CHAPTER 3 THE GHOST IN THE GLASS POV SYBIL #2
I grab a bar of soap—it smells exactly like Thayer, cedar and dark musk—and scrub my skin until it is flushed and raw.
I scrub at the bruising pressure points on my arms where my father grabbed me.
I scrub at the invisible fingerprints Thayer left on my jawline.
But no matter how hard I press, I can still feel the ghost of his touch burning into my nerve endings.
I lean my forehead against the wet glass of the shower wall, the hot water cascading over my shaking shoulders, and finally, the dam breaks.
I cry. I sob until my throat is entirely raw, the sound muffled by the roar of the water.
I cry for the childhood I never had, for the mother who died before she could protect me, and for the absolute, inescapable finality of my situation.
I am entirely alone in a fortress in the sky, legally bound to a monster who makes my blood freeze and my pulse race in the exact same breath.
When the tears finally run dry, leaving me hollowed out and completely numb, I turn off the water. The silence that rushes back into the bathroom is oppressive.
I step out of the shower, wrapping a massive, impossibly soft black towel around my body. I wipe the steam from the massive vanity mirror.
The girl looking back at me is entirely unrecognizable from the polished bride who walked down the aisle an hour ago.
My eyes are bloodshot and swollen, the bruised crimson lipstick completely washed away, leaving my lips pale and trembling.
My wet hair clings to my shoulders like dark ink. I look feral. Hunted.
I secure the towel over my breasts and step out of the bathroom, back into the cavernous master bedroom. Thayer is not there. The silence in the penthouse suggests I am entirely alone in this wing of the fortress.
A heavy, dark oak door stands slightly ajar to my left. A walk-in closet.
I step inside, the thick carpet muffling my bare footsteps.
The closet is larger than my entire bedroom at my father's estate. The left side is a meticulously organized arsenal of Thayer’s life.
Rows of bespoke charcoal, navy, and black suits.
Drawers of expensive watches. Perfectly polished Italian leather shoes.
It smells intensely of him, a concentrated hit of danger and power that makes my stomach execute a nervous flip.
I turn to the right side of the closet, expecting it to be completely empty.
I freeze.
The air leaves my lungs in a sharp, painful rush. My hands fly up to cover my mouth, muffling the sudden, involuntary gasp of pure shock.
The right side of the closet is not empty. It is entirely full.
Row after row of hangers hold dresses, silk blouses, cashmere sweaters, and heavy winter coats. There are drawers filled with delicate, expensive lingerie. Shelves displaying perfectly aligned rows of boots, heels, and flats.
Slowly, feeling like I am trapped in a surreal, waking nightmare, I step closer. I reach out with a trembling hand and touch the sleeve of a heavy, cream-colored cashmere sweater. It is exactly my size.
I look at the dresses. They are all in dark, muted tones—midnight blues, deep emeralds, and stark blacks. The exact colors I have always favored, the colors my father hated because he preferred me in "innocent" pastels to maintain his illusion of a perfect, pure daughter.
My heart begins to hammer a frantic, bruised rhythm against my sternum. The panic returns, colder and sharper this time.
I pull open one of the velvet-lined drawers.
Inside, neatly folded, are sets of silk pajamas.
They aren't generic. They are from a specific, incredibly niche French boutique that I had admired in a magazine years ago but could never afford, as my father restricted my allowance to feed his gambling addiction.
He didn't just buy clothes for a generic wife. He bought these specifically for me.
My eyes dart frantically around the closet. At the very back, nestled between a row of winter coats, is a heavy, dark wood island with a glass display top. The top drawer is pulled out a fraction of an inch, as if someone had been looking inside recently and forgotten to push it completely shut.
My bare feet move entirely on their own accord. I approach the island, a sickening sense of dread pooling heavy and cold in my stomach. The air feels too thin. The silence in the room is screaming at me to run, to turn around and hide under the bed, to pretend I never saw this.
I hook my index finger around the brass handle of the drawer and pull it open.
The breath is completely punched out of my lungs.
Inside the drawer, neatly organized, are thick, manila folders. But it’s not the folders that make the blood drain from my face. It’s the photographs scattered across the top of them.
I reach in, my hand shaking so violently I almost drop the glossy paper.
It is a photograph of me. I am sitting on a stone bench in the courtyard of my private high school.
I am wearing my uniform, my head bent over a textbook, a solitary figure completely isolated from the other students.
I look to be about fifteen in the picture.
The photo was taken from a distance, likely through a telephoto lens, capturing a moment I thought I was entirely alone.
I drop the picture as if it burns. I grab the next one.
It’s me walking out of a local library in the rain, clutching a canvas tote bag to my chest. I am seventeen.
Another photo. Me looking out of my bedroom window at the Vance estate, staring blankly into the night. Taken from the treeline past the perimeter gates.
"Oh my God," I whisper, the sound utterly shattered.
He has been watching me. Not just keeping tabs on my father’s debt. He has been actively, obsessively tracking my every move. For years.
I blindly reach into the drawer and pull out one of the manila folders. I flip it open. The black text on the white paper blurs before my panicked eyes, but the header is terrifyingly clear. It is a medical dossier.
It contains the exact dates of the panic attacks I suffered when I was fourteen. It contains the notes from the private, discreet therapist my father hired to "fix me" so I wouldn't embarrass him in public. It details my severe aversion to touch. My claustrophobia. My insomnia.
Thayer Thorne didn't just buy my father's debt. He mapped my trauma. He catalogued my fears. He built a psychological profile of a broken girl, tailored this gilded cage to fit my exact dimensions, and patiently waited for the trap to snap shut.
“And when she turns eighteen, I take the girl.”
The realization hits me with the force of a freight train. My father didn't trade me today to save his life. This marriage was never a desperate, last-minute negotiation.
This was the design all along.
A cold, terrifying shadow falls over the threshold of the closet door, blocking the light from the bedroom.
I freeze, the medical dossier slipping from my numb fingers to hit the carpeted floor with a soft slap. The tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention. The air in the closet instantly turns suffocating, thick with the scent of cedar and impending doom.
I don't have to turn around to know he is there. I can feel the overwhelming, gravitational pull of his presence.
"I see you found your wardrobe, Sybil," Thayer's dark, velvet voice slides through the silence, vibrating against my spine like a physical caress.
I slowly turn my head, clutching the towel to my chest, my wide, terrified eyes locking onto his tall, imposing frame leaning casually against the doorframe.
He has discarded his suit jacket and tie.
His white dress shirt is unbuttoned at the collar, the sleeves rolled up to expose the heavy, dark ink of Syndicate tattoos wrapping around his muscular forearms.
He isn't looking at the clothes. He is looking at the scattered photographs and the medical file at my feet.
There is no guilt in his glacial gray eyes. No embarrassment at being caught invading every private, sacred corner of my life.
There is only the cold, absolute certainty of a predator who has cornered his prey.
"You stalked me," I whisper, my voice trembling with a mixture of profound violation and absolute terror. "You've been watching me for years."
Thayer tilts his head slightly, the cruel, devastating curve of a smile playing at the corner of his lips. He pushes off the doorframe and takes a slow, measured step into the closet, invading my space until I am forced to step backward, my spine hitting the heavy wooden island.
"I don't stalk, little bird," he murmurs, his large hand coming up to gently, terrifyingly tuck a wet strand of hair behind my ear. His fingers linger on the pulse pounding frantically at my throat. "I simply keep a very close eye on my investments. And you are the most expensive thing I own."