14. Jayson
JAYSON
I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.
I move back toward the cellar again, where Keira sits, blankets bunched around her like armor, back pressed to the wall like she’s trying to become part of it.
I don’t blame her. Her prison isn’t much.
It’s cold stone with an old bench seat I dragged in from the attic.
Bare bulbs and shadows. It looks more like a medieval punishment chamber than anything meant for a girl like her.
And yet, here she is. Wrapped in layers like I’m the one she needs protection from. Because maybe I am.
I stand at the top of the stairs for endless seconds, food in hand. Just watching. She hasn’t seen me yet. Her head’s bowed, fingers fidgeting in her lap like she’s unraveling herself thread by thread.
She’s been quiet for the most part since I brought her back here.
Which is understandable. But what rattles me most is that she hasn’t screamed or begged me to let her go.
She’s just worn that stony, indifferent silence that gets under your skin and makes you feel like you’re the villain in your own goddamn story .
I finally descend the stairs, my boots heavy on each step. Her head lifts when I reach the bottom, eyes locked on mine, wary but calm. She doesn’t speak. Just stares, waiting.
I hold out the tray like it’s a peace offering. She doesn’t move.
“You have to eat something,” I mutter.
Still nothing. I open the cell and step inside.
“Grilled cheese. Soup. It’s hot,” I grunt, setting the tray down with more force than necessary.
She nods once, eyes flicking up just long enough to make my chest tighten in a way I don’t like. It looks like she’s cataloguing me the way I’ve been cataloguing her since I dragged her down here.
I shift, jaw grinding. “And…” I shove another folded blanket toward her. “It’s cold down here. You’ll need this.”
She blinks, slow. Then reaches out. Her fingers brush mine. It’s only the barest flicker of skin on skin, but it jolts through me like a live wire. Static. Sharp. Fuck.
I jerk my hand back like I’ve touched fire. I didn’t come down here for this. I didn’t come down to feel something.
I should leave. Shut the door. Lock it and walk away before the silence between us becomes something addictive. Instead, I drag the old wooden chair across the floor, the legs screeching against the stone. I flip it backward and straddle the chair, elbows resting on the back, the way I like to sit.
I don’t know how to do this. I’ve never kept a prisoner. Never sat across from a girl I should’ve put in the ground and asked myself why haven’t you?
I hate it.
Hate the confusion clawing through my gut every time she looks at me like she’s already figured out the ending, and I’m the one still stuck on page one.
She picks up the sandwich. Takes a bite. Chews slow .
Not a word. Which is good, because I don’t know what the fuck I’d say if she asked me what the plan was.
There isn ’ t a plan. Just the slow, brutal realization that I don’t want to hurt her. But I also can’t let her go, either. So I sit here, in the silence, pretending like the decision I made to keep her alive isn’t unraveling one thread at a time.
Then, out of nowhere, she asks, “When can I shower?”
The question confuses me more than I expect it to. And I don’t know how to answer. My jaw locks. I lean back in the chair. Scrub a hand down my face.
“You saw how that turned out last time.”
I don’t think she needs the reminder, but I put it out there anyway.
“I can’t very well escape again with this bad leg.”
“I’ll ask my grandmother to help you,” I tell her, my eyes drifting to her leg.
I could give her a stool to sit on, but really, I don’t think I trust that she won’t make the same stupid mistake again.
She’s foolish like that. “I have to warn you though, she may be old, but if you try anything, she’ll probably shoot you herself. ”
Her lips twitch. Just a flicker. Not quite a smile—but the closest thing I’ve seen to one since I made her a prisoner of mine.
It’s small. Brief. Gone before it can settle.
But it knocks something loose in my chest. For the first time, there’s emotion on her face that isn’t fear or that dead-eye resignation I’ve grown used to.
She leans back slightly, cradling the warm soup in her hands like it’s the first real comfort she’s been given in days. Maybe it is.
I don’t know why I speak next—maybe just to keep her in this moment a little longer.
“You look a little young for college,” I mutter, watching her out of the corner of my eye.
She hesitates, then sets the bowl down. “I’m nineteen. ”
Fuck.
The reminder hits me like a stray torpedo. She’s so young, and I’ve got her locked in a goddamn cellar. A breath rattles out of me before I can stop it.
“What are you studying?”
She gives me a flat look. “Psych. Minor in criminology.”
The irony isn’t lost on me. She’s studying how the mind of a criminal works—while sitting in a room built by one, locked away by another. And her father? He wasn’t just a criminal. He was the worst kind.
I watch her closely, and I can’t help but wonder— did she know ?
Did she ever catch glimpses of the decay beneath the polished veneer?
Did she ever question where the money came from?
What her father did to keep his kingdom intact?
Or was she just another casualty in his quest for power?
Another girl too close to the fire to see it burning until it was too late.
She finishes her soup. I hand her a napkin. She takes it without a word. And then I ask the question I’ve been circling around since the moment I found her in that hallway, eyes wide, blood on the bedspread behind me. The question she doesn’t seem to want to answer.
“It’s mid-term. Why did you come home?”
I don’t mean it to sound like an accusation.
But it lands like one anyway. Her whole body stiffens.
Shoulders tensing, spine straightening. Her fingers tighten around the tray like she’s bracing for something.
I have to know what made her come back. Why now?
What are the chances, she comes home the weekend her father is murdered?
“I needed a break.”
Lie. Her words spill forth too quickly. The kind of excuse you practice in your head before anyone even asks the question.
I lean forward, elbows resting on my knees. “You haven’t been home in months. Not even once. And then you show up on the one weekend you definitely weren’t supposed to be here. What brought you back? Why now?”
I let that hang there. Heavy. Ugly. True.
She doesn’t blink as she lifts her eyes and locks them on mine.
“What does it matter?”
“It matters.”
But she gives me nothing. Just that look—cool, unyielding. Like she’s daring me to push. Like she wants the fight, wants to see what I’ll do if she keeps playing silent. And for a breath, I almost give it to her.
Instead, I lean back and swallow her silence, let it burn on the way down. I file it away with the rest of the questions I’ve got stockpiled in my mind.
She’s hiding something. That much is obvious. And I’ll get it out of her. With patience. With presence. With the kind of quiet that unnerves people. The kind that peels you open without ever laying a hand on you.
She won’t see it coming. Because girls like her—they expect monsters to show their teeth.
Not to sit still and wait for the truth to bleed on its own.
And maybe I should want to break her. It’d be easier.
Cleaner. But I don’t. I want to understand her.
What makes her tick. What made her come home.
What keeps her so damn composed when everything in her world is falling apart.
And that? That might be the most dangerous instinct of all.
Her voice is still in my head as I climb the stairs.
That calm defiance. That flicker of mistrust she tried to bury beneath silence.
I should be thinking about logistics—food, surveillance, who else might know she was there that night—but all I can hear is her voice. All I can see is the tension in her shoulders when I asked why she came home.
She didn’t answer. But the silence said enough.
I pass the library, hoping to disappear into the dark somewhere and sit with the wreckage inside my own skull.
But my grandmother’s voice stops me.
“Jayson.”
I pause mid-step. Of course she’s waiting. Like always. Like she knows the exact moment the storm rolls back in.
I turn and find her perched in her favorite chair, spine straight, legs crossed like she’s the goddamn queen of this crumbling empire. Which she is. The fire beside her casts long shadows, cutting deep into the creases of her face. But her eyes—those don’t age. They’re still sharp and surgical.
“Come in,” she says, like it’s an order, not an invitation.
I step inside, jaw clenched.
“Is our guest comfortable?” she asks.
“She’s not a guest, she’s a loose end.”
“She’s a girl , Jayson.”
I grit my teeth. “A witness.”
She watches me like she’s dissecting my motives.
“And you, too, were once a witness,” she reminds me.
She leans forward, eyes narrowing. “You don’t get to keep living like you’re still at war.
The fighting’s over, Jayson. The man who made you leave this place is buried six feet under.
What exactly are you still punishing yourself for? ”
I look away. My hands curl into fists.
“I told you I’m not here to talk about the past,” I mutter.
Her laugh is low, bitter. “Aren’t you? You’ve been gone ten years, hiding from your own blood like it might infect you. You’d rather sulk in the shadows and pretend you’re nothing like him.”
“I’m not like him. ”
“You are him,” she snaps. “And you’re me. And every ruthless bastard that ever sat at the head of this family. But you don’t have to be like him to take your place.”
I shake my head. “You don’t get it.”
“No, you don’t get it,” she spits. “This house, this legacy, this family—it’s all slipping through my fingers because you’re too busy clinging to ghosts that already bled this place dry. Your father’s gone, Jayson. It’s time for you to step up and take your place.”
I swallow hard, but the lump in my throat won’t budge.
“You think I came back here because I care about this fucking house?” I say, voice low. “I came back because a job went sideways. Because a girl I wasn’t supposed to see was standing in a hallway she shouldn’t have been in.”
Her eyes soften. Slightly. But they don’t lose their grip.
“No, you came back because something in you wanted to,” she says. “Maybe it was guilt. Maybe it was your need for closure. But you’re back, and that’s the only thing that matters.”
She stands, slow. Crosses the room until she’s in front of me.
“You’re my only living blood,” she says, voice quieter now. “Everything your ancestors built—good and bad—is going to disappear if you don’t step up and decide what kind of man you want to be.”
“I’ve already made my decision,” I whisper.
“Have you?” she asks, tilting her head. “Because from where I’m standing, you’re still that boy in the hallway. The one who saw too much, felt too much, and never figured out what to do with it. You’re still that same boy, carrying all that grief and guilt.”
My chest tightens. I stare at the fire, not her. And all I can think of is Keira. Her silence. Her steel. Her eyes, haunted and haunting. It was like looking in a mirror and seeing my own reflection. What are you hiding, Keira Bishop ?
My grandmother sighs, then lays a hand on my shoulder. Warm. Steady. The way she used to hold me when I was a child.
“You don’t have to be your father, Jayson. But you do have to be someone. Decide who that is. Before someone else does it for you.”
And then she’s gone. Back into the shadows. Back into the bones of this house that never let go of anything without a fight.
I stay behind, alone. Burning. Bleeding. Trying not to hear that voice again—the one that keeps echoing from the basement floor.