26. Jamison #2
“You will not threaten me family on my land.”
“I’m not threatening them.”
“No?”
“I’m informing you what happens if your family decides to tell her.”
He stared at me.
I continued, voice low. “Her commitment to the Crow family is not to be mentioned to her. Not by you. Not by her mother. Not by Celeste. Not by some cousin with too much wine and too little self-preservation. Not at breakfast. Not at dinner. Not in some quiet garden conversation staged to make her cry politely into a napkin.”
His eyes sharpened at that.
Good.
I had guessed too well.
Bellemere families probably loved quiet garden conversations. Women told devastating things under wisteria because it made the cruelty look better.
“No one tells her,” I said.
He exhaled slowly. “And you will?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“When I decide.”
“That is not acceptable.”
“Your daughter has spent three years accepting things she shouldn’t have had to. You can survive a few days of waiting.” I stepped back. “And Celeste stays out of my way.”
His expression shut down. “Celeste has done nothing wrong.”
“She stood close.”
His brows lifted slightly. “To you?”
“Yes.”
“Was that offensive?”
“It was intentional.”
He did not answer. Bellemere daughters moved like chess pieces and called it family strategy.
“Keep her away from me,” I said.
“Celeste is attending the retreat.”
“I didn’t say remove her from the estate. I said keep her away from me.”
“And Sienna?”
My jaw tightened.
“Sienna stays in the cottage assigned to her.”
“With you.”
“Yes.”
“That arrangement was made before the formal adjustment.”
“It stands.”
He looked at me for a long moment.
A father, maybe, would have asked if his daughter felt safe there.
The sick feeling in my chest at the thought of someone else’s name replacing mine beside hers.
“You have been cruel to her,” Her father studied me.
The nerve of him.
The fucking nerve.
“Yes. I have,” I continued. “And you still put her beside me. For three years. Because a debt mattered more than whether your daughter came home quiet after events.”
His jaw tightened.
“Do not pretend concern now that you have another girl ready to profit from Sienna’s removal.”
His eyes flashed. “Celeste is not being offered for profit.”
“No? Then for love?” I smiled coldly. “That’s what I thought.”
A gunshot cracked somewhere deeper in the forest.
Both of us looked toward it. One of the hunting groups had found their pointless little moment of triumph. Something died because men needed to feel alive.
I looked back at her father.
“I hate this sport.”
He did not answer.
“It teaches men the wrong lesson.” I stepped closer one last time.
“What do you want from us?” he asked.
Finally…the right question.
“Silence.”
“For how long?”
“Until I say otherwise.”
“And the merger?”
“I’m not accepting the adjustment.”
“You may not have authority to refuse.”
I laughed softly. “Tell yourself that if it helps you sleep.”
“Damius—”
“Is not here.”
A lie mostly.
Damius was everywhere. The old fear in every sane man’s blood when Crow law entered a room. But in that clearing, with her father unarmed and pale, I was the Crow standing in front of him.
That would do.
“I will speak with Damius,” her father said carefully.
“No.”
“You will not move another piece until I tell you what the board looks like.”
“This is Bellemere family business.”
“This is Sienna,” I corrected. Her name left my mouth sharper than intended.
He was silent for a long moment before nodding.
I accepted it because killing him would upset her.
Probably.
“You will not tell her,” I said.
“No.”
“Her mother will not tell her.”
“I will speak with my wife.”
“That wasn’t the sentence I wanted.”
His jaw tightened. “My wife will not tell her.”
Better.
I turned away from him because the conversation was done and if I kept looking at him, I would start imagining all the ways this morning could have gone if Sienna didn’t care whether her father came back intact. I was almost at the path when her father spoke behind me.
“Make sure you tell her.”
I stopped.
“The announcement will happen,” he continued.
My fingers flexed once at my side. He should have stopped there. A smarter man would have.
Then again, smart men did not offer Sienna Bellemere to be replaced and expect me to treat the matter like a scheduling inconvenience.
“It won’t change the outcome after the retreat,” he said.
My reflex was violent.
For one bright second, the world narrowed to the fastest path back across the clearing and every breakable part of him. His throat. His jaw. The bones in his hand that had signed whatever adjustment pulled Sienna from my name and presented another woman like an upgrade.
I turned halfway before I caught myself. My hand closed into a fist. The violence stayed there, trapped beneath my skin. Her father saw enough of it to lose the last bit of color in his face.
Good.
He should have been afraid.
Every sane man in that forest should have been afraid. I turned fully back to him.
“There will be no announcement,” I said.
His mouth tightened, but he held my stare. I gave him that.
“The family council has already agreed to the adjustment.”
“I don’t give a fuck what your family council agreed to.”
“This isn’t only your decision.”
“No.” I stepped closer. “It is.”
His eyes flicked toward the trees, looking for witnesses.
“Still want to talk outcomes?”
Some men learned fast when survival entered the conversation.
“You will withdraw Celeste.”
“Jamison—”
“You will withdraw Celeste,” I repeated, quieter. “And if you push this matter again, I remove Celeste.”
I let the silence sit there, let him hear every version of that word.
Remove.
From whatever future her family had started building with my name attached to hers.
Maybe worse. I didn’t clarify. Clarification was for men who deserved comfort.
“And if you find another woman,” I continued, “I remove her too. Then the next one. And the next. I will empty every pretty little option your family sets in my path until you understand that Sienna is not a placeholder you can exchange because I took too long to claim what was already mine.”
Her father stared at me.
The word mine had come out before I could stop it.