22. Jamison #2
Her father’s smile had become very thin. “Of course. Your Second Hand is welcome.”
“Mr. Calder,” I corrected.
Her father hated it. Which only made me enjoy his expression more. I let them all enjoy my silence and the possibility of what I could do next. I looked across her family again. I wanted Sienna. I needed to know she had not been hurt by one of the thousand consequences of my negligence.
“Where is Sienna?” I asked.
“She’s likely with her cousins,” her mother said.
“Likely.”
The word nearly made my vision darken.
One of the aunts smiled politely. “The girls move around all day. There are activities everywhere. She might be by the lake.”
“Might.”
“Sienna is familiar with the estate,” her father said, tone sharpening. “She has attended since childhood.”
“Nature kills people who have attended it since childhood.”
Her father frowned. “Mr. Crow, I assure you—”
“You don’t know where she is.”
I turned to Reeves. He had gone still in the way that meant he had found something.
“Talk,” I said.
“Her phone last pinged near the east trail thirty-four minutes ago. No active signal. I have a heat cluster near the waterfall path. One female, sitting elevated. No immediate second body in the surrounding twenty meters.”
Sienna’s father’s expression hardened. “You’re tracking my daughter?”
“Yes,” Reeves said calmly.
Her mother’s eyes widened. “That is unacceptable.”
“So is not knowing where she is,” I said.
A younger uncle stepped forward. “This is Bellemere land.”
“And yet I found her before you did.”
Sienna’s father looked at Reeves’s tablet. “We do not permit unauthorized surveillance.”
“I do not permit my fiancée to vanish on a property full of unknown staff and scenic ways to die.”
“She hasn’t vanished,” her mother snapped. “She is at the waterfall.”
“You didn’t know that thirty seconds ago.”
Her cheeks coloured.
I stepped closer to Sienna’s father, lowering my voice enough that the women behind him leaned in despite themselves.
“Tomorrow morning,” I said, “you and I will talk. You’d be wise to listen.”
Reeves shifted slightly beside me. Probably because threatening the host within five minutes of arrival was considered socially premature.
I was showing growth by not doing it with a gun in hand.
Sienna’s father held my stare. “And what exactly do you think we will discuss?”
“Terms.”
Anger burned clean through my panic.
“We can speak privately after dinner.”
“No. Tomorrow.”
“Jamison—”
“If one word reaches Sienna before I speak to her, I will turn this retreat into a case study.”
Sienna’s father looked at me for a long second. “You came here to threaten us?”
I looked toward the east trail, where trees gathered thick against the sun.
“I came here to find her.”
Then I walked away. No one stopped me. The estate path to the waterfall was offensively picturesque.
White stones with low hedges trimmed around wildflowers. Wooden signs with burned lettering. Birds making noise like they had been paid. The summer heat pressed against the back of my neck, unbearable.
Fucking nature.
Fucking summer.
Fucking retreat.
There were insects. Actual insects. One tried to land on my sleeve and I shook it off with the kind of disgust usually reserved for bad debtors and men named Weston.
The path narrowed under trees.
They had built an entire family ritual around sweating outdoors and called it tradition.
I would have preferred being shot.
That was not a joke.
A clean bullet through the shoulder would have communicated care with less walking. Sienna could have looked at the blood, realized I had suffered.
I slowed when the sound of water grew louder.
Practicing would help.
Probably.
I stopped on the path beneath a tree and exhaled.
“Sienna,” I said.
Too hard…like a summons.
Again.
“Sienna, I need to speak with you.”
I sounded like I was about to explain a contract violation.
I tried again.
“I fucked up.”
Too blunt? No. She knew me. Blunt was at least honest.
“I fucked up,” I repeated. “I should have told you before anyone else did. Celeste means nothing. The clause is being corrected. I should have never let them put another woman near my name.”
That was good.
“And I bought you things.”
Fuck.
No.
That made it sound like bribery.
I dragged a hand through my hair and looked at the canopy above me. The tree offered no advice.
Useless plant.
“I cared,” I said, lower.
The words hit strangely in the quiet. My mouth tightened. The apology grew longer with all the fucked up ways, I resented treating her.
Too honest.
Possibly fatal…I would say half. Maybe a quarter, or maybe I would open with the gifts and let the diamonds do the work.
Coward.
I took another step.
Then I saw her.
Sienna sat high on the rocks above the waterfall pool. She was turned slightly away from me, one leg bent, one stretched long.
Her swimsuit was pale blue, tiny and fucking cruel.
The fabric clung to her.
My cock went painfully fucking hard.
Oh, baby.
The things you do to Daddy.
The thought landed so violently I had to stop walking.
I had not fucked a woman in three years. Since the engagement was announced.
Crows did not cheat.
It was law. Bloodline discipline. Public order.
A Crow fiancée meant clubs ended, private rooms ended, women kneeling on velvet floors ended.
My role in my own establishments had stopped overnight.
Dom, owner, monster behind the private doors—gone.
Locked away because Sienna Bellemere wore a handler’s ring on her finger, and even a bastard knew where the line was.
I had told myself I didn’t miss it.
Sienna shifted on the rock, reaching for something beside her. The movement pulled her swimsuit tighter across her body.
My jaw clenched.
I wanted to put my hands on her…kneel in front of her and ask for forgiveness with my mouth against her thigh.
Bad fucking timing.
She was frightened. You did that Crow. I took another step onto the flat stone near the pool.
“Sienna.”
Her head turned.
For one second, she only stared.
Her face changed too fast for me to catch all of it.
She moved instantly, scrambling to her feet on the high rocks.
“Jamison? What happened?” she called. “Is it Emmie? Is it Marcel? Harrison? Did something happen?”
Of course that was where her mind went.
“Sienna, stop moving,”
She stepped down from one rock to another too quickly, wet feet slipping.
“No,” she said, voice shaking. “Tell me. Jamison, what happened?”
“Nothing happened. Stay there.”
But she was already rushing toward me, too fast. The rocks were slick from waterfall spray. One hand lifted for balance, the other pressed briefly to the stone beside her as she tried to descend.
Her foot slid.
Everything slowed.
She tried to catch herself on the rock, but she body tipped sideways, then back, then over the edge where the high ledge dropped into the deep pool below.
For one impossible second, she was suspended in sunlight.
Then she fell.
A sound ripped out of me so raw it did not feel human.
“Sienna!”