Chapter 26 #3
“Thank you for coming,” he breathes as I slide into the booth opposite him, audio jammer already at work. I’m not going to risk anything I could say to be used against me later.
I give a curt nod. “You said you wanted to talk, David. So talk.”
He lays it all out. The FBI has leverage on him—some old insider trading charge they’re willing to make disappear.
They’re offering him and his family placement in the Witness Protection Program.
A new life, a clean slate. All he has to do is tell them the truth about Arthur Vance’s death. He has to give them Jasper.
“I can’t do it,” he whispers, but his eyes tell me he already has. He’s just here to negotiate the terms of his betrayal. “My wife… my kids… I can’t put them through that. But I can’t go to prison either.”
He leans forward, his eyes pleading. This is the real pitch.
“They said the deal could extend to you,” he says, his voice a low, conspiratorial murmur.
“You could come with us. Testify too. They know he coerced you. You’re a victim here, just like the rest of us.
We can walk away from all of this, Olivia.
Get out while you still can. Before you're in too deep.”
Too deep. The phrase is almost laughable. I am the fucking abyss.
I listen. I nod. I project an aura of thoughtful consideration. I am performing the role of a woman weighing her options. I even take a small notebook and a pen from my purse.
“And the immunity would be comprehensive?” I ask, my voice clinical, professional. “It would cover any and all actions taken while under the employ of Wolfe Acquisitions?”
“Everything,” he says, relief flooding his face.
He mistakes my line of questioning for genuine interest. He thinks I’m like him.
A cornered animal looking for an escape hatch.
“They just want Jasper. With both of us testifying to what we saw, they’ll have him.
He’ll never see the outside of a prison cell again. ”
I make a few notes. I ask about the logistics of the WITSEC program. I ask about asset protection. I am a lawyer conducting due diligence. I am a snake, coiling, assessing, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
After twenty minutes of this, I close my notebook. I offer him a small, tight smile.
“Thank you, David. You’ve given me a lot to consider.” I slide out of the booth. “Excuse me for a moment. I need to use the restroom.”
He nods, a hopeful, desperate look in his eyes.
I don’t go to the restroom.
I walk past the hostess stand, through the heavy glass doors, and out into the crisp autumn air.
The noises of the city—the traffic, the distant sirens, the chatter of pedestrians—are a world away from the sealed tomb of the penthouse.
I find a quiet alcove between two buildings. I pull out my phone.
My first instinct is to call Jasper. To tell him about the betrayal.
But he’s unreachable. That was his choice.
Now I will make mine.
My thumb hovers over his name in my contacts list, then scrolls past it. I find the number I’m looking for. A number I have never called before, but one I added to my phone months ago, for a contingency I never thought I would have to execute myself.
Katherine. Jasper’s executive assistant. The polite, ruthlessly efficient woman who schedules his appointments, manages his travel, and coordinates his cleanup crews.
She answers on the first ring. “Yes?”
Her voice is cool, sterile, devoid of any emotion.
“Katherine, it’s Olivia Sutton.”
There is a beat of silence. I can almost hear the gears turning in her hyper-efficient brain.
“We have a problem at The Mid-City Grill,” I say, my voice as steady and cold as a surgeon’s scalpel. “Table 14. The name is David Morrison.”
I pause, letting the unsaid words fill the space between us. I am not asking for advice. I am issuing a directive. I am assuming an authority I have no right to claim.
There is no hesitation on the other end of the line. No clarifying questions. No shock. Just a crisp, professional acknowledgment.
“Understood.”
The line clicks dead.
I stand in the alley for a moment, the phone heavy in my hand. My heart is not racing. My hands are not shaking. I feel a profound and terrifying calm. A hollow certainty. I have just signed a man’s death warrant.
I walk back into the restaurant. I slide back into the booth. Morrison looks up at me, a hopeful question in his eyes.
“Everything alright?” he asks.
“Perfectly,” I say, picking up my wine glass. “So, you were telling me about your son’s soccer team? Are they having a good season?”
We make small talk for another twenty minutes.
He shows me pictures of his family on his phone.
A smiling wife. Two gap-toothed children.
He talks about their upcoming vacation to Hawaii.
I listen. I smile. I ask questions. I am a monster wearing the skin of a normal person, and he is too terrified to see the difference.
His phone buzzes on the table. He glances at it, a flicker of annoyance crossing his face. “Sorry, I have to take this. It’s my wife.”
He excuses himself from the table. “I’ll be right back.”
He doesn’t come back.
I wait. I finish my wine, a deep, blood-red Cabernet. I watch the other patrons laugh and talk. I check the time. Ten minutes pass. I know, with an absolute and chilling certainty, that I will never see David Morrison again.
I signal the waiter, pay the check—in cash—and leave.
The next morning, I am drinking coffee in the silent penthouse when the headline scrolls across the bottom of the financial news network.
MERIDIAN CFO DAVID MORRISON DEAD AT 54.
I turn up the volume. The news anchor reports the story with a practiced, somber expression.
A tragic, unexpected death. Mr. Morrison was found in a downtown hotel room.
An apparent heart attack. Preliminary reports from the coroner’s office suggest a previously undiagnosed congenital heart condition.
So tragic. A wife and two children are left behind.
I watch, and I feel nothing.
No guilt. No remorse. No fear. Just a cold, clean, quiet satisfaction. I identified a problem and handled it.
Jasper returns two days later.
He doesn’t call. He doesn’t text. He simply appears, using his key to let himself into the penthouse just after dusk. I’m in his study, sitting in his chair, behind his desk, reviewing acquisition contracts for a new shell corporation.
I hear him walk down the hall. I don't look up. I continue making notes in the margins of a document, my pen scratching softly in the quiet room.
He stops in the doorway. I can feel the weight of his presence, the intensity of his gaze on me.
He stands there for a long time, just watching me.
I know Katherine has already briefed him.
He knows what I did. He knows the call I made.
He knows I solved the problem of David Morrison without so much as a tremor.
Finally, I finish my note. I cap my pen. I look up.
Our eyes meet across the expanse of the room. His face is unreadable, a mask of controlled neutrality, but his eyes are dark, searching, trying to understand the woman sitting in his chair.
“You killed him,” he says.
His voice is flat. It is not an accusation. It is not a judgment. It is an observation. A statement of fact.
I don’t flinch. I don’t look away. I hold his gaze.
“I protected us,” I correct him, my own voice quiet, steady, and utterly unshakable. I lean back in his chair. “Isn’t that what partners do?”
The word hangs in the air between us, charged and heavy with the weight of everything that has happened. Partner. It’s a challenge.
A redefinition of our entire twisted world.
He is silent for a long, charged moment. The city lights twinkle behind him, casting him in silhouette. I can’t read his expression. I can’t tell if he is furious, or impressed, or terrified.
Then, he moves.
He crosses the room, his footsteps silent on the thick, expensive rug. He doesn’t stop until he is standing directly in front of the desk, looking down at me. For a terrifying second, I think he might strike me. That this final transgression is the one that will finally push him over the edge.
But he doesn’t.
Instead, he reaches down, his movements slow, deliberate. He cups my face in his hands. His palms are warm against my skin, his calloused thumbs tracing the line of my jaw with a strange, almost reverent gentleness.
He says nothing. He just looks at me.