Chapter 26
The rest of the weekend is a masterclass in psychological warfare conducted through silence.
No one raises a voice. No guns are drawn.
We eat three meals a day at that monstrous mahogany table, the three of us locked in civilized restraint while the echoes of a brutal, bloody fight linger in the air between us like gunpowder smoke.
I don’t sleep. Not really. I drift in a shallow, gray twilight of exhaustion, my body rigid, my ears straining against the profound silence of the house.
I jolt awake every hour, gasping for air that won’t come, my heart hammering against my ribs, convinced that this is the moment.
The moment Alistair glides into the room with a pillow to smother me in my sleep, or Corvus himself decides to finish the job he started in the study.
I see the barrel of the gun every time I close my eyes.
Jasper is a ghost beside me in the massive bed.
He sleeps, or pretends to, a dark, still shape under the sheets.
He offers no comfort. No words of reassurance.
No touch. The bruised, battered state of his body is the only evidence that he fought for me, but it feels less like a gesture of protection and more like a man refusing to relinquish a prized possession.
He won the argument. He got to keep his toy. He offers the toy no comfort.
When we finally leave on Sunday evening, the iron gates hissing shut behind us, a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding for forty-eight hours escapes my lips in a ragged, shuddering sigh.
I slump against the cool leather of the town car, the tension draining out of me, leaving behind a hollow, trembling exhaustion.
I am asleep before we hit the main highway, my head lolling against the cold glass of the window.
It is a dead, dreamless sleep, the sleep of a soldier coming off the front lines. It is an escape, not a rest.
We arrive back at the penthouse in the dead of night.
Jasper says nothing as we ride the elevator up in silence.
He walks into the apartment and immediately pours himself a whiskey.
He still hasn’t said a word to me. He does nothing to ease the terror that’s taken up permanent residence in my bones.
I stand by the floor-to-ceiling windows, looking out at the glittering, indifferent sprawl of Chicago. Down there, people are living their lives, bound by laws and morals and the mundane concerns of jobs and rent. Up here, in this gilded cage, there are no laws. There is only power.
And I realize, with a clarity so sharp it feels like a blade sliding between my ribs, that I have been given none. Not really.
The weekend wasn’t a reprieve. It was a demonstration.
Corvus Sinclair showed me exactly what I am to them: a problem to be managed.
A risk to be mitigated. A thing that could be, at any moment, erased.
Jasper fought for me, yes, but what happens next time?
What happens when the risk I represent finally outweighs my usefulness?
He didn’t fight his father out of love. He fought him out of pride.
Out of a refusal to be told what to do with his property.
I’ve been playing defense. From the very first day I met him, I have been reacting.
Responding to his moves. His manipulations.
His orders. I have been surviving, adapting, bending, and nearly breaking.
I have let him and his federal agent adversaries move me around the board like a goddamn pawn.
A pawn that has, through some miracle of circumstance, made it to the other side of the board, only to find herself surrounded by kings who still see her as disposable.
Fuck. That.
The thought is an explosion in my mind. A supernova of fury and defiance that burns away the last vestiges of my fear, leaving behind something cold, hard, and sharp.
I am not a pawn. I’m a fucking lawyer. I graduated from one of the best law schools in the country.
I am smart. I am ruthless when I need to be.
And for months, I have been sitting at the right hand of the devil, granted a private tour of hell.
I’ve seen the books. I’ve drafted the contracts.
I don’t just know where the bodies are buried; I drew the fucking map.
A shield is a temporary defense. A sword is a permanent solution. I have been acting like a shield, something for Jasper to hide behind when it suits him. It’s time I became a sword.
It’s time I stopped being a liability he has to protect and started being an asset he cannot afford to lose.
It’s time I started thinking like a Sinclair.
The plan forms in my mind over the next two days, a cold, intricate piece of legal machinery. It's audacious. It's dangerous. It's wildly unethical. It is, in short, perfect.
The Feds have one real weapon: the witness who is telling them Arthur Vance’s death was a murder.
That witness is corroborated by the terrified silence of the other three executives who were in that room.
Those three men are the loose threads that could unravel everything.
They are the weak point. I have to secure them.
Not by threatening their lives—that’s Jasper’s blunt, brutal method.
I have to bind them to us with something stronger than fear. I have to bind them with the law.
I spend a morning making four phone calls.
My voice is calm, professional, authoritative.
I call to schedule a mandatory, off-the-record briefing regarding the ongoing federal investigation.
I give them a time and a place. The Rhapsody Lounge, a private room called The Nocturne.
Tonight. Attendance is not optional. I can hear the fear in their voices, the panicked acquiescence. They will be there.
I don’t tell Jasper.
This is my move. My play. My declaration of independence. If it works, it solidifies my power. If it fails… Well. Failure is not an option.
That night, I am the first to arrive at The Nocturne. It’s a small, opulent space, all dark velvet, polished mahogany, and low, intimate lighting.
I choose a chair at the head of the small, round table. I am not a guest here. I am the host. I am in control.
Before I take my seat at the head of the round table, I retrieve a small, matte-black box from the inner pocket of my purse—a "welcome to the firm" gift from Jasper I'd never had occasion to use until now.
The device is no bigger than a deck of cards, with no lights or markings. It’s a professional-grade audio jammer. Paranoia is a survival trait in this world; a lesson I learned at the foot of a master.
I peel the backing from a small adhesive strip and press the box to the underside of the heavy mahogany table, right in the center.
It clings there, invisible unless someone were to crawl on the floor looking for it.
A faint, almost imperceptible click is the only sound it makes as I activate it with a press of a recessed button.
It emits no noise, but I know it's flooding the room with a blanket of low-frequency static, a wall of white noise completely inaudible to the human ear but fatal to any digital microphone within twenty feet.
Any recording made on a phone or a covert device will be nothing but useless, buzzing hiss.
I take my seat.
They trickle in one by one, three men in expensive suits that can’t hide the scent of their terror.
Morrison, Chao, and Peterson. They look like ghosts, their faces pale and drawn, their eyes haunted by what they saw in that boardroom.
They were once titans of industry. Now they are just witnesses.
Pawns. They avoid my eyes, taking seats as far from me as possible, looking for all the world like students summoned to the principal's office.
I let the silence hang in the air for a full minute after the last one arrives, a heavy, suffocating blanket. I let them stew in their fear.
Finally, I speak. My voice is quiet, but it cuts through the silence like a scalpel.
“Thank you for coming.” I don’t smile. “I’m sure you’re all aware that the Department of Justice believes Arthur Vance was murdered. They believe this because one of your former colleagues has told them a story. A very dangerous, and very foolish, story.”
I let that sink in. I see them exchange nervous glances.
“The problem with this story,” I continue, leaning forward slightly, my hands folded on the table, “is that it will be his word against yours. All three of yours. An uncorroborated accusation from a disgruntled employee facing his own legal troubles is a weak foundation on which to build a federal case.”
Morrison, the oldest of the three, finally finds his voice. “What do you want?”
I offer them the first real smile I have felt in weeks. It is cold. It is predatory. It is all teeth.
“I want to offer you a better story. A true story,” I lie smoothly. “And a deal.”
I pause, holding their gazes, one by one. I have their complete, undivided attention.
“Here is what happened,” I say, my voice dropping into a conspiratorial hush.
“You were all in a contentious, high-stakes negotiation with Mr. Vance. It became heated. The stress was immense. Tragically, Mr. Vance, a man of advanced age and poor health, suffered a massive coronary event. A heart attack. He died, right there in the boardroom. In the ensuing panic, a terrible decision was made. A decision to stage the scene as a car accident. Not to cover up a crime, but to protect the company. To prevent a catastrophic stock collapse before the Meridian deal was finalized.”
I watch their faces as the fiction settles over them.
I see the flicker of understanding, the dawning horror, the terrified calculation in their eyes.
I'm offering them a lie that is almost believable.
A lie that turns them from witnesses to a murder into participants in a cover-up. A lesser crime. A survivable crime.