19. Jamison
CHAPTER NINETEEN
JAMISON
Ihad a medical problem. Some severed connection between my brain and my tongue that only activated when Sienna Bellemere stood in front of me with those hurt eyes and that mouth I had ruined by making her smile through too many things it should have been allowed to hate.
Because I knew what to say when she was not there. That was the sick joke.
Alone, I could build whole conversations in my head.
I could tell her I had behaved like a bastard without justifying every injury with business, pressure, Damius, Harlan, or the hundred other things I used as armor because the alternative was admitting I had hurt her while she was only trying to love me.
Alone, I knew how to be decent.
Then she appeared, and my mouth turned into a weapon with no handler.
So now I was in my private casino office, sitting behind a black marble desk, trying to send a message to Sienna Bellemere like the fate of Harlan depended on it.
The city was fucked if it had.
My phone sat in front of me. Sienna’s name at the top. I had typed and deleted seventeen messages.
Sienna.
Deleted.
Are you home?
Deleted.
I need to see you.
Deleted with enough force the phone nearly cracked.
Baby.
I stared at that one for a long time.
Too honest.
Deleted.
I leaned back in my chair and looked at the six security feeds covering the streets around her ballet studio. That was not helping.
I kept watching anyway.
The Harlan Arts Quarter appeared across the wall screens. Front entrance. Rear alley. North side of the studio block. Street corner outside the cafe she liked. Gym entrance two doors down. Parking bay with the private driver zone.
I had started with one camera.
Security, that was the story.
Then one camera became six because the first camera did not show the gym door clearly, and the gym door mattered because Sienna had started training there on conditioning days between ballet sessions.
Conditioning meant she entered in tight little workout clothes and came out flushed, completely unaware that half the men in a five-block radius should have had their eyes removed for looking too long.
The gym was a problem.
I had decided that at 6:42 a.m.
By 7:15, I had the ownership structure open.
By 7:30, I knew the primary owner had gambling debt through a third-party account attached to one of my casinos.
By 7:47, Reeves had been instructed to make an offer.
By 8:12, the owner had accepted.
At 8:31, I owned the gym.
That settled nothing.
Owning a building did not make it safe. The current staff needed review. The locker room camera sweep had to be done properly, not by whatever idiot company they used to check insurance boxes. The ventilation needed inspection.
The women’s changing area needed a second emergency exit. The parking approach was badly lit. The front desk let too many men linger near the protein fridges with no purpose beyond watching women leave classes.
I sent Reeves a memo with twenty-four corrections.
He replied within one minute.
Understood.
Now, I stared at the cafe camera.
Sienna went to the cafe every morning after barre when she had time. I had watched her do it twice this week, because apparently I had become the sort of man who knew the shape of her routine better than the shape of his own conscience.
She ordered a coffee with oat milk and cinnamon.
Sometimes she got a pastry, but only if the girl with red hair was working because that employee smiled at her and tucked an extra napkin in the bag. When the older man worked the register, Sienna ordered only coffee.
I did not like him. Because he looked at her too long.
I opened the cafe’s business registry.
Independent owner. No debt. Clean licensing. Excellent foot traffic. Moderate profit. Lease renewal due in six months.
I bought the building first.
Then the cafe.
The owner resisted until Reeves explained the offer came with continued employment if she wished to remain, better staff benefits, renovations fully funded. A very clear note that refusing would be inconvenient.
She accepted.
I brought up the staff list and circled the older man’s name.
“Reeves,” I said into the office line.
“Yes, sir.”
“Cafe beside Sienna’s studio. Employee named Martin.”
“Review or remove?”
“Review first. Remove if I dislike anything in the review.”
“Understood.”
“And the red-haired girl.”
“Name?”
I checked the file. “Lexie Cline.”
“Review as well?”
“Raise her pay.”
Another pause.
“May I ask why?”
“She gives Sienna extra napkins.”
Reeves did not breathe incorrectly. Credit to him.
“I’ll handle it.”
“And I want a preference file created.”
“For Miss Bellemere?”
“For everyone who serves her.”
“Yes, sir.”
I looked at the feed again.
“The coffee should be made the way she likes it without her having to repeat herself. Oat milk. Cinnamon. Not whatever burnt shit they gave her Tuesday. Pastry options need to include lemon, berry. Whatever else she orders twice. And, they call security if anyone bothers her.”
“Security visible or discreet?”
“Discreet unless someone touches her.”
“And then?”
“Then visible enough the whole fucking street learns.”
“Yes, sir.”
I leaned forward, scanning the gym entrance camera.
“And the gym. Sweep everything. Hidden cameras, locker rooms, showers, ceiling gaps, vents. I want no blind corners in the hall approach. No male staff assigned near the women’s change rooms unless cleared by me.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Any trainer who touches her without consent loses the hand.”
“Should I put that in the staff policy?”
“Not in writing.”
“Of course.”
My thumb moved over Sienna’s contact again.
The worst part was that buying things made sense to me.
Buildings. Security. Staff. Territory. These were clean.
I could make the world around Sienna safer by force before I worked out how to make myself less dangerous to her.
But I could not make any of that matter if she still believed I hated when she breathed near me.
My phone dimmed.
I tapped it awake.
Sienna’s name returned. I typed again.
I’m sorry.
I stared at it until my throat tightened.
Too small.
Deleted.
I tried again.
I behaved badly when I saw you with Weston.
Deleted.
Coward. That made it about my jealousy.
Again.
I have no right to ask anything from you, but I would like to know you got home safely.
I stared at that one.
My hand stilled above the screen. Better, maybe.
Not come here, baby, because I missed you and watched you on six cameras. Bought three places tied to your routine like a man who deserved prison not marriage.
I sent it before I could destroy it. The message delivered.
My chest went strange. Waiting was not an activity I respected.
I set the phone face down.
Then immediately turned it face up again.
Nothing.
Fine.
I opened another acquisition file. If I could not breathe properly, I could at least purchase something.
The studio building was already partially mine through a layered property hold I had set up after the harassment incidents.
Sienna needed more than the building. She needed the block.
The side lane. The florist beside the studio.
The parking lot behind it. The little physiotherapy clinic she used when her ankle got bad.
The physio clinic mattered. If she was injured, I wanted to know who touched her body. No. It wasn’t that I wanted it— I needed it.
I pulled up the clinic ownership.
Family-owned. Two sisters. No debt. Good reputation. Treated dancers, and athletes. Treated Sienna carefully, according to the appointment reports I had no right reading and absolutely intended to keep reading.
I did not buy the clinic.
Emmie’s voice again. Do not be cruel to her because you are scared. Buying Sienna’s medical provider without her knowledge felt like something I would call protection until she discovered it and looked at me like I had caged another piece of her life.
So I did something worse.
I set up a private fund under a dance injury foundation. I had Reeves arrange anonymous equipment upgrades, scholarship rehab slots, and a security system grant for the whole building.
Still controlling. But cleaner.
God help me, I was learning ethics through loopholes.
My phone buzzed.
One message. From Sienna.
Thank you. I got home safely.
I stared at the screen like an idiot.
My baby wrote back. My chest tightened around that thought until it hurt. She wrote back.
I dragged a hand over my mouth and read it again. My thumb hovered over the keyboard.
Do not say the wrong thing.
I typed slowly.
Good. I owe you an apology. Not over text. Only when you are ready to hear it.
I read it three times.
It sounded like a man…not a monster.
I sent it.
My pulse hit once. Hard. The message delivered.
No reply. That was fine, for three minutes. then it was fucking torture.
I set the phone down and stood because my body had too much energy in it. I crossed to the window, lit a cigarette, and looked down over Harlan.
The city was behaving today because I had made several people bleed yesterday and apparently that had restored civic discipline.
Good for the city.
Bad for my mood.
Behind me, the phone buzzed again. I turned so fast ash fell onto the floor.
Sienna.
Okay.
One word gave me too much relief. It meant somewhere inside the ruin I had made, there was still a door that might open if I learned how not to break the handle off trying to get in.
I picked up the phone and read it until the letters stopped looking like letters.
Then I did something pathetic.
I saved a screenshot. Immediately deleted it because I was not completely insane. Then restored it from recently deleted because apparently I was.
Her okay meant hope. So yes, I was that desperate for it.
I started to think what did I do write next. Every message sounded wrong.
Are you okay?
Fucking stupid. She was not okay. I knew she was not okay. I had helped make her that way.
My thumb hovered over the keyboard.
I typed:
I owe you—
Deleted.
I typed:
I have been trying—
Deleted.
I typed:
I am sorry for—
The phone buzzed in my hand.
Marcel sent a message requesting a meeting now.