Chapter 22
I can't sleep.
Jasper sleeps beside me, a deep, untroubled slumber.
One of his heavy arms is thrown over my waist, a possessive, unconscious anchor.
His breathing is a slow, even rhythm against my back, the sound of a predator at rest in his own den, utterly secure.
He has what he wants. He has me. And for the first time, he feels safe enough to be completely vulnerable in my presence.
The irony is a bitter, metallic taste in my mouth.
Every time I close my eyes, I don't see the horror of Arthur Vance's death anymore.
I see the faded, sun-drenched photograph of two children under an oak tree.
A sad little boy in a suit and a gap-toothed little girl in a blue dress.
I see two decades of my life spooling out behind that single image, a life I thought was my own, but was merely an observation. A prelude.
I kept an eye on you.
The casual, terrifying statement echoes in my mind. What does that mean? What does it look like to have the heir of the Sinclair dynasty "keep an eye on you"? The questions are a swarm of angry hornets in my brain, and I know I will not find any peace until I have answers.
Carefully, meticulously, I begin to extricate myself from his hold.
I lift his arm, inch by excruciating inch, my own muscles screaming with the effort of not waking him.
His arm is heavy, a dead weight of muscle and bone.
I finally get it free and slide it onto the bed beside him.
I hold my breath, waiting. He murmurs something in his sleep, a low, incoherent sound, and rolls onto his back, but his eyes remain closed.
I slip out of the bed, my bare feet silent on the cold concrete floor. The air in the penthouse is cool against my skin. I grab a silk robe. I don’t bother tying it. I just need to feel something other than the lingering heat of his body on my skin.
Where would he keep it? Where does a man like Jasper Donovan Sinclair keep his secrets?
His study.
I’ve only been in it a few times. It’s a room off the main living area, a place he goes when he needs absolute silence.
Unlike his spartan, minimalist office downtown, this room is a reflection of the man, not the CEO.
It’s lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with first editions of classic literature, philosophy, and military history.
A massive, antique mahogany desk sits in the center, and two deep leather armchairs face a fireplace that is, for once, not lit.
The room smells of old paper, leather, and his unique, cedarwood scent. It is the heart of his fortress.
I slip inside, pulling the heavy door almost completely shut behind me, leaving only a sliver of an opening. The room is dark, save for the ambient glow of the city lights filtering through the single large window. I don't turn on a light. I move by instinct, my eyes slowly adjusting to the gloom.
My target is the desk. It’s a massive, imposing piece of furniture with several deep drawers. I try the top-right one. Locked. Of course. I try the others. All locked. I run my hands over the smooth, cool wood, a frisson of frustration and fear running through me.
And then I see it. A small, almost invisible keypad built into the side panel of the desk, perfectly flush with the wood. My heart sinks. I have no idea what the code could be. A birthdate? An anniversary?
My eyes scan the room, searching for a clue, for any number that might have significance. My gaze lands on the photo on his desk. The one of us. The funeral.
What was the date? I think frantically. I have no idea.
I look at the computer on the desk. It’s asleep. I tap the spacebar. The screen wakes, asking for a password. I’m about to give up when I notice a small, silver box in the corner of the login screen. A fingerprint scanner.
His fingerprint. Of course. This desk wasn’t designed to be opened with a code. It was designed to be opened only by him.
I feel a surge of defeat. But then, my eyes fall on the crystal highball glass sitting on a leather coaster right next to the laptop. The glass he was drinking from earlier tonight. The condensation has beaded on the outside, and on the smooth, curved surface is a perfect, clear, single thumbprint.
My heart starts a frantic tattoo against my ribs.
It's a crazy, long shot. The kind of thing that only happens in movies.
I lift the glass carefully, my fingers wrapped in the silk of my robe to avoid smudging it.
I hold my breath and press the thumbprint on the glass against the small, glowing scanner.
For a second, nothing happens. Then, there is a soft, satisfying click.
The central drawer of the desk pops open an inch.
I almost sob with relief and terror. I set the glass down and gently pull the drawer open.
It’s not filled with pens and paperclips.
It contains a series of neat, meticulously organized file folders, each tabbed with a different name.
My eyes scan the tabs. Vance, Arthur. Thorne, Marcus.
Brown, Jessica. He has files on everyone.
And then I see it. The last file in the stack. The tab is stark and simple.
Sutton, Olivia.
My hand is trembling so violently I can barely grasp the folder. I lift it out of the drawer. It’s thick. Heavy. The weight of my own life, cataloged and contained. I carry it over to one of the leather armchairs by the window, the city lights providing just enough illumination to read by.
I open it.
The first thing I see is a photograph of myself.
It’s my second-grade school picture. The gap-toothed smile, the unruly pigtails.
The same girl from the photo on his phone.
Beneath it, another photo. Me at my middle school science fair, proudly standing next to a Styrofoam model of a volcano.
Me at my high school prom, looking awkward and flushed in a powder-blue dress, Marcus’s arm slung possessively around my shoulders.
Me on my college graduation day, beaming, my diploma in my hand.
It’s a complete, chronological history of my life, told in stolen moments. They are not snapshots. They are surveillance photos. Taken from a distance, with a long lens. I am always unaware. Just living my life, while a silent, invisible eye documented my every milestone.
Beneath the photos are papers. Report cards from elementary school, with teachers' comments in the margins.
Olivia is a bright but sometimes talkative student.
My college acceptance letters. A copy of my LSAT scores.
A transcript of my classes from Columbia Law.
Financial statements. My student loan applications.
A complete, detailed psychological and academic profile, compiled over two decades.
And then, there are the notes. Dozens of pages, all in his sharp, black, instantly recognizable handwriting. They are surveillance logs, but they are more than that. They are… a journal. An obsession laid bare on the page.
October 12th. O.S. attended homecoming dance with Marcus Thorne. Thorne appears possessive. Inadequate.
May 25th. O.S. graduated. Top ten percent of her class. As expected.
September 3rd. O.S. begins her first year as a public defender. A foolish, idealistic choice. But a noble one. She is trying to save the world, one hopeless case at a time. She will burn out. When she does, I will be there to catch her.
I read on, my blood turning to ice. He has tracked my movements, my relationships, my triumphs, my failures.
He knew about my mounting debt. He knew about my disillusionment with the legal system.
He knew about my painful breakup with Marcus.
He didn't just stumble upon me in my moment of weakness.
He had been waiting for it. He had been cultivating it.
This wasn't a crime of opportunity. It was the culmination of a twenty-year plan.
The sheer, suffocating depth of his obsession is a physical weight, pressing down on my chest, making it hard to breathe. I was never a person to him. I was a project. A prize to be won. A thing to be collected at the end of a long, patient hunt.
My fingers are numb as I put my own file aside. My curiosity, a dark, morbid, self-destructive thing, is not sated. There are other files in the drawer. The ones with the other names. The names of the women who came before me. The ones who, as he so chillingly put it, didn't work out.
I go back to the desk and pull out three more folders. Their names are Amelia, Catherine, and Isabelle.
I open Amelia’s file. She was a journalist. Sharp, ambitious, beautiful. The file contains a similar collection of surveillance photos, financial reports. And then, a series of frantic, handwritten notes from Jasper.
A. approached by federal agents. Standard procedure. Will monitor her reaction.
Another entry, a week later. A. has become withdrawn. Paranoid. She is lying about her movements.
The final entry is cold, clinical. A. made a poor choice. Asset compromised. Initiating exit protocol.
Tucked into the back of the file is a single, laminated newspaper clipping. Local Journalist Dies in Tragic Hiking Accident.
My stomach heaves. I open Catherine’s file.
She was an art curator. The same story. The same pattern.
Surveillance. The approach by the FBI. A period of deception.
And then, the final, chilling entry. C. has become a liability.
Exit protocol enacted. Her newspaper clipping is a small piece about a single-car crash on a winding country road. An accident.
Isabelle’s is the same. A talented cellist. An FBI approach. A betrayal. Her death was ruled a suicide. An overdose.
Three women. Three bright, talented, beautiful women who had the misfortune of catching the eye of Jasper Donovan Sinclair.
Three women who were offered the same impossible choice I was.
Three women who, unlike me, chose silence.
Who chose to try and play both sides. And who paid the ultimate price for their mistake.
The truth hits me with the force of a physical blow, knocking the air from my lungs.
I didn’t survive because I was special. I didn’t survive because he cherished a childhood photograph of me.
I survived because, in a moment of pure, blind panic, I had accidentally passed his twisted, monstrous loyalty test. I survived because I tattled.
My confession in the bedroom wasn't a pledge of allegiance.
It was the desperate, reflexive act of a terrified animal, and it had inadvertently saved my life.
I am not his queen. I am not his partner. I am just the first of his lab rats to successfully navigate the maze.
I carefully, silently, put all the files back into the drawer. I re-lock it using the thumbprint on the glass. I wipe the glass clean with the sleeve of my robe, erasing any trace of my presence. I slip out of the study and back into the master bedroom.
He is still asleep, a beautiful, peaceful monster in a sea of white sheets.
The man who has been obsessed with me my entire life.
The man who has murdered at least four people that I know of.
The man who would, without a moment's hesitation, add me to the collection of files in his desk if I ever gave him a reason to.
I have a choice between a quick death and a long life. And I have made my choice. Now, all I have to do is survive it.