Chapter 390: Back at Switch

Bennett’s phone lit up beside a cold cup of coffee and an open laptop still full of unread mail.

Her thumb was already sliding toward the next message when the name stopped her.

Lucas.

She lifted the phone. The text sat there, short and plain. For a second she only looked at it. Then the corner of her mouth moved. The smile stayed small at first, private, before it widened enough that she felt it in her cheeks. No one else was in the room. She didn’t care.

Months. Nothing real since the Bugatti. A few short replies after that, then silence. The chat had just gone quiet.

She was still overseas. Meetings stacked on top of each other, a flight already delayed once, calls she’d pushed and couldn’t push again. None of it mattered. She typed, erased the line, typed something shorter. Her thumb hovered. Then she sent it.

Tonight. My bar. I’m on my way back into the country.

She set the phone down and opened her schedule. One by one she started cancelling what she could.

---

In the bedroom Lucas read the reply and let the breath leave him slow through his nose.

Tonight.

He needed to move.

The room still held the argument. Daisy’s voice had dropped but the edge hadn’t left it. Debbie kept reaching for her sister’s arm and missing. Mia sat on the edge of the bed with the sheet drawn high against her chest, eyes on the floor. Gracie hadn’t moved from the doorway. One shoulder rested against the frame. She watched everything like she was still deciding what kind of house this was.

Lucas stood.

He crossed to the wardrobe, pulled out a clean shirt and dark pants, and went into the bathroom without speaking. The door shut. Water hit the tile hard and steady. Outside, the voices turned into muffled noise under the spray. Steam climbed the glass. He stayed under longer than he needed to, letting the morning slide off his shoulders one minute at a time.

When he came out with a towel in his hand the shouting was gone.

They were all still there. Daisy. Debbie. Mia. Gracie had stepped a little closer, arms loosely folded. The anger had drained into quiet faces and tight mouths~the kind of silence people keep after they’ve already picked the ending and are only waiting for the last person to hear it.

Lucas dried his hands and looked from one to the next.

"Alright. What did I do?"

Mia spoke first. Her voice came out thin.

"Yesterday... we got greedy." She glanced at Daisy, then back at him. "We cheated Daisy out of~"

She stopped. The rest wouldn’t come.

Debbie took it before the gap widened.

"She gets special time with you," Debbie said. Steady. Practical. "Alone. Only her."

Lucas looked at the three of them.

So that was the deal. They’d fought, pointed fingers, filled the morning with noise, then settled it by handing him over for a private night. Daisy wins. Everyone else stands down.

He smiled once, mostly to himself.

"Okay. I’ve heard."

Daisy’s face changed right away. The leftover heat from the argument was still there, but the win sat clear on top of it. Her shoulders eased. The corner of her mouth lifted. She didn’t try to hide it.

Lucas finished dressing. Shirt. Pants. Watch. He checked his phone again, saw Bennett’s reply still sitting there, then looked at them.

"I’m heading out. Going to inspect the company. It’s been too long since I showed my face at Switch."

That got a small reaction. Not loud. Just a shift.

Daisy moved first. The others followed. Soft kisses, one after another, quick but not empty. Hands lingered on his sleeve, his shoulder, then let go. Daisy held on a second longer, forehead near his jaw.

"Wait. I was already preparing something~"

Lucas shook his head once.

"Don’t worry. I’ll be back soon."

He stepped out before anyone could pull him into another round of soft explanations.

---

In the hallway he nearly walked into Richelle.

She looked up from her phone, surprise flashing for half a second, then smiled and pulled him into a short hug. When she leaned back her eyes went straight over his clothes.

"You’re dressed up. Finally going for that car?"

Lucas laughed under his breath.

"Tonight. Dealer’s not around right now. I’m just heading out."

Richelle nodded like that covered everything and stepped aside. He went downstairs, took the BMW key from the tray by the door, and walked out into the drive.

Morning air hit clean. The engine turned over low and even. He pulled out of the compound without rushing and turned toward the city.

---

The drive took a full hour.

Traffic moved in slow blocks, opened up, then tightened again. Lucas kept one hand on the wheel and left the radio off. Buildings slid past. Light shifted across the hood. The silence inside the car did useful work. It gave the morning room to fall away~the raised voices, the sheet pulled high, Daisy’s face when she heard she had won, Gracie watching from the edge of the room like she was learning the rules in real time.

By the time the Switch building rose ahead of him, the mansion felt far behind.

He turned into the private lot, found his space, and cut the engine. For a moment he only sat there with his fingers on the key, looking up at the glass front. It had been a long time since he walked through those doors. Long enough that he had to admit the gap. He had taken the company, set the structure, put the right people in the right seats, then stepped back and let other people carry the days. That version of things was ending this morning.

He did not call Paul.

He did not send a message ahead.

He got out, locked the car, and went in.

---

The lobby changed the second he stepped through the glass.

Heads turned. Conversations thinned. The receptionist at the front desk stood so fast her chair rolled back and bumped the cabinet behind her. Two staff near the elevators stopped mid-sentence. Someone farther back said his name under their breath, then pretended they had been talking about something else.

"Mr. Lucas." She was already on her feet, hands neat in front of her. "Welcome back. Please~let me show you to your office."

Lucas glanced toward the upper floors.

The office was still there. Desk, chair, view, name on the door. Kept ready since the day he acquired the company, even though he had only set foot in the building once and never properly used the room.

He shook his head.

"Not yet. Take me to Paul’s office."

"Director Paul?"

"Yes."

She recovered fast. "This way, sir."

He followed her across the lobby. The elevator doors opened with a soft chime. Inside, the cabin was cool and quiet. Floor numbers climbed. Lucas watched them without expression. He was not here for a tour. He wanted the update~numbers, damage, recovery, everything that had moved since Gracie’s broadcast and Durnik’s attempt to bleed the platform. From here the plan was simple.

Remove Durnik.

Completely.

The elevator stopped. The doors opened onto a quieter hallway. Glass. Muted carpet. The receptionist led him to a door near the end, knocked once, and stepped aside.

Paul’s voice came through from inside, distracted, still inside whatever meeting he thought this was.

"Come in."

The door opened.

---

Paul sat behind his desk, half turned toward a monitor, mouth already shaping the next line of a discussion he had not finished. A folder lay open near his right hand. The chair across from him was occupied. Then his eyes landed on Lucas and the rest of the room dropped away from him.

He froze.

The pause lasted long enough to see. Monitor light kept flickering against the side of his face while his brain caught up with the doorway. Then he stood so fast the chair scraped hard across the floor and nearly tipped.

"L-Lucas?"

The name caught. He came around the desk at once, one hand tugging his jacket straight like posture could cover the shock.

"I didn’t know you were coming. No one told me~"

"I didn’t tell anyone," Lucas said.

He answered the greeting with a short nod. Paul’s pulse showed at the side of his neck. The man looked like he had been dropped between two different versions of the day and had not found his feet in the second one yet.

Lucas let the moment hang.

Then his eyes moved past him.

A woman sat in the visitor’s chair across the desk. Legs crossed at the knee. A slim folder resting in her lap, one finger holding it closed. She had clearly been in the middle of the discussion when the door opened. Now she was looking straight at Lucas.

Beautiful in a clean, controlled way. Dark hair neat. Eyes steady. She did not scramble the way Paul had. She did not rush to stand or fill the silence with nervous courtesy. She just watched him, measuring the interruption without wasting a movement.

Lucas’s gaze held on her a second longer than manners required.