Page 20 of Jayson
“I feel like I’ve been buried alive,” she mutters.
And fuck if that doesn’t do something to me.
I just watch her. Mud streaks her cheek, dried in patterns that look almost ceremonial. Her jaw’s tight, but there’s a flicker of vulnerability under it. It’s not weakness, but something that makes my pulse tick faster. She’s trying to hold on to the last scrap of control she has—by asking me for water and heat like it’s not a damn gift I get to grant her.
My jaw clenches. My fingers curl.
I say nothing.
Because if I open my mouth, I’ll either agree—or offer to strip her down and carry her to the tub myself. And I don’t know which version would terrify her more.
Or me.
So I just stare. Too long. Long enough that she shifts her weight, folding her arms across her chest like armor.
“I’ll arrange it,” I say finally, my voice low.
She blinks but doesn’t thank me as I turn to leave. I have to get out of here before I forget who the fuck I am and burn the rest of my self-control trying to wash her sins off for her.
The cellar door clicks shut behind me, sealing her in—sealing me out—and for a moment I just stand there, palm still on the knob, breathing the stone-cold air like it might slap some sense back into my skull.
Shower, she’d said. A simple thing. But nothing’s simple here.
I climb the servants’ staircase—narrow steps worn smooth by ghosts of maids long buried. Every tread pops a memory: my father’s boots, my own smaller feet scrambling to keep up.Kill the witness, Jayson.His mantra.Loose ends strangle kings.
Keira Bishop is a loose end knotted around my throat.
At the landing I turn left, toward the guest wing. Dust curls in the morning light as I shoulder open the cedar wardrobe, dig past old hunting jackets until I find something small enough for her to wear. A black hoodie, charcoal joggers, thick socks.
I hesitate at the dresser. The top drawer is nothing but neatly folded undershirts. The second drawer… lingerie. Not mine—leftover from a woman who thought she could save me. Crimson lace catches on my knuckle. I jerk back, slam the drawer shut, reminding myself to empty out the dresser.
For a split second I’m nineteen again—standing ankle-deepin winter light at the top of this hallway, hardwood slick with arterial spray.
Father peels off his gloves the way some men do opera tickets—slow, deliberate, savoring the ripple of leather. He wipes each finger against a silk handkerchief already marbled red. A pistol still smolders in his other hand; the tang of cordite threads through the heavier scent of his cologne—oud and bergamot, expensive enough to mask gunpowder, but not guilt.
The body lies five paces away, crumpled against the wainscoting where the first shot spun him. Eyes open, mouth slack, blood crawling across grout like spilled wine looking for a drain. My pulse slams so hard I taste copper, but Father just straightens his cuff links, as bored as if he’d flicked ash from a cigar.
“Remember this, Jayson,” he says, voice calm, almost gentle. “Witnesses aren’t people. They’re problems. You remove problems.” He taps my chest with the barrel of the gun—a cold, oily kiss that bruises even through my coat. “And you do it quick and clean.”
I nod like the dutiful heir he’s spent nineteen years forging—stomach bucking, throat burning with the urge to vomit. I don’t flinch when he drags the corpse by the ankles, shoes sketching mute apologies across the tile. I don’t flinch, because heirs don’t flinch. They inherit.
Later that night, I scrubbed my hands raw in the service sink, choking on bleach fumes, vowing—teeth clenched, skin bleeding—that I would never set foot in this mausoleum again.
Yet here I am a decade later, back under its sagging roof—lodger in a room haunted by my own cowardice, jailer to a girl who saw too much, fool repeating the same devils’ catechism my father preached.
The hardwood hasn’t changed.
Neither, apparently, have I.
The en-suite at the end of the corridor still works; Nina does a good job of maintaining the place and keeps the pipes fromfreezing. I crank the ancient faucets. Water coughs, spits rust, then runs clear. Steam coats the cracked mirror.
I adjust the temperature—just shy of scalding. She’ll want heat in her bones.
I walk to the linen closet and remove two towels, thick as winter bark; a bar of sandalwood soap still wrapped in waxed paper; a small bottle of antiseptic. I tuck it all under one arm, clothes under the other.
Why do you care if she’s comfortable?That voice in my head rears its ugly head again, sardonic.
Because if I’m going to break her, I won’t do it while she’s dirty.
