The strategy was crystallizing in the dark, cold hours of the morning.
First, Tyler. He would use Tyler as the conduit, the unwitting bridge to reach Aveline.
He would manipulate the boy's social friction, his anxieties, and his predictable patterns until the boy became the perfect messenger to carry Mike's silent intentions into Aveline's orbit.
Then, there was Maya.
He stared into the black liquid of his coffee, the surface reflecting the dim light of the kitchen. The standard playbooks, the Cabin in a Storm approach, where he would provide a sanctuary of warmth and strength, and the Corridor Waiting approach, where he would appear as a constant, inevitable fixture in her life, were all useless.
They were setups. They were theatrical.
And Maya was a woman who could see the stage lights from a mile away. To reach her, he couldn't use a tactic.
He couldn't use a maneuver.
