Chapter 25
The world narrows to the space between me and Jasper, and the gun in his father’s hand. My entire existence has been condensed into this single, brutal fact: he is shielding me.
"Alistair," Jasper's voice cuts through the charged silence. It’s not a request; it’s a command, laced with the same feral authority he just used on his father.
The rail-thin butler materializes in the doorway as if summoned from the shadows themselves. His face is a perfect, placid mask, revealing nothing. He could be witnessing a business negotiation or a murder, and his expression would remain unchanged.
"Take Ms. Sutton to my rooms," Jasper orders, his gaze still locked on Corvus. "See that she is not disturbed."
"Yes, Mr. Jasper."
Alistair’s cool, dry hand touches my elbow.
The contact is so unexpected, so devoid of emotion, that it’s what finally breaks my paralysis.
He gently but firmly guides me out of the room.
I stumble, my legs feeling like disconnected stilts.
I don't look back. I can't. The image of the gun, of Jasper's defiant stance, is burned onto the backs of my eyelids.
The heavy office door clicks shut behind us, and the sound is as final as a tomb being sealed.
We walk back down the long, echoing hallway.
The portraits of the long-dead Sinclairs seem to sneer at me now, their painted eyes filled with accusation and contempt.
I am an impurity in their hallowed halls.
The silence of the house is no longer just quiet; it’s a predatory stillness, waiting to devour any sound.
Will there be a gunshot?
The thought is a lightning strike in my brain.
I strain my ears, listening for a shout, a struggle, a muffled pop.
But there is nothing but the soft tread of Alistair’s shoes on the marble and the frantic, unsteady click of my own heels.
My entire body is a listening device, every nerve ending straining for a signal of the violence I know is unfolding behind that closed door.
Alistair leads me up a grand, sweeping staircase, the dark wood so polished it gleams like oil.
We traverse another hallway on the second floor, this one carpeted in a thick, blood-red runner that swallows the sound of our footsteps.
He stops at a door at the far end of the wing, opens it, and gestures for me to enter.
"Mr. Jasper's suite," he says, his voice as dry as dust. "Please let me know if you require anything."
It’s an absurd offer of hospitality in the middle of a waking nightmare. I step inside without a word, and he pulls the door closed, the latch clicking with quiet, definitive finality. I am a prisoner.
The room—or rather, rooms, as it’s a full suite—is a reflection of the man himself.
It is vast, minimalist, and brutally elegant.
The color palette is a stark landscape of charcoal, black, and cream.
A massive bed with a severe, dark wood headboard dominates the main room, its white duvet pulled taut with military precision.
There are no personal photographs. No clutter.
No sign of a life lived, only a life controlled.
A set of floor-to-ceiling windows offers a panoramic view of the desolate, endless fields under the gray, unforgiving sky.
I walk on unsteady legs to the center of the room, my arms wrapped around myself as if to hold my splintering psyche together. The silence here is different. It's deeper. More absolute.
Is it soundproof?
The thought sends a fresh wave of ice-cold dread through me.
Of course it is. A house like this, a family like this—it would be built to contain its own screams. I could be a hundred feet away from a murder, and I would never hear a thing.
The not-knowing is a unique and exquisite form of torture.
I am suspended in a state of pure, unadulterated terror, with no information to ground me.
Is Jasper alive? Is he fighting for me? Is he dead?
Did he give in? Did he offer me up as a sacrifice to appease his father?
My mind conjures a dozen different scenarios, each more horrific than the last. I see Corvus pulling the trigger. I see Jasper's body slumping to the floor. I see his father handing the still-warm gun to Alistair, instructing him to "take care of that," and I know he means me.
I pace the length of the room like a caged animal.
From the windows to the door, back and forth, a path of pure fear.
An hour passes. Or maybe it’s a minute. Time has lost all meaning.
It is measured only in the frantic thudding of my own heart.
I press my ear against the thick, solid wood of the door, straining to hear something, anything.
I hear nothing. Just the frantic, high-pitched ringing in my own ears.
I was called an asset. A whore. A liability.
And in that cold, cruel office, for the first time, I saw my own value through their eyes.
I am not a person. I am a commodity. A thing to be acquired, used, and, when my utility wanes or my risk becomes too great, liquidated.
Jasper didn't stand in front of me to protect Olivia Sutton, the woman.
He stood in front of that gun to protect his property.
A prized possession he was not yet ready to part with.
The thought is a shard of glass in my gut. Is that all I am? After everything? After the choices I've made, the lines I've crossed, the piece of my soul I have irrevocably given him?
I stop pacing and sink onto the edge of the perfectly made bed.
The fabric is cool and impersonal against my skin.
I stare at my own reflection in the dark glass of the windows.
I see a ghost. A pale, terrified woman in a designer suit that feels like a costume.
The idealistic public defender who wanted to fight for justice is so long dead she might as well be a myth.
In her place is this hollow, trembling thing, waiting to find out if her owner won the right to keep her.
I don’t know how much time has passed when I hear it.
A sound.
The faint, metallic turn of the doorknob.
My breath catches in my throat. My heart seizes.
Every muscle in my body locks, preparing for the final verdict.
I am too scared to turn, too scared to see who stands in that doorway.
Is it Alistair, his face impassive, come to escort me to my own execution?
Is it Corvus, the gun still in his hand, ready to finish the job himself?
The door swings open.
I force my head to turn, a slow, creaking movement, my neck muscles screaming in protest.
It’s Jasper.
Relief crashes through me with the force of a physical blow, so potent and overwhelming it leaves me dizzy, gasping. He’s alive. He’s standing. He’s here.
But the relief is immediately chased away by a fresh spike of fear as he steps fully into the room and the light catches him.
He’s a wreck.
A thin line of blood traces a path from a fresh split in his lower lip down his chin.
A dark, angry red stain blossoms on the shoulder of his pristine white shirt, just below the collar.
He moves with a stiffness, a pained rigidity that wasn't there before. He met his father’s monstrous rage not with words, but with fists.
And from the looks of it, it was a brutal, bloody affair.
He closes the door behind him and leans against it for a moment, his eyes closed. He looks utterly exhausted, drained to the bone.
The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them, a raw, horrified whisper.
"Are you okay?"
His eyes snap open. They are glacial. Colder and harder than I have ever seen them. It pins me in place. It silences me more effectively than a hand over my mouth. The unspoken message is crystal clear. I am not your concern. You are mine. Do not ask me questions I have no intention of answering.
The words die in my throat. I swallow them down, the concern turning to ash on my tongue.
“We’re having dinner with my father in half an hour,” he says, his voice rough, scraped raw. He pushes himself off the door and walks toward the closet, his movements measured, deliberate, as if controlling a great deal of pain.
He pulls off his jacket, tossing it onto a chair. Then he begins to unbutton his shirt. The bloodstain is stark against the white fabric. As he shrugs it off, I see the price of my life printed on his skin.
A constellation of fresh, ugly bruises is blooming across his ribs and torso.
Deep, violent purples and angry reds. One particularly nasty one is swelling high on his cheekbone, a dark counterpoint to his split lip.
The fight wasn't a scuffle. It was a savage, unrestrained brawl. He took a beating. For me.
He doesn’t look at me as he goes into the enormous walk-in closet, emerging a moment later with a fresh shirt of dark, charcoal grey silk. He puts it on, his movements still stiff, and begins to button it.
I just sit there on the edge of the bed, silent and still.
The dining room is another exercise in cavernous, gothic intimidation.
The table is a long, dark slab of polished mahogany that could easily seat thirty.
We are three. Corvus sits at the head, a king on his throne.
Jasper takes the seat to his right. I am placed to Jasper’s left, directly under the cold, assessing gaze of his father.
Alistair and another silent, uniformed staff member serve the meal with the quiet, ghostly efficiency of morticians preparing a body. The clink of silver on porcelain is unnervingly loud in the heavy silence.
I noticed it the moment he entered the room.
Corvus Sinclair did not walk away from his confrontation with his son unscathed.
He has a pronounced limp, favoring his right leg.
There’s a small, precise nick above his left eyebrow, meticulously cleaned but still stark against his pale skin. Jasper fought back. Hard.
“The markets in Asia are volatile,” Corvus says, cutting into a piece of roasted duck with surgical precision. His voice is calm, conversational, as if he hadn’t been pointing a gun at my head less than two hours ago. “The instability in Hong Kong is making our investors nervous.”
“It’s a calculated risk,” Jasper replies, his own voice a low, even murmur. He takes a sip of his wine. “The potential for return outweighs the temporary unrest. We’re insulated.”
They talk about business. About mergers and acquisitions, about hostile takeovers and emerging markets.
They speak a language of power and profit, a casual, amoral dialogue about the movement of billions of dollars as if they were discussing the weather.
The sheer, banal normalcy of it is more terrifying than any shouting match would be.
I am a ghost at this table. I keep my eyes on my plate.
I eat, even though the food tastes like ash in my mouth.
I lift my fork, I chew, I swallow. I perform the motions of a living person, but inside, I am frozen solid.
I am acutely aware of Corvus’s eyes on me.
He watches me intermittently, his gaze a cold, physical weight.
He is assessing me, still. Trying to see what his son sees. Trying to calculate my value.
I am terrified of doing the wrong thing.
Of speaking out of turn. Of using the wrong fork.
Of breathing too loudly. Every move I make is calculated, minimized.
I am trying to become invisible, to prove that I am not a threat, that I am nothing more than a quiet, obedient decoration at his son’s side.
Halfway through the main course, he speaks to me.
“Ms. Sutton.”
My head snaps up. My heart leaps into my throat, hammering against my ribs.
“Sir?” The word is a breathless whisper.
“Jasper tells me you graduated from Columbia,” he says, his tone mild, almost pleasant. But his eyes are like shards of ice. "An excellent school. Tell me, in all your studies of the law, did they ever teach you the difference between a calculated risk and a foolish one?"
The question is a trap. A perfectly crafted, silk-lined snare. He isn't asking about law school.
The room is utterly silent. Jasper’s hand rests on the table, a few inches from mine. I can feel the tension radiating from him. He is waiting to see how I will answer.
I take a small, steadying breath, meeting Corvus Sinclair's chilling gaze directly.
“They taught me,” I say, my voice quiet but clear, “that the most foolish risk of all is to bet against the house.”
I let the words hang in the air. I have declared my allegiance. I have stated, in no uncertain terms, that I know who holds the power, and I have no intention of challenging it.
A long, agonizing moment passes. Corvus stares at me, his face an unreadable mask. I can feel Jasper’s gaze on me, intense, analytical. I don’t dare look at him.
Then, the corner of Corvus Sinclair's mouth twitches. It is not a smile. A flicker of approval.
He picks up his wine glass.
“Indeed,” he says, and takes a slow, deliberate sip. The test is over.
For now. I may have passed, but I know, with a certainty that chills me to the soul, that I will be tested again. And again. And for the rest of my life I will have to keep giving the right answer.