“Six hours left,” Wyatt announced with deadly calm. “Time for truth.”

“Truth about what?” Jaxon demanded, though his executive composure cracked as recognition blazed across his features.

Wyatt’s gloved hands moved to his mask with deliberate precision. The painted scars caught overhead light as he lifted white plastic away from features that would shatter Jaxon’s world completely.

“Hello, Jaxon,” Wyatt said, his scarred face emerging from tactical concealment. “Surprised to see me breathing?”

Jaxon’s face drained to marble-white. “Wyatt Howell. You’re supposed to be dead.”

“Your assassination contracts were quite thorough,” Wyatt replied with bitter satisfaction. “But not thorough enough.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Wyatt’s laugh was broken glass against concrete. “The Henderson account. Offshore transfers. Shell companies that don’t exist.”

“I have nothing to confess to,” Jaxon declared with executive steel that refused intimidation. “Because I’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Haven’t you?” Wyatt stepped closer, his scarred features blazing with fury. “Then you won’t mind when I find evidence that proves otherwise. Evidence that will make you confess everything.”

Wyatt’s attention shifted to Addison with predatory focus that made Jaxon’s territorial instincts explode into protective rage.

“You can help him remember, Dové,” Wyatt said with intimate gentleness that carried the weight of shared history. “Look around. Look at these poor bank workers.”

His gesture encompassed Marcus at his security station, Sarah near the information desk, other employees whose exhaustion etched lines of terror across their faces.

“They’re tired,” Wyatt continued with devastating precision. “Scared. They want this nightmare to end. You can make that happen if you convince Jaxon to tell the truth.”

“Dové?” Jaxon’s voice cracked with territorial fury and growing confusion. “Why are you calling her that?”

Addison stood frozen between them, her silence confirming Jaxon’s worst fears about connections she’d never revealed.

“Do you know him?” Jaxon demanded, his executive composure shattering as implications rewrote everything. “Addison, answer me. Do you know this man?”

Her continued silence detonated through his understanding like an explosive charge. Pieces crashed together with devastating clarity—her reluctance to discuss past relationships, her haunted expressions during quiet moments, her inexplicable knowledge of military terminology.

“Wait,” Jaxon breathed with horrifying recognition. “The ex-boyfriend you mentioned. The one who disappeared without trace. The one you said was named—”

“Wyatt,” he finished with a realization that blazed across his features.

“You son of a bitch!” Jaxon roared, his fists seeking targets with desperate precision. “You manipulated her! Used her against me!”

“Enough!” Brick commanded, holding them apart despite their continued attempts to reach each other.

Both men stood breathing heavily, blood and sweat staining their clothes as they stared at each other with mutual hatred that blazed across their battered features.

“Stay away from her!” Jaxon declared with authority, his executive composure restored but blazing with protective fury. “She’s mine! My fiancée, my child, my future!”

“She belongs with someone who doesn’t authorize mass murder,” Wyatt shot back with steel conviction, blood trickling from his split lip. “She deserves to know what kind of monster she’s carrying a child for.”

“I’m not a monster!”

“We’ll see what the evidence reveals. What your own employees remember when questioned properly.”

Jaxon’s face transformed into something dangerous as corporate mask slipped completely, revealing the calculating predator who’d built his empire on systematic manipulation.

“You can’t prove anything because there’s nothing to prove,” he snarled with quiet menace.

“Let’s see.” Wyatt’s scarred features blazed with tactical satisfaction. “Your employees have been processing suspicious transactions for years. They know exactly where every dollar flows. Every secret account. Every elimination payment.”

He turned toward the clustered bank personnel with a commanding presence that demanded attention.

“Time for cross-examination,” Wyatt announced. “Individual questioning to establish exactly what Meridian Trust has been funding.”