29. Kael
KAEL
As the car crests the hill into the Glen Park cul-de-sac, dread coils in my gut. My seventh visit to Alistair’s mansion is my first time alone. He’s planned it this way with his usual precision. He wants to win. That’s been clear from the start.
What will he do when I walk in without Ash?
How will he react when I tell him I’m done?
I need to find out. I need him angry, and I need him to say it all out loud.
Fumbling in my pocket, my fingers skip past Rocky to my phone’s cool glass, and I confirm my recorder app is already recording.
My best hope is to bait out the real Alistair Blackwood, the one under all that charm and polished philanthropy.
I knock, and the front door swings open.
Without a bustling party, the place looks cleaner, more modern, and more menacing.
Everything is glass and stone and perfectly curated, but it feels haunted anyway.
In this movie, the monster isn’t a ghost; it’s the man who owns this view.
The 0.01 percent live above the city skyline, while the rest of us choke on the smoke.
Despite fear burning in my chest, I take some comfort in the fact that there’s no security to lock my phone in a bag.
As soon as I close the door behind me, I see Alistair.
He’s sitting where the piano was at his last party, back to me, looking out over his city, posture easy and utterly in control.
“You have fifteen minutes,” he says, still gazing at the skyline.
“I didn’t want to be here at all.”
He flicks a hand toward a bottle of red wine in a bucket on the black marble counter between us. “Help yourself.”
My legs lock. My mouth tastes like metal. “No, thanks.”
“People would kill for this. You know charities auction off meetings with me.”
He’s just like my father—the same tired, rich, miserable species.
“Wow. What an honor,” I say. “What do you want, Alistair?”
“Why don’t you like me? I’ve paid for you to follow your passion for two years, invited you to my parties. What’s made you so hostile?”
“Remember the wildfire?” I keep my voice flat. “You said you’d help if we had sex.”
Since he won’t look at me, I lean a little closer to my pocket, willing the mic to catch every word.
“That’s not what I said.”
“Want me to read it back?”
Alistair’s ears flush. He finally turns, revealing a smile that’s too thin. “I’d never text that. My reputation…”
“Well, the message was clear.” I swallow. “I want out.”
“Asher Pierce seems like a nice guy,” he says, the name a deliberate taunt. “I told you to bring him.”
He takes a long sip of his wine, and the clink of his teeth on the glass fills the silence. Dismissing me is part of his game. He wants to make sure I know my whole life is just a minor scheduling hiccup.
I think about Mom and how much of her life she burned keeping a man like this happy. I need the same kind of courage she found in the end.
To protect me, she finally left, but before that, she paid for staying with pieces of herself. For a long time, the lesson felt simple—never need anyone. Never owe anyone. Freedom avoids all ties at all costs.
To protect Ash, I have to be willing to walk away.
With renewed determination, I try meeting Alistair’s gaze, but he’s still turned half away.
“Keep him out of this,” I snap, heat flaring up my spine.
“Out of what?”
“Whatever game you’re playing.”
“I don’t think I’m outside the bounds to take a special interest in my employees,” he says lightly. “You do both work for me.”
I try to steady my voice as I speak to his back, the skyline behind him. “Why are you doing this? At your last party you brought up Ash.” My throat tightens around his name. “You wielded him like a weapon.”
Alistair rises with a predatory gleam in his eyes, and I fight the urge to step back. Polished wood clicks under his shoes as he circles the counter that had been between us. Staying quiet, he refills his glass, pours a second, and then leans back against the counter.
“I told you,” he says at last, slow and deliberate. “I care about my employees.”
“I was going to tell you I wanted out that night. You couldn’t have known that, and you still brought him up. I want to know why.”
“No doubt you’ve concocted an elaborate story,” he says, and even five steps away, his presence feels suffocating. “Artists and their overactive imaginations. Indulge me.”
“You enjoy having power over people.”
“A revelation,” he purrs. “A tech executive likes leverage.”
“More like a sadist with enough resources to turn anyone into a piece in your game.”
“You want out?” Alistair lifts both glasses and steps closer, eyes still hungry. “There’s the door. Why did you even come?”
He takes another step, and I can smell his citrus cologne above the wine. Three more and we’ll be touching.
“You’ve been to my house several times now,” he muses, taking another slow step.
My hands start to tremble.
“I don’t think you really want to leave.” One more step, and he extends the second glass, the gesture a flimsy excuse to erase the distance between us. “I think if I said there was a game you could play, where anything was possible, you’d want in.”
“You really believe that?”
He gives an exaggerated shrug that sloshes wine in both glasses.
“That’s how you rationalize it,” I say. “Preying on vulnerable, desperate people, telling yourself they like it. They’re pretending, Alistair. They’re using you. They don’t care about you. They want your money. Your parties.”
“People use each other,” he says, and the pride in his voice makes my stomach turn. “It’s the nature of every relationship—use and be used, then move on. No debts. No illusions. That’s freedom.”
Like my father used my mother.
Alistair’s logic is so familiar. It’s how I’ve lived my whole life. But when I run it past Ash in my head, it falls apart.
“It may be what you think,” I say, remembering Ash’s words, “but that doesn’t make it true.”
Alistair’s eyes widen, dark with lust and possession. He grabs my waist, and the stem of one wine glass digs into my lower back. His cologne stings my nose.
“Use me,” he growls. “Get your boyfriend that promotion. Get whatever your heart desires.”
My gut lurches at how simple he makes it sound: use and be used.
It’s not what I want anymore.
Somewhere between Philbrook and this goddamned penthouse, Ash stopped being an obligation and turned into someone I don’t want to walk away from. Loving him may hand him the power to wreck me, but I want it anyway.
If I let Alistair turn that into a currency, I’ll poison whatever we could be and prove Alistair right. I’d prove my father right too, and I’d rather lose the money, the studio, all of it, than do that.
I tilt my chin toward Alistair’s mouth and lean closer. His heart beats in his throat, his excitement hard against my leg.
“Is that what you want?” I ask, stopping an inch from his lips, feeling his breath on my face.
His pulse throbs where his hand grips me, mouth parting expectantly.
“There’s just one problem,” I whisper. “Your kind of freedom is lonely as hell. I’d rather find people I love and give them everything.”
I plant my palm flat on his chest and shove.
Alistair stumbles, flailing. Both glasses shatter against the marble, red wine and crystal exploding across the floor. He goes down in the middle of it with a strangled yelp.
I step back, reclaiming space just as easily as he took it. From here he looks small, sprawled and furious in his own mess.
Two hulking security guards appear from opposite corners, converging on me fast. “Sir!”
I freeze, hands up, fighting to stay still against nerves screaming run.
“Stop!” Alistair bellows.
The guards lock in place, buying me a chance to watch him on the floor, chest heaving, wine in his hair, his whole face twisted with rage.
“Get out,” he snarls, hauling himself upright. “Get out!” He staggers to the counter with his back already to me, snatches the wine bottle, and mutters to the nearest guard, “Clean this up.”
My heart hammers as I back toward the door, then shove through it into the clear night air.
I love Ash. He’s the one I’d choose over cutting myself loose. He’s—
Shit. The gallery.
“You’ll regret this!” Alistair roars behind me. “Ash will regret this!”
I don’t look back. Let him keep his threats and his money and his empty house. I’ve got his words recorded in my pocket and something better to run toward, even if I’m in the middle of blowing it.
I race downhill, shoes slapping asphalt as I fumble my phone out to stop the recording and check the time. It’s past seven. I’m late.
I keep running until the cul-de-sac is far behind me, hands still shaking as one thought beats with my pulse: I love him, and I may be too late.