CHAPTER FIFTEEN #2
He implements a brutal regime for Jules, one that extends far beyond schooling.
Every hour of the boy’s life becomes structured around improvement.
Posture training. Gesture control. Vocal coaching.
His diet is micromanaged down to the smallest detail while an unforgiving skincare routine is introduced alongside it.
Even his wardrobe is erased completely, every piece stripped away and replaced.
Threads are sewn into every third piece of new clothing.
Jules isn’t allowed any choice in what he wears anymore.
Even his pyjamas are selected for him. Protein disappears from his meals.
Sugar is banned outright. Electronic devices are completely forbidden, even television.
Alistair removes every one of Jules’ books and replaces them with his own curated selection, dense historical tomes so painfully dry Lachlan’s eyes itch just skimming the pages.
Alistair Penhalyx doesn’t stop there.
Jules is now forbidden from spending time with Mimi, even at meals.
He eats alone or with a tutor.
He’s confined to the house, too.
Forbidden from going outside in any capacity.
Alistair finds all the things Jules tried to hide in his bedroom when the East Wing was dismantled and he not only gets rid of all of it, but he assigns Jules a new bedroom outside the Cove, on the outer rings of the East Wing.
It marks the first time Lachlan has to object.
‘Sir, I formally request that you reconsider moving Julian so far from the core of the East Wing,’ he says respectfully when Penhalyx is done taking tea with several people who Lachlan didn’t have time to thoroughly vet, they landed hours ago without warning.
Lachlan waited until they were gone before he asked, of course.
He’s not that stupid.
Penhalyx leans back and cocks his head. ‘Why?’
‘It puts him in danger.’
‘This Estate is the safest place on earth to the point of ridicule. My son is secure no matter where he is, and you will make it so.’
‘Sir, if I may—’
‘You may not.’
And that’s that.
Lachlan trains harder each day, relishes the pain.
The first party of several is looming.
?
He and Fenwick plan for it in the Control Room.
This won’t be like the last party. They’ll have to adapt, do what they can.
It won’t be anywhere near as secure.
‘Where is he housing guests?’
‘South Wing.’
‘Will he let me post day guards to the entrance of the East Wing, do you think?’ he asks Fenwick, who simply shakes his head. ‘We have to prioritise,’ Lachlan says, itching to go punch something. ‘The kids have to be—’
‘Mikhail Sorrenko is staying for a month,’ Fenwick interrupts, taps the paper in the centre. ‘Sorrenko is also bringing both his sons, Roman and Vasily. Ariadne Alderwyck is bringing her daughter, Savannah. I’ve worked for Alderwyck before. She’s…’
‘What?’
‘Operational blue-on-blue,’ Fenwick answers, cleverly adapting military code for their needs. Lachlan takes it to mean she’s a massive fucking liability.
‘Great.’
‘It’s not ideal, I know.’
‘Not ideal? This is a nightmare situation. I can’t protect additional kids.’
‘They’re Julian’s age if that helps.’
It doesn’t. ‘This is fucking bullshit.’
‘Tanner.’
Lachlan’s heart lurches wildly, skips several beats, fists balled so tight his nails break the skin of his palm.
‘He’s putting them in danger on purpose as punishment.’
‘Take a breath,’ Fenwick says, forcing him to sit. ‘Stop talking.’
It’s good advice. Penhalyx hears everything, they all know it.
But Lachlan has never wanted to kill someone this badly.
The killer inside him hungers to end the life of Alistair Penhalyx and then steal those kids away forever.
Fenwick is kneeling before him which Lachlan would much rather not think about because he’s still doing everything he can to forget what he walked in on months ago, but he opens his eyes when he feels the movement of fingers.
Lachlan looks down, prepared to break Fenwick’s nose if he thinks they’re doing anything together again, but instead he finds Fenwick speaking in very basic sign language.
The one camera in this room is directly behind him.
‘Get yourself together,’ Fenwick says, meanwhile his hands say, If it comes down to it, ‘We can coordinate it if we bring new people in and have Carrigan vet them.’ and the eldest boy is put in danger, ‘I know it’s tough but you’re a professional.
’ …you should let him die. Fenwick rises to stand. ‘Act like it.’
?
Why Fenwick would want Lachlan to let one of Sorrenko’s sons die, he’ll never understand. For now, he puts it out of his mind and focuses on the children. He sees less of Jules than he ever has since signing the contract.
Mimi misses her big brother fiercely.
What little Lachlan does see of Jules worries him deeply.
He may not exactly like this pain in the ass kid, but he cares about him.
All the painstaking progress of this past year is cruelly undone.
Jules turns skinny, loses the light in his eyes, the fire.
He’s placid, submissive and joyless, dressed like a doll, styled like one. Completely controlled.
‘Has it ever been like this before?’ Lachlan asks Blaire one night when they find a scrap of time to eat together.
‘Clara told me when he was fourteen something similar happened but not on this scale,’ she answers, scrolling notifications on her tablet even while they eat. The work never ends in this place.
‘How are you doing?’
She looks up.
Blaire Montbelliard is a beautiful woman, but she’s tired like everyone is right now; worn down, worried, and anxious. He reads every inch of it.
‘I’m fine,’ she tells him, the standard answer, but Lachlan reaches across the table, gently puts his hand on hers and she allows it.
‘I couldn’t do any of this without you.’
Blaire gives a tiny smile. ‘Sap.’
‘You got me. When’s the last time you took a day off?’
‘I can’t remember.’
‘Tomorrow then. Go into the city, do something nice.’ Lachlan can’t think of what might be nice for someone like her, someone who works here under Alistair Penhalyx, but he tries anyway. ‘Bring me back a fairground cheeseburger or something.’
She laughs at that. ‘Nothing like a fairground cheeseburger.’
‘Damned right. I want the grease.’
‘The undercooked onions.’
‘Oh, fuck yeah. Make sure it’s stone cold too. Perfect.’
And when she does in fact bring him one, Lachlan keeps the wrapper. He folds it neatly, flattens the paper and puts it with the dried flower and that one photograph of a happy day that seems now so very far away.
?
It’s a wet, humid summer.
The rain comes like Penhalyx ordered it to further punish everyone, but it doesn’t stop Mimi from going out to her Wendy house where she has a radio stashed to communicate secretly with Mari.
Penhalyx’s attention is mostly on Jules, so Lachlan feels safe enough letting her go outside.
He wouldn’t deprive her of the nature she loves for anything less than an emergency.
‘Does Jewel not like me anymore?’ Mimi asks Lachlan one day, building a bird nest out of twigs, focused on her task.
Lachlan is helping. ‘He loves you, sweetheart.’
‘I tried to hug him, and he told me go away.’
‘It’s really hard for him right now,’ Lachlan explains carefully. ‘Jewel is very busy with his schoolwork. Once summer is over, it’ll be better.’
‘Is Farfar gonna be here for my birthday?’
‘I think so, yeah.’
Mimi sighs. ‘What about Bad Man?’
That’s Mason Fenwick. She never lost that first bad impression of him.
‘Yeah, he’ll be here, babygirl.’
She makes a gun with her fingers and points it at Lachlan before dropping her thumb with a questioning look. Bang bang. It’s the first time he seriously considers teaching her sign language, sensing instinctively that she’d take to it well.
‘No, babygirl,’ he tells her, kissing her hand in apology for not being able to kill the people she doesn’t like.
She accepts it and goes back to making her bird’s nest.
His little girl is learning how to brook disappointment.
And Lachlan fucking hates it.
?
The first party is a nightmare.
Guests refuse to stay contained in the ballroom, drifting through the Estate wherever they please while security scrambles to keep up.
There are breaches almost immediately. Staff-only areas wandered into.
People fucking in guest bedrooms, against expensive walls, across antique sofas worth more than Lachlan’s entire childhood home.
Drunk politicians stumble into restricted hallways.
Two male guests wander close enough to the East Wing for Carrigan to physically intercept.
The worst part is that Lachlan can’t oversee any of it personally, hears it through comms. He’s trapped in the ballroom with Jules and Mimi well past midnight because Alistair refuses to let Mimi leave early despite the fact that she’s exhausted and overwhelmed.
Every instinct in Lachlan’s body is pulling him elsewhere, towards the frequency in his ear, the mounting list of incidents.
There’s no winning no matter what Lachlan does, so he tries to walk a middle path, eyes on Jules, hands on Mimi, mind dealing with the incidents as they roll in through his earpiece.
Alistair’s styling transforms Jules into something closer to a prince than an eighteen-year-old boy. He isn’t dressed in a suit, so much as ceremonial wealth, dark embroidered silk threaded with gold, gems glittering at his throat and wrists every time he moves beneath the ballroom lights.
His smile never falters.
Lachlan watches him work the room for hours, greeting guests with perfect manners while people three times his age stare too long at his face, his voice, his body.
Jules handles it all beautifully, radiant and composed in a way that makes Lachlan’s skin crawl because none of it is optional.
Every gesture has been trained into him.
Every laugh carefully measured. Every expression managed beneath Alistair’s watchful eye.
There’s no off switch permitted tonight.