Chapter 389: After the Blowout

"Lorenzo," Nash said, almost listing it, as if he were placing the pieces one by one on a table.

"Yeah."

"Your progenitor."

"Yeah."

"The one who..."

"Yes, yes, and yes," Victoria cut in, a wave of her hand brushing the air. "My father. Hector’s father. The one who actually stands at the head of Apex. We’ve already covered this, haven’t we?"

Nash stayed silent for a moment, a question crossing his mind.

"Wait. CEO? Hector is the CEO of Apex, right? So how does Lorenzo—"

"It’s a structure, Nash. It’s very different from a simple shop," Victoria cut in, crossing her arms. "Hector runs the operations. He carries the title, he signs the papers, he makes the magazine covers. But Lorenzo remains chairman of the board. Founder. Majority shareholder. The kind of guy who never needs an official title because everyone already knows who the company really belongs to."

Nash nodded slowly, digesting the information, before another question formed, more slowly this time.

"And like... is this the first time he’s contacted you? It’s never happened before?"

"Never." Victoria looked away, her voice losing a little of its firmness. "In thirty years, I’ve never had a message from him. Not a call, not a card, nothing. And now, all of a sudden, after what happened with the Jade Gardens, he wakes up."

Nash stayed silent for a second, something blinking in his brain, and his mouth spoke before his mind had really finished processing the idea.

"Wait, thirty..." He frowned, almost counting on his fingers. "Thirty years that you’ve known him, or thirty years without news? Like, how old does that make you, exactly?"

Victoria looked at him for a moment, completely still, before a tender smile stretched across her face — the kind of smile that should have made any sane man run.

She stepped closer, her two hands coming to frame Nash’s face with an almost maternal softness, entirely contradicted by the murderous glint planted deep in her eyes.

"Darling," she murmured, her voice silky like velvet pulled over a blade. "Stop focusing on the little details, and focus on the real problem instead. Okay?"

Nash swallowed, a slightly tight smile appearing.

"Okay. I’ll leave you alone."

She released his face, satisfied, instantly returning to her seriousness as if the exchange had never happened.

Nash leaned against one of the sinks, arms crossed in turn, letting the silence turn in his head for a moment. A guy like that, who had never lifted a finger for his own daughter in thirty years, who had left her to be humiliated, sold, broken by her own half-brother — he didn’t just wake up one morning with a sudden urge to reconnect.

"This smells like a trap from a mile away," Nash said.

Victoria nodded, but her gaze was already elsewhere, spinning at full speed. "It’s necessarily tied to the Jade Gardens. He knows about Harlan. He knows we brought down half of his political network in one week. He probably wants to check if I also hold direct evidence against him, before—"

"Or," Nash cut in, "it’s just an old man who just watched his son, his heir, get publicly humiliated by the daughter he never wanted to recognize. And so, as his blood, and given your popularity with the public... your market value just went way up."

Victoria stopped dead, her mouth still open on the rest of her theory, a silence floating for a moment.

"That’s..." she frowned. "That’s possible too, yeah."

"That’s probably it," Nash said. "No need for a seven-floor conspiracy. They know we have files on them, but since we haven’t dumped anything, we opened the door to something else: negotiation. Hector fucked up, and the real owner is coming in to repair the damage."

Victoria crossed her arms, almost annoyed at having gotten carried away, before pulling herself together and finding her seriousness again.

"Still," she said, "what do we do?"

Nash straightened up, an idea lighting up clearly on his face.

"We could drop a time bomb. Like, we prepare everything now, with what we have on the Jade Gardens, and we schedule the revelations for later, by surprise, at the moment it hurts them the most. That way we always have the threat of ’if you hurt us, everything comes out.’"

Victoria looked at him for a long moment, the same expression a mother would have catching her kid with a box of matches and a can of gasoline in the middle of the living room.

"Nash," she said. "You’re talking about a man who has shares in half the Breakball franchises of the Upperworld. A guy whose decisions literally influence the course of an industry worth billions. This isn’t Hector, with his ego and his little local schemes. If you trigger anything against Lorenzo without knowing exactly what he has in reserve, you don’t risk taking down a man. You risk shaking an entire section of the global sports economy. And people who have that kind of power always, always have a way of landing back on their feet by crushing everyone around them in the process."

Nash stayed silent, digesting the scale of what she had just laid down, his initial plan visibly deflating.

"Okay," he admitted. "Bad idea."

"Not bad," Victoria corrected, a half-smile appearing. "Just... premature."

She turned away, taking a few steps toward the tiled wall, her hand coming to rest against the cold surface.

"There might be a simpler solution," she said, her voice becoming smooth again. "An accident. That kind of man, at his age, with all the stress of running an empire like that... those things happen."

Nash looked at her, one eyebrow raised.

"You’re talking about separating his body and his soul like Moses and the Red Sea?"

"I’m talking about accidentally removing him from the life census, my lovely and loyal partner," Victoria answered, smiling at him.

"Yeah," Nash said. "Which is why I did well to step in for Saya."

Victoria let out a light laugh, visibly amused by a joke only she understood.

"It’s different," she said, without much conviction, crossing her arms.

"It’s never different," Nash answered softly. "We’re in a position of strength, so let’s avoid putting ourselves in a bad posture."

A silence followed. Victoria looked away, something slowly loosening in her shoulders, that hardness giving up a little ground.

"Alright," she said finally. "No accident."

"No accident," Nash confirmed. "For now."

She let out a small laugh, almost despite herself.

"You learn fast."

"I have a good teacher," he answered.

Victoria returned to her seriousness, turning toward him, a visible thought crossing her face before she spoke.

"So," she said. "What do we do."

Nash stayed silent for a moment, really weighing the question. His first thought, instinctive, was to refuse. Purely and simply. Why give that guy access to anything when they already had a plan, a market?

But something else rose right behind it. He thought about what he had obtained from the Jade Gardens — not just the data, but the passives.

He had become a negotiation monster. He had seen men far more hardened than Hector crack in front of him.

"We should accept," Nash said finally.

Victoria raised an eyebrow.

"Five minutes ago you wanted to blow everything up."

"Five minutes ago I hadn’t finished thinking," he corrected. "We accept the meeting. But on our ground."

"Like?"

"Like not in an Apex tower, not in a place where he has the advantage. Neutral ground — but neutral as in everyone is at your service."

Victoria thought for a moment, a smile appearing.

"I already have the place. A café, in Sector 4. The kind of discreet, clean place where I’ve already placed quite a few people."

"Your zone," Nash said, a satisfied smile on his lips.

"My zone," she confirmed.

They spent the following minutes locking down the details — the time, the number of people allowed on each side — until everything seemed locked, clean, without any apparent flaw.

"I can’t wait to see what he looks like in person," Nash said, almost amused. "And even more to see his face when I make him crack."

Victoria looked at him, a strange hesitation crossing her face.

"That’s just it," she said, cautious. "I was thinking... maybe you should stay out of the exchange. Like we do with certain sensitive clients from the Jade Gardens. Stay back. Not directly exposed."

"No," Nash cut in, almost immediately. That was literally out of the question. "I’m in the room."

Victoria blinked, surprised by the sudden firmness.

"Nash, it’s just that this kind of meeting can quickly become—"

"I’m in the room, Victoria," he repeated, more softly this time. "That’s not negotiable."

She looked at him for a moment, almost annoyed that he wasn’t listening to her, before a sheepish smile appeared on her face.

"You’re right," she admitted. "That was stupid of me."

She stepped closer, her hands mechanically adjusting the collar of his still-damp jersey, before sliding one hand into his, her fingers slowly stroking the back of his palm while she kept talking.

"You’re actually better than me at this kind of thing," she said, her voice softer. "That way you have of defusing situations, of seeing clearly where I charge in headfirst. I should stop trying to protect you from everything, huh?"

"A little, yeah," Nash said, a smile on his lips. "Let the guy do his job. I don’t just exist to release your hormones."

She let out a small laugh, tightening her grip on his hand.

"No, but that’s definitely your best skill. So it’s settled," she said. "I accept. On our terms."

"The place is us. The timing is us. And I’m in the room," Nash summarized.

Victoria nodded, this time without the slightest hesitation.

"Do you really think he’ll accept your conditions," she said. "A guy like him."

"He’ll accept them," Nash answered, "because deep down, he’s the one who needs something from us, not the other way around."

He stepped even closer, reducing the distance between them to almost nothing.

"And honestly," he added, "it could even play in our favor. If that old man starts doubting his own son, we might be looking at the opening we’ve been waiting for from the start."

Victoria stared at him for a long moment, the tension she had been carrying since the message received on the balcony finally dissolving.

"You’re telling me," she murmured, "that the worst news of the evening could actually become good news."

"That’s kind of my thing," Nash said.

She let out a small laugh, then lifted a hand, her fingers coming to rest against his chest, climbing slowly along his collarbone.

Nash stayed still, letting her do it, feeling his own breathing fall into rhythm with her gestures despite himself.

"You know what I like most about you," she said, her voice dropping. "It’s never the confidence. Everyone has confidence. It’s that way you have of making any disaster bearable."

Her hand climbed up to the nape of his neck, her fingers getting lost in the still-damp hair at the base, drawing him closer slowly, without hurry, taking all her time, as if she wanted to make every second before the inevitable last.

"You’re going to have to prove it to me, the way you know how to do so well," she murmured finally, her face a few centimeters from his, her warm breath brushing his lips.

"Always," he answered, his own hand coming to rest on her hip, his voice dropping a tone.

His lips settled against hers, a light contact, almost hesitant.

Then Victoria ended that restraint. Her mouth opened against his, slower, more assured. Nash answered, pulling her against him with a firm motion, one hand coming to rest on her hip, the other sliding lower to close on her ass, pressing her completely against his body.

Victoria let out a light moan against his lips, her fingers gripping his jersey so she wouldn’t lose her balance, her tongue coming to seek his, savoring every second of that now far less restrained contact.

When they finally separated, out of breath, they stayed a moment looking at each other. Victoria had that look — the one that openly asked the question without needing words. Nash felt the same temptation rise in him, that obvious urge to pin her against the tiled wall and let everything else wait.

However... his Control stat was going to be useful again.

"The girls are just on the other side of the hallway," he said, a half-smile appearing.

Victoria let out a small laugh, gradually catching her breath.

"That’s true," she said. "Alright. Time to go home, then."

Nash raised an eyebrow, amused.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah," Victoria confirmed, her fingers sliding under the collar of his jersey. "But in that case, tonight, I’m taking my turn. And I don’t plan on sharing it with anyone else."

A wide smile stretched across Nash’s face. "I don’t see where the problem is."

"There isn’t one," she said, kissing him one last time, shorter this time, before finally pulling away, gradually finding her composure again. "Lorenzo can wait another twenty-four hours. He waited thirty years. He’ll survive."