Page 36 of You Owe Me (21 Rumors #2)

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Rumor has it, he's plotting his revenge from a kiddie pool.

Maverick

The water in Ainsley’s ridiculous kiddie pool is barely deep enough to cover my thighs, but it’s the first time in weeks I don’t feel like I’m drowning.

Three days post-op, and my heart’s finally beating like it’s supposed to. Not sprinting. Not skipping. Just steady, clean precision. It’s unnerving, honestly—like driving a car you rebuilt yourself and waiting for the damn thing to explode.

But it won’t. I know it won’t because I can feel the difference. Every beat is controlled. Measured. No more chaos in my chest, no more electrical storms threatening to flatten me when the pressure builds. For the first time since I was nineteen, my body isn’t trying to kill me.

Which means I can focus on killing other things.

Ainsley’s curled against my chest, legs draped over mine, bikini straps clinging to damp skin that smells like vanilla and coconut. Her hair’s a mess—sun-dried and tangled—but she’s soft, warm, and mine.

I run my hand over the curve of her thigh, letting it rest just below the tie of her swimsuit bottom. Not pulling. Not teasing. Just claiming. A reminder that every inch of her belongs to me, the same way every beat of my repaired heart belongs to her.

She doesn’t flinch. She never does. Not with me.

That’s the difference between Ainsley and everyone else in my world—she doesn’t fear my touch. Doesn’t calculate the cost of letting me close. She just melts into me like she was built for it.

“You’re thinking,” she murmurs.

“Dangerous habit.”

More dangerous than she knows. Because my mind is clear now, sharper than it’s been in months. No heart rate spikes to cloud my judgment. No medication fog. Just crystalline focus and the kind of cold calculation that’s about to make Carter Mills very, very sorry he ever said my name.

My beer bottle sweats against the wood, and I tilt it just enough to let the rest drip through the slats in the balcony. Down below, someone yells a protest. I don’t care.

The sound of liquid hitting pavement is satisfying in a way that has nothing to do with annoying neighbors. It’s control. It’s choosing where something lands and watching it happen exactly as planned.

Ainsley follows my lead, tips her glass over, and pours pink wine into the air like it’s a toast to chaos.

“Now we’re definitely getting evicted.” Her voice is lazy. Loose. She’s relaxed. I’m not.

I can’t relax. Not while Carter Mills is still breathing and thinking he has leverage over what’s mine. Not while he’s sitting somewhere believing he backed Ainsley into a corner and forced her to choose between me and my family’s destruction.

He has no idea he just handed me the perfect excuse to destroy him completely.

“I’ve got bigger problems than pissed-off neighbors.”

Her body shifts slightly. The tension’s subtle—barely there—but I feel it. She knows what’s coming. Part of her has been waiting for this moment since Carter first put his hands on her in that restaurant.

“Carter.”

I nod, fingers trailing up her spine. “He’s not dangerous. But he’s ambitious. And ambition without boundaries? That’s a problem.”

The truth is more complex than that. Carter’s not dangerous to me—never has been. He’s a mid-tier threat, but he made the mistake of targeting Ainsley. Of putting his hands on her. Of threatening my family.

That’s not ambition. That’s a death wish.

“You said he’s just noise.”

I lean forward, press my mouth to her shoulder, and bite gently—just enough to make her shiver. “He was. Now he’s a loose end.”

And I don’t leave loose ends. Never have. It’s one of the fundamental rules that built my empire—every threat gets neutralized, every enemy gets buried, every challenge to my authority gets answered with overwhelming force.

Carter Mills is about to learn why people whisper my name in hallways.

She exhales. “What do you need?”

The fact that she asks what I need instead of what we’re going to do tells me everything. She trusts me to handle this. Trusts me to end it. All she wants to know is her role in the execution.

Fuck, I love this girl.

“You,” I say simply, pulling her tighter against me. “I need you to call him.”

Her head lifts. “Why me?”

“Because you’ve got leverage. And he’s got a weakness for things he doesn’t deserve.” I run my thumb across her ribs, dragging the edge of her bikini top aside just enough to see that perfect sliver of skin that drives me crazy. “He wants access. You give him that—for now.”

The plan is already crystallizing in my head. Carter thinks he has Ainsley cornered, thinks she’s desperate enough to deal. He’ll want to meet on his terms, in his territory, with his father as backup. He’ll think he’s in control.

He’ll be wrong about all of it.

“You want me to bait him.”

“I want you to bleed him dry. Set a meeting. You, him, and his daddy.”

Her eyes flash. “The dean? Are you serious?”

I meet her gaze, calm and sure. “Dead.”

Because this isn’t just about neutralizing Carter. It’s about sending a message. Dean Mills has been covering for his son’s academic fraud for years, compromising the integrity of the institution to protect his family’s reputation. Time for some consequences.

“Maverick, that’s?—“

“Calculated.” I slide my hand up to her jaw, fingers curling around her throat just enough to make her eyes go wide. “I’m not asking you to fight him. I’m asking you to open the door and let me walk through it.”

The metaphor isn’t quite right. I’m not walking through any door Carter opens. I’m kicking it down and burning the frame behind me.

“And then what?” Her voice drops, lips brushing mine. “You planning on taking him down in front of his father?”

“No. I’m planning to make him kneel for every inch he tried to take from me.”

The truth is uglier than that. I’m planning to destroy Carter so thoroughly that his father will have no choice but to throw him under the administrative bus to save his own career. Academic fraud charges, federal investigation exposure, complete reputational annihilation.

Carter thinks he can play in my world without understanding the rules. Time to teach him the price of admission.

There’s silence between us. Not tense. Not uncertain. She’s watching me like she’s trying to find the lines I haven’t drawn yet.

The lines don’t exist. Not for this. Not for him.

Finally, she nods. “Okay. But if this goes sideways?—”

“It won’t.” I kiss her—slow, hard, decisive. Like a promise. “I’ve never lost a hand when the stakes mattered. I’m not about to start now.”

That’s not entirely true. I’ve lost hands before. But never when the stakes involved someone threatening what’s mine. Never when it mattered this much.

Carter Mills is about to learn the difference between playing poker with amateurs and sitting at a table where the house always wins.

Her breath catches when I pull back. “You always sound so damn sure of yourself.”

“I don’t make moves unless I already know the outcome.”

And I do know the outcome. Carter will agree to the meeting because he’s desperate to regain control of the situation. Dean Mills will attend because he needs to protect his son from academic scandal. They’ll both walk into that room thinking they have leverage.

They’ll leave knowing exactly who owns this campus.

Her eyes darken. “That’s sexy.”

I smirk, brushing a thumb over her lower lip.

I’ve spent years building a reputation that makes grown men nervous and smart people careful. Carter’s about to find out why.

She kisses me. Hungry. Bold. Her fingers slip into my hair and pull just enough to drag a groan out of my throat. I deepen the kiss, shifting until she’s straddling me, water sloshing over the rim of the pool, forgotten and irrelevant.

My hands find her hips. Bare skin, sun-warmed and slick, fitting perfectly in my palms like she was carved for this exact moment. For me.

The possessiveness that surges through me has nothing to do with the kiss and everything to do with what’s coming. She’s mine. My family is mine. My empire is mine. And anyone who threatens what’s mine learns exactly what that protection costs.

She breaks the kiss first, breathless and flushed. “You really want me to do this?”

I nod, but I don’t let go. “Yeah. And you’re going to be brilliant. He’s already desperate. All you have to do is pretend to crack.”

Because she won’t actually crack. Ainsley James doesn’t break under pressure—she weaponizes it. Carter has no idea he’s been trying to intimidate someone who learned to fight back from the king of the food chain.

Her brow arches. “Pretend?”

“Baby,” I murmur, brushing a wet strand of hair off her cheek, “you don’t crack. You light the match and smile while the building burns.”

She laughs, but it catches in her throat like she wasn’t expecting the compliment to hit that hard. I don’t give her time to recover. I tilt her chin up, my voice going low and sharp.

“Call him. Say you’ve had a change of heart. You want to negotiate, but only if his father’s present. Let him think you’re scared. Let him think he’s winning.”

The beautiful thing about Carter’s ego is how predictable it makes him. He’ll hear what he wants to hear—submission, surrender, victory. He won’t hear the trap closing around his throat.

“And what are you doing while I flirt with the enemy?”

“Stacking the deck,” I say. “And sharpening the knife.”

Metaphorically speaking. Though if Carter keeps pushing, the metaphor might become literal.

She stares at me like she’s trying to decide whether to kiss me again or slap me for how turned on that made her. Her fingers trail down my chest, skimming over the small healing incision.

“You sure you’re okay?” she whispers. “I mean, really okay?”

The concern in her voice cuts deeper than any blade. She’s not asking about the surgery or the recovery or the physical healing. She’s asking if I’m still me. If the man who just promised to destroy someone is the same one who holds her gently in the dark.