Page 5 of You Owe Me (21 Rumors #2)

CHAPTER FIVE

Rumor has it, his secrets are worth millions.

Maverick

My watch won’t stop fucking vibrating.

138 BPM. 142. 136. It’s like my wrist is mocking me, each number flashing like a countdown to a breakdown I don’t have time for.

I don’t look at it. Don’t touch it. Don’t acknowledge it.

Because if I do, I might actually have to admit that something’s wrong.

And admitting something’s wrong means stopping.

Slowing down. Turning toward the fire instead of running through it.

And I don’t stop.

Across the room, Sebastian’s still planted on the couch like it’s his. Feet up, hoodie half-zipped, a protein bar in one hand and judgment in his eyes.

“You look like shit,” he says around a mouthful.

“Appreciate that.”

He tosses the wrapper toward the trash and misses. He doesn’t care. He never does. That’s the thing about Sebastian, he lives in chaos, but somehow, it never sticks to him. I build order out of chaos, and it’s killing me.

“You gonna sit there and ignore the fact that your watch sounds like a jackhammer? Your heart rate is out of control, man.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not. You haven’t blinked in, like, five minutes.”

“I said I’m fine, Sebastian.”

He holds his hands up in mock surrender but doesn’t move. Whatever. I don’t have time for his shit today.

I turn back to the files spread across the table. Three stacks of IOUs. The usual academic cover-ups, exam swaps, admissions hacks. But now there’s a fourth pile forming. The ones I really don’t have time for. The impossible shit people bring me when I explicitly say I’m scaling back.

Chen, Melissa. Pre-med. DUI. Wants it gone. Like wiped-from-the-system gone. Which is laughable, but her father sits on the board at Havemeyer Memorial. The same hospital Pops is waiting for his insurance to approve an experimental therapy for.

So I work on the problem. Again.

Sebastian’s still watching me. “Whatever she’s offering, it’s not worth having your heart explode in the middle of a spreadsheet.”

I ignore him. I’ve gotten good at that. He knows better than to expect an answer when I’m like this.

“She’s not offering anything,” I mutter. “But her dad can get Pops moved up the list.”

That shuts him up for a second.

I flip through another folder. “People think just because I scaled back, now’s the time to challenge me.”

“To be fair, you did kind of vanish off the grid for a minute.”

“Yeah, and I still had three people ask me to fix their GPA averages last week. One guy wanted me to switch his major without seeing an advisor.”

Sebastian lets out a low whistle. “You’ve got the whole school hooked. Like academic cocaine.”

I huff a laugh. “I should start charging by the heartbeat.”

“That’s dark.”

“That’s business.”

He leans forward now, resting his elbows on his knees. “You’re stretched too thin. Why not drop the favors for a while? Focus on the legit stuff. The firm. The girl. You know… life.”

“Because this is my life,” I say. “The IOUs, the network, the firm—it’s all one thing. One system. One reputation. If one part fails, the rest falls with it.”

“Yeah, but you’ve got Ainsley now.”

The room shifts slightly at her name. I feel it in my chest—not the way the doctors warn about. Worse. She’s the only real thing in this mess. The only thing that isn’t transactional. And I’ve still managed to drag her into the center of it all.

“She keeps you sane,” he adds. “That’s gotta count for something.”

“It does.” I say it too fast. Too defensive. I push a file toward him. “Can you get eyes on this guy? He’s supposed to be helping with test swaps, but he keeps screwing up the signature matching.”

Sebastian grabs it but doesn’t drop the topic. “You ever think about what happens if this all catches up to you? Like… officially?”

I shrug. “It won’t.”

“You’re asking people to go to class for other people, Mav. That’s not a favor; that’s academic fraud. You think the dean would shrug that off?”

I don’t respond. Because he’s right. And I know it. But I also know this machine I’ve built is too big to stop now. If I let one piece go, the rest crumbles. And if that happens, everyone who depends on me goes down with it.

He keeps going. “You’ve built an empire. But the more you say yes, the more cracks you put in the foundation. One pissed-off kid, one admin with a grudge—and this whole thing burns.”

I lean back, cracking my neck. “Then I’ll rebuild it.”

Sebastian stares at me, like he’s trying to decide if I’m a genius or a lunatic. Maybe both. Probably both.

“You really can’t stop, can you?”

“No.”

He sits back on the couch, still flipping through the file. “You should call her.”

“I don’t need a babysitter.”

“Didn’t say you did. But she’s good for you. Keeps you from going full Batman.”

I grunt. “If I’m Batman, you’re Alfred.”

“Bullshit. I’m obviously Robin.”

“You wear enough red.”

That earns a laugh. Then he gets serious again. “She’d want to know you’re spiraling.”

“I’m not spiraling.”

My phone buzzes. Two new emails. One’s a kid asking if I can ghostwrite his final paper. The other is labeled URGENT in all caps—probably another emergency roommate swap or someone trying to fake a medical exemption.

I don’t open either. I close my laptop and shove back from the table.

“Where are you going?”

“Shower. Coffee. Maybe get ahead of the implosion.”

Sebastian nods but doesn’t press. “I’ll hang out for a bit. You might need backup.”

I pause in the hallway, hand braced on the doorframe. “Clingy pussy.”

He waves me off. “ You’re the pussy.”

I smirk, just a little. Then I turn and head for the bathroom, close the door, lock it, and lean over the sink.

I rub the heel of my hand into my chest. It doesn’t help. My chest is still tight. Still thudding like I’m sprinting when all I’m doing is standing here, watching the empire I built collapse in slow motion.

I know what this means. I know what the cardiologist said last time I saw him.

“If the medication isn’t enough to keep your heart rate down, we’ll have to consider ablation.”

Ablation.

Just hearing it made my blood run cold. I didn’t ask many questions in the office, didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing panic on my face. I waited until I got home, pulled up a dozen articles, and fell down the Google rabbit hole like a dumbass.

Catheters. Burning tissue. Heart scars. Recovery time I can’t afford.

No. Not happening.

I’ve clawed my way to the top of this university’s food chain with duct tape and blood.

I’ve juggled blackmail, academic sabotage, and high-stakes poker games while running an investment firm under the radar.

I’m not throwing it all away to lie in a hospital bed while people discover how replaceable I really am.

So, I don’t tell anyone. Not Ainsley. Especially not Ainsley.

Because the second she finds out, she’ll worry. And then she’ll try to fix it. And I’ll have to watch her rearrange her whole damn world around me because I’m defective.

She deserves better than that.

I pop another beta blocker, swallowing it dry, then shove the bottle back into my bag. I should’ve taken it hours ago. I should’ve been more careful.

But I’ve been too busy trying to keep my world from falling apart to remember that I’m the one actively cracking.

The email notification pings on my phone this time. I don’t check it.

Instead, I sit back and stare at the ceiling.

Ainsley will be home in twenty minutes. She’s been studying between sea lion shows, where she’s interning at the aquarium.

She claims she’s not tired, but I see her falling asleep on the lumpy couch every night and waking with a crick in her neck.

And I, self-appointed fixer of everyone else’s bullshit, am actively lying to the only person who makes any of this shit bearable.

The irony is poetic. If I weren’t busy trying not to die, I’d almost laugh.

My phone buzzes.

Ainsley: Be home soon. Do not eat the last brownie.

It’s dumb, it’s normal, it’s her.

My chest aches.

I pocket the phone and rest my head back against the wall. I don’t answer. I drop to the bathroom floor, lean back against the cabinet, and close my eyes. I know what to do. I’ve read every article, every forum post, every damn cardiology study written in English.

First step: the Valsalva maneuver. Forced exhale against a closed airway. It’s supposed to stimulate the vagus nerve and slow the heart rate. Trick the body into rebooting.

I pinch my nose, close my mouth, and bear down like I’m trying to blow out a birthday candle that doesn’t exist.

Thirty seconds.

Nothing.

Still pounding.

I lie back fully, legs up on the wall now, trying another Modified Valsalva version. Exhale, then quickly lie back and elevate. Gravity and pressure. Circulation shift. A last-ditch reboot sequence for the cardiac system I’m apparently too defective to run.

My pulse jumps. Then skips.

Then—

Slows.

Just a little.

I keep my legs up until I stop seeing stars. Until I can breathe without feeling like my ribs are going to split. Until my heart remembers it’s not a live grenade.

I should tell someone.

Not Ainsley.

Not yet.

She’ll look at me like I’m fragile. Like I’m glass. And I’m already one more skipped beat away from shattering without help.

I pull myself off the floor and wash my face. Cold water. Rinse the sweat off my hairline, pat down my shirt so it doesn’t cling like I just ran a marathon in place.

When I open the door, Sebastian’s leaning in the hallway, arms crossed.

“You good?”

I nod. “Yeah.”

He studies me. “That was a long piss.”

“Enlightening,” I mutter, brushing past him.

“Your heart?”

“Fixed it.”

“Jeez, Mav.”

I don’t reply. I don’t have the bandwidth for a lecture. He knows it and lets it drop.

For now.

I return to the table, grab a pen, and scribble a few numbers in the margin of Melissa Chen’s file. It’s easier than thinking. Easier than dealing with the part of me that knows this is unsustainable.

This is a fire sale, and I’m just rearranging matches.

Because if I stop for even a second—if I really let myself feel how close I am to going down—then I won’t be able to crawl back up.

And I can’t let Ainsley see the wreckage if I fall.