Page 37 of You Owe Me (21 Rumors #2)

“I’m fine.” I cup her cheek, leaning in until we’re nose to nose. “My heart’s stronger than it’s ever been. The rest of me?” I smirk. “Still dangerous as hell.”

More dangerous, actually. Because now I don’t have to worry about my body betraying me at the worst possible moment. No more heart rate spikes during confrontations. No more electrical chaos when the pressure builds. Just pure, controlled lethality.

Carter Mills picked the wrong time to make an enemy.

She nods slowly, then leans over the side of the pool to grab her phone. Water drips off her wrist as she holds it up, hesitating just for a second before unlocking the screen.

“You really trust me to do this?”

“I trust you to ruin him if I ask you to.”

And I do. Completely. Because Ainsley doesn’t just love me; she understands me. She knows that sometimes protection looks like violence, that sometimes the only way to keep something safe is to destroy everything that threatens it.

A beat of silence.

No dialing. No ringing.

Just her eyes on me—wide, searching, vulnerable in a way that cuts deeper than any blade.

The phone stays clutched in her hand, dripping water onto my chest. She doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak.

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.

The question is whether she can love that version, too.

“And what exactly is that?” she fires back, trying to sound defiant, but it’s breathy. Shaky. Wrecked in all the right ways.

I pull her in closer, my mouth brushing her ear. “A man who’s done pretending he’s not the one pulling every fucking string.”

Her breath catches. Her spine arches. She leans into me like her body can’t help it.

The admission hangs between us like a loaded weapon. I’ve just told her that everything—Carter’s threats, the IRS investigation, the academic fraud evidence—it’s all been orchestrated. Managed. Controlled.

I’ve been pulling strings since the moment Carter first said her name.

“Say it,” I murmur, dragging my lips down the line of her neck.

She shudders. “Say what?”

“That you trust me to end this.”

Her fingers dig into my shoulders. “I do.”

The words carry weight beyond their simplicity. She’s not just trusting me to handle Carter; she’s trusting me to handle the consequences. The fallout. The version of me that emerges when someone threatens what’s mine.

I lean back, letting her see the weight of my conviction, the cold clarity that’s been humming in my veins since I walked out of that hospital.

Her expression fractures—eyes glassy, lips trembling, mascara faintly smudged from the heat or maybe from blinking too hard against the intensity.

“Maverick…”

I grip her jaw gently, just enough to anchor her. “You want a future with me? This is part of it. This is what it looks like when I fight for what’s mine.”

Because there will be other Carters. Other threats. Other people who think they can take what belongs to me without consequences. If she’s going to be part of my world—really part of it—she needs to understand what that protection costs.

She’s silent for a beat, and I can feel her whole body trembling now—but not with fear.

With want.

With fury.

With love.

“Then ruin him. Burn every piece of him that ever touched me.”

There it is. The moment she stops being a bystander and becomes an accomplice. The moment she chooses me—all of me, including the parts that destroy people.

I don’t smile.

I don’t say good girl .

I just press my lips to hers, slow and searing, a quiet brand that says you’re mine and I’ll prove it.

And when she finally pulls back, breathless and dazed, her phone’s still in her hand.

But it’s no longer heavy.

It’s loaded.

And Carter Mills?

He’s already ashes.