9. Jayson
JAYSON
S he says it like a challenge. Like daring to ask for a shower is an act of defiance. Maybe it is.
“When can I shower?”
She doesn’t wait for me to answer. Just looks down at herself, lips pressed tight in revulsion. Her clothes are wrecked—stiff with dried mud, clinging in all the wrong places. The fabric’s so filthy it’s darkened two shades, hugging her like the aftermath of everything I did.
The scent hits me before I can look away—earth, sweat, fear. Not foul. Just raw. Human. Real in a way I haven’t felt in years. She’s just standing there, broken and proud in the same breath, asking me for a shred of decency.
“I feel like I’ve been buried alive,” she mutters.
And fuck if that doesn’t do something to me.
I just watch her. Mud streaks her cheek, dried in patterns that look almost ceremonial.
Her jaw’s tight, but there’s a flicker of vulnerability under it.
It’s not weakness, but something that makes my pulse tick faster.
She’s trying to hold on to the last scrap of control she has—by asking me for water and heat like it’s not a damn gift I get to grant her .
My jaw clenches. My fingers curl.
I say nothing.
Because if I open my mouth, I’ll either agree—or offer to strip her down and carry her to the tub myself. And I don’t know which version would terrify her more.
Or me.
So I just stare. Too long. Long enough that she shifts her weight, folding her arms across her chest like armor.
“I’ll arrange it,” I say finally, my voice low.
She blinks but doesn’t thank me as I turn to leave. I have to get out of here before I forget who the fuck I am and burn the rest of my self-control trying to wash her sins off for her.
The cellar door clicks shut behind me, sealing her in—sealing me out—and for a moment I just stand there, palm still on the knob, breathing the stone-cold air like it might slap some sense back into my skull.
Shower, she’d said. A simple thing. But nothing’s simple here.
I climb the servants’ staircase—narrow steps worn smooth by ghosts of maids long buried. Every tread pops a memory: my father’s boots, my own smaller feet scrambling to keep up. Kill the witness, Jayson. His mantra. Loose ends strangle kings.
Keira Bishop is a loose end knotted around my throat.
At the landing I turn left, toward the guest wing. Dust curls in the morning light as I shoulder open the cedar wardrobe, dig past old hunting jackets until I find something small enough for her to wear. A black hoodie, charcoal joggers, thick socks.
I hesitate at the dresser. The top drawer is nothing but neatly folded undershirts. The second drawer… lingerie. Not mine—leftover from a woman who thought she could save me. Crimson lace catches on my knuckle. I jerk back, slam the drawer shut, reminding myself to empty out the dresser.
For a split second I’m nineteen again—standing ankle-deep in winter light at the top of this hallway, hardwood slick with arterial spray.
Father peels off his gloves the way some men do opera tickets—slow, deliberate, savoring the ripple of leather.
He wipes each finger against a silk handkerchief already marbled red.
A pistol still smolders in his other hand; the tang of cordite threads through the heavier scent of his cologne—oud and bergamot, expensive enough to mask gunpowder, but not guilt.
The body lies five paces away, crumpled against the wainscoting where the first shot spun him.
Eyes open, mouth slack, blood crawling across grout like spilled wine looking for a drain.
My pulse slams so hard I taste copper, but Father just straightens his cuff links, as bored as if he’d flicked ash from a cigar.
“Remember this, Jayson,” he says, voice calm, almost gentle. “Witnesses aren’t people. They’re problems. You remove problems.” He taps my chest with the barrel of the gun—a cold, oily kiss that bruises even through my coat. “And you do it quick and clean.”
I nod like the dutiful heir he’s spent nineteen years forging—stomach bucking, throat burning with the urge to vomit. I don’t flinch when he drags the corpse by the ankles, shoes sketching mute apologies across the tile. I don’t flinch, because heirs don’t flinch. They inherit.
Later that night, I scrubbed my hands raw in the service sink, choking on bleach fumes, vowing—teeth clenched, skin bleeding—that I would never set foot in this mausoleum again.
Yet here I am a decade later, back under its sagging roof—lodger in a room haunted by my own cowardice, jailer to a girl who saw too much, fool repeating the same devils’ catechism my father preached.
The hardwood hasn’t changed.
Neither, apparently, have I.
The en-suite at the end of the corridor still works; Nina does a good job of maintaining the place and keeps the pipes from freezing. I crank the ancient faucets. Water coughs, spits rust, then runs clear. Steam coats the cracked mirror.
I adjust the temperature—just shy of scalding. She’ll want heat in her bones.
I walk to the linen closet and remove two towels, thick as winter bark; a bar of sandalwood soap still wrapped in waxed paper; a small bottle of antiseptic. I tuck it all under one arm, clothes under the other.
Why do you care if she’s comfortable? That voice in my head rears its ugly head again, sardonic.
Because if I’m going to break her, I won’t do it while she’s dirty.
Turning back toward the stairs, I nearly collide with Nina. She’s a blade in velvet: silver hair twisted tight, an immaculate black dress, cane gripped like a command baton.
“Borrowing my towels?” she asks, one brow arched.
“For the girl,” I mutter.
“She has a name.”
I grit my teeth. “Keira.”
Nina’s gaze drifts to the bundle in my arms, then to my face, reading every crack in the facade. “Soap and sympathy won’t erase what she saw.”
“I’m not trying to erase it.” I just don’t want it festering.
“Good.” She taps the cane once, sharp. “Then remember: mercy given in small doses keeps a captive alive—but it also keeps you human. Don’t starve either half, Jayson.”
I swallow. “Is that wisdom or warning?”
“Both.” Her eyes soften a fraction—an eclipse of kindness. “And put a dressing on her ankle. Infection is a coward’s victory.”
She turns, gliding away before I can answer, cane clicking like a metronome counting down my redemption— or my ruin.
Keira’s hunched on the bench, knees to her chest, blanket clamped so tight her knuckles flash white through the grime. Sweat has dried to salt on her throat; the cut on her cheek’s gone sticky and black. She looks up when the lock snaps. Her pupils flare like an animal cornered in torch-light.
“The shower’s ready.” My voice grinds out of me, low and flinty. I swing the door wide, step inside, haul her to her feet. “Ten minutes. That’s all you get.”
She nods—no back-talk, no glare—but her pulse hammers in the hollow of her throat, a frantic beat counting down to something neither of us can name.
I steer her down the corridor, my hand bracketed around her elbow. Heat jumps skin-to-skin—raw, electric—and every brush of her shoulder sparks through me like exposed wiring. She’s limp-light on the injured ankle, but she never asks me to slow.
Up the narrow service stairs: dust motes spiral in the weak light, each breath clogged with old cedar and tired memories. The house groans overhead, pipes clanking like distant chains. By the time we reach the guest wing, my own heartbeat’s punching bruises behind my ribs.
The bathroom door yawns open, curling steam into the hall—humid, mineral, edged with sandalwood. She stalls on the threshold, eyes flicking from the tiles to the claw-foot tub to the clothes I left folded on the chair. She’s gauging traps; I’m gauging her.
“Clock starts now.” I shut the door behind her, and move away from the door.
Back against the wall, I close my eyes. Water explodes from the showerhead—first a spit, then a hard, rhythmic drum.
I picture it beating the mud off her skin, sluicing dirt and grime from the delicate lines of her collarbones.
Heat licks under the door, carrying notes of sandalwood soap that hooks in my lungs like smoke .
Loose thread, my father sneers from the grave. Cut it before it strangles you.
Mercy keeps you human, Nina counters, her cane cracking hardwood.
I breathe both voices, let them duel in the dark.
Nine minutes.
Eight.
My palms itch for gunmetal. My chest aches for something I can’t name. I wonder if hot water can scrub terror out of a body—or if the real stain is me, etched under her skin, permanent as gunshot residue.
Five minutes.
Four.
The pipes groan as the water continues to flow, breaking through the silence as it rushes in—thick, chemical, flammable. I count the heartbeats in the space between us, already knowing ten minutes won’t be enough to wash either of us clean.