shouting, by Harrison's voice cutting through the chaos with cold fury.
"Maverick! Where the hell do you think you're going? The ceremony starts in five minutes! Maverick!"
I don't stop. I don't turn around. I don't care about the inheritance or the company or the three hundred guests who are about to witness the most expensive wedding cancellation in recent memory.
The church doors are heavy, ornate, designed to make dramatic entrances for blushing brides. I throw them open with both hands, and sunlight floods my vision like a physical blow—bright and harsh and completely indifferent to the fact that my entire world has just collapsed into a single terrifying image of twisted blue metal.
"Maverick!" Priscilla's voice behind me now, confused first, then furious as understanding dawns. "What are you doing? The guests are waiting! Maverick, don't you dare—"
I don't look back.
My car is where I left it, keys in my pocket, engine roaring to life before I've fully processed sitting down. Tires screech against pavement as I tear out of the parking lot, ignoring traffic laws that feel laughably irrelevant when Floris is lying in a hospital somewhere, broken and bleeding and maybe—
No. I refuse that thought. I reject it with every fiber of my being.
The drive is a blur of red lights I run and horns I ignore and prayers I don't remember learning. St. Mary's Hospital. Critical condition. Her crumpled blue car burned into my mind, replaying on an endless loop behind my eyes every time I blink.
Please let her be alive. The thought becomes a mantra, a desperate plea to any deity listening. Please. Please. Please.
I'll give up everything. The company, the inheritance, the name. I'll become nobody, have nothing, spend the rest of my life in cheerful poverty if that's what it takes. Just let her be alive. Let me have the chance to tell her I love her one more time.
Please.