Page 29 of Jayson
The silence that falls is nuclear. The kind that comes after everything worth saving has already burned.
“You ungrateful little bastard,” he says, voice ragged. “I carved a kingdom out of hell for you.”
“And buried Mom and Lila in its foundations,” I fire back. The names taste like blood on my tongue. “I won’t let you bury me next.”
The silence that follows thrums, thick as wet cement. Lightning flares against the windows, throwing our shadows across the floor—his colossal, mine broken.
“You’ll never outrun this,” he says finally, calm and cold. “Every mirror will show you what you did. Every night will remind you who you lost.”
“I live with their ghosts already,” I answer, throat tight. “I don’t need to live with yours.”
He raises the tumbler, drinks, stares over the rim like he’s measuring coffins again. Then he sets it down with surgical precision, as if breaking the glass would give me too much satisfaction.
“You’ll come crawling back,” he promises. “The world will gut you. And when it does, remember who twisted the knife first.”
“I do.” I step away, heart hammering so hard it stings. “It wasn’t the crash that killed their memory—it was you. And I’m done pretending I still belong here.”
I turn, walk past the portraits, past the silent staff who pretend that the walls don’t have ears. Each footfall feels like nails in the coffin of the boy I was.
By the time the elevator doors slide shut behind me, I’m no longer Jayson Caluna, heir apparent. I’m the ghost of a son he murdered long before the crash ever happened.
And ghosts don’t crawl back.
They haunt.
Now, I sit in my grandmother’s study with the ghost of that night tangled in my lungs and the girl in the basement carved into my thoughts.
“You’re still watching her,” Nina says, as my eyes swing back toward the monitor.
I don’t reply. Because I am. And it isn’t about guilt. It isn’t even about control. It’s curiosity. Obsession. That twisted pull in the gut that says she matters—for a reason I haven’t figured out yet.
She should’ve cried. She should’ve screamed when her father died. She should’vereacted. But she didn’t. Not a blink. Not a single crack in the surface. And now I can’t stop wondering:
Why does she wear her silence like it’s the only armor she’s ever known?
14
JAYSON
Idon’t know what the fuck I’m doing.
I move back toward the cellar again, where Keira sits, blankets bunched around her like armor, back pressed to the wall like she’s trying to become part of it. I don’t blame her. Her prison isn’t much. It’s cold stone with an old bench seat I dragged in from the attic. Bare bulbs and shadows. It looks more like a medieval punishment chamber than anything meant for a girl like her.
And yet, here she is. Wrapped in layers like I’m the one she needs protection from. Because maybe I am.
I stand at the top of the stairs for endless seconds, food in hand. Just watching. She hasn’t seen me yet. Her head’s bowed, fingers fidgeting in her lap like she’s unraveling herself thread by thread.
She’s been quiet for the most part since I brought her back here. Which is understandable. But what rattles me most is that she hasn’t screamed or begged me to let her go. She’s just worn that stony, indifferent silence that gets under your skin and makes you feel like you’re the villain in your own goddamn story.
I finally descend the stairs, my boots heavy on each step. Her head lifts when I reach the bottom, eyes locked on mine, wary but calm. She doesn’t speak. Just stares, waiting.
I hold out the tray like it’s a peace offering. She doesn’t move.
“You have to eat something,” I mutter.
Still nothing. I open the cell and step inside.
“Grilled cheese. Soup. It’s hot,” I grunt, setting the tray down with more force than necessary.
