Chapter 37
Jonas’s screens flared as the hidden feed shifted.
His stomach lurched when Richard Sutton stepped out from behind the heavy mahogany desk, hands spread wide in arrogant welcome.
It had been easier than they imagined sneaking in and setting up the cameras, especially with so little security and too much arrogance from Richard Sutton.
The thought he was untouchable, and he was about to find out he wasn’t.
“Welcome home,” Sutton said, his voice smooth as polished oak, the smirk on his face one that Jonas wanted to rip off with his bare hands.
Jonas’s jaw locked until it ached. Rage pressed hard at his ribs, but he forced it down, pushing himself into rhythm: measure, catalogue, act.
“Talk to me,” Bás’s voice cut across comms, sharp and sure. “Contingency plan two. Duchess, Bishop, sweep the west entrance. Reaper, Bein, cover the gardens, sniper positions. Titan, Hurricane, engines hot. We extract hard if this tips.”
Acknowledgements snapped back one after the other. The team pivoted seamlessly, no wasted motion, no panic.
Jonas leaned into his mic, keeping his voice pitched low, intimate. “Clara, can you hear me?”
A faint hiss of static, then the smallest intake of breath. She wasn’t foolish enough to answer out loud.
“Good,” he murmured, knowing she’d catch the words even if she couldn’t acknowledge them. “You don’t have to respond. Just listen. I’ve got you. Whatever happens in that room, you are not alone. Keep them talking. Stall them if you can. We’re going to get you out.”
On the feed, she swallowed hard, a flicker of movement in her throat. Her chin dipped, the tiniest nod, almost imperceptible. But Jonas saw it, catalogued it, clung to it.
Lotus’s voice broke in over the team’s comms. “That nod was for you, Watchdog. She trusts you. Don’t waste it.”
Lotus was coaching him, trying to calm him. Jonas shoved the rush of feeling into focus. His fingers flew over the keys, shifting feeds, locking angles, tracking every heat signature in the house. “Secondary threat,” he reported. “South corridor, one armed, moving like trained security. Not staff.”
“Reaper,” Bás barked.
“Already moving,” came the reply.
Jonas checked Clara’s feed again. She stood stiff-backed, her hands curled into small fists at her sides. Even through pixels, he could read her anger, betrayal, fear, all layered across her face.
He pressed comms again, voice softer. “Clara, listen to me. Sutton will try to make you feel small. Oliver will try to make you feel trapped. Neither of them owns you. Do you understand?”
She didn’t nod this time, didn’t move at all, but he caught the subtle shift in her breathing. She’d heard him. She was holding the words.
Oliver leaned in close to her ear, lips curved in that infuriating smirk, and Jonas’s pulse thundered. His hands hovered over the keys, forcing his voice flat and calm. “Oliver’s posturing,” he told Bás. “Left hand twitching near his jacket pocket. He’s armed. Clara’s holding her ground.”
“Then we flip the script,” Bás growled. “No one scares our family.”
The word family landed deep, steadying Jonas in a way nothing else could. Clara believed him. She was trusting him.
And he would not fail her.
The feed flickered as Oliver shoved Clara into a chair opposite her parents.
Richard Sutton prowled behind his desk, fury and pride twisting his face into something regal and monstrous all at once.
Her mother sat rigid in one of the leather armchairs, hands clutched in her lap, tears streaking her cheeks as if she were trying to silently weep her way invisible.
Oliver’s voice cracked through the hidden mic, sharp with manic bravado.
“You think you can stall me, Richard? You think you can control me like one of your little pawns? No. This,” he slammed his palm against the table, hard enough that Clara jumped, “this is my empire now. You promised me her, promised me the estate, the assets, the pipeline of influence. And I delivered. I built the network stronger than Hansen ever dreamed. Your slice of the high-class drug trade in the UK is the biggest by far, and that’s down to me. ”
Jonas’s pulse kicked. Hansen. That cursed name again. He filed the thread away, though his fingers itched to crush the keyboard.
Richard’s eyes blazed. “You delivered nothing without me. Don’t delude yourself, Oliver. You were nothing but a petty fixer until I lifted you up, until I handed you the connections, the land, the men. Everything you think you’ve built belongs to me. And don’t forget it.”
Oliver laughed, ugly and shrill. “Belongs to you? You old fool, the only reason we’re here is because she,” he jabbed a finger at Clara, the motion so violent Jonas nearly tore off his headset, “was leverage. With her name, her bloodline, I cemented us into high society. Her dowry is the key. Her signature ties us to every dirty stream of money your precious estate has hidden. Without her, you’re finished. ”
Jonas swallowed bile, forcing himself to breathe evenly, forcing calm into his voice as he spoke softly into comms. “Clara, don’t react. Just breathe. You’re not their pawn. You’re stronger than both of them.”
On the feed, she straightened her shoulders. Brave, steady, though Jonas could see the tremor in her fingers.
Penelope Sutton sobbed, pressing her handkerchief to her lips. “Richard, please, this has gone too far. Oliver, stop this madness. She’s your fiancée, for heaven’s sake.”
“I don’t need a wife,” Oliver snarled, rounding on her. “I need a weapon, I need a way to clean my money, and with her name on every property deed, she’s it.”
Jonas’s knuckles whitened on the desk. He spoke low so only Clara’s earpiece caught it, “You are not his weapon. You’re mine to protect. Hold on.”
Clara’s gaze flicked down, not daring to look at Oliver, but Jonas caught the subtle shift in her breathing again. She’d heard. She believed.
His comms cracked. “Reaper here,” came the cool, satisfied voice. “Two men down. South wing secured. Recognised them, same bastards from South Africa. Alive but tied. They won’t be moving.”
Jonas froze, air catching in his chest. Them. The ghosts of that nightmare. The ones who’d—
He locked it down, spine rigid. Not now. Not while Clara was still in the fire.
“Copy,” Bás answered. “Keep them breathing. I want Sutton and Oliver to know exactly what we’ve pulled out from under them.”
Oliver’s voice rose, unhinged now. “You think you can control me, Richard? I’ll kill her right here. I’ll kill all of you. I’ll burn this house to the ground and piss on the ashes. Hansen was weak because he clung to vendettas. I don’t cling. I cut.”
Richard slammed his fist on the desk, spittle flying. “Don’t you dare compare yourself to Hansen! You’re reckless, Oliver, unstable. If you pull that trigger, you’ll lose everything. Everything I gave you. Don’t forget who made you.”
Jonas could see Clara’s face in the feed, pale but steady, her eyes darting between them, cataloguing every word.
Brave, sharp. He wanted to burst into the room, shield her with his body, but instead he whispered into her comms, “Keep them fighting each other. Don’t let them focus on you. You’re doing perfectly.”
She drew a slow breath. Then her voice, calm and quiet but cutting, slipped through. “So, which is it? Am I the key to everything, or just the leverage you’re both scrambling over? Because I’m starting to think neither of you knows what you’re doing.”
Jonas’s chest swelled with pride. “That’s it, Clara. Make them underestimate you. Make them talk.”
Oliver’s face twisted, rage blotching his skin. Richard surged forward, jabbing a finger in his chest. They were shouting now, their voices colliding, her mother weeping, but Clara was as steady as stone in the storm.
And Jonas, calm, laser-focused, tracked every angle, every exit, every heartbeat of his team in position.
They were close.
Closer than Sutton or Oliver would ever realise.
And Jonas Mason, Watchdog, would be the one to end it.
Jonas’s finger hovered over the comms key.
Everything in his body had gone taut, a wire pulled tight enough to sing.
On the screen, Clara’s face was a pale mask, her jaw set, eyes hard as flint; behind her, Oliver’s shoulders were a coiled thing, his smile gone feral.
Sutton was on his feet, red and roaring, hands balled into fists.
Penelope sat stunned, a hand pressed to her mouth, nails white as lace.
“Watchdog,” Bás’s voice was a low engine through the earpiece. “When you say.”
Jonas found his voice, flat and quiet. “Now.”
It was a word and a world. He hit the button, and the team moved.
The house translated into lines of movement on his console: Reaper along the south wing, Titan and Hurricane on the flank, Bishop sweeping the study entrance. The van idled a block away with engines hot. He could see every footprint in thermal, every dark shape that didn’t belong.
On the feed, Oliver began to wave the gun he’d pulled out like a grotesque conductor, wild-eyed and dangerous.
He barked something, words lost under the rise of panic, but Jonas could read the intent in the angle of his wrist, the way his mouth formed the syllables.
He was playing for fear, testing how far he could push it.
“Keep him talking. Keep him loud,” Jonas whispered into Clara’s ear. He didn’t expect a reply. Her lips moved; she forced a smile that was a lie. “Good. Stall him. Don’t provoke.”
Oliver’s voice cut through the room, sharp. “You’re all fools. You think you can hide everything? You think I won’t take what I want?” He laughed then, a sound that didn’t reach his eyes. “I can make it simple.”
Sutton strode forward, trying to look in control. “Enough, Oliver.” He put a hand on the desk as if steadying himself, but from his angle, Watchdog could see he was reaching for something—a gun. “We negotiated terms, this is about stability, about—”