Page 40 of Jayson
“We’ve got another problem—one that might help you make up your mind,” Kanyan says evenly, just as my thoughts begin to spiral and the floor starts to tilt beneath me.
As if this situation needed another layer of hell, and deciding whether to keep or kill her wasn’t already eating me alive.
“The police have been snooping around the Bishop house. They’re looking for your little prisoner so they can ask questions, and it’s only a matter of time before they find her. What you don’t want is for them to find her here.”
Kanyan reaches for his coat but pauses, eyes narrowing just enough to carve a warning. “And, Jayson? Emotions cloud judgment. If you feel them—bury them. Fast.”
He turns for the door. And just as quickly as he arrived, he disappears again. The door clicks shut behind him. The room exhales, lighter but colder. And somewhere downstairs, a girl counts her own ticking clock—unaware that the only thing standing between leverage and oblivion is the monster guarding her door.
18
JAYSON
The moment Kanyan’s taillights vanish down the drive, I shove the door shut behind me and drag in a breath that feels like glass.
Then I roar.
It tears out of me—raw, animal, too big for the hallway’s narrow walls. The old windowpanes tremble; dust flutters from the chandelier like dead moths. I double over, palms on my knees, lungs burning.
Tap … tap … tap.
The cane’s rhythm slices through my pulse. I lift my head.
Nina stands on the wide landing above the staircase, shoulders straight, silver hair coiled like a crown. Sunlight from the high window rims her black dress, turns the pearl buttons into small, cold stars. For one dizzy second, I’m twelve again—mud on my shoes, fear in my throat, her steady hands hiding me from Father’s rage.
Then the memory cracks and I remember: I left her. Ten years of silence. Ten years of nothing she never asked for. Her only living blood, aside from my father, and I left her.
Something in her gaze softens—just a flicker, a muscletwitch by her mouth—but it’s gone before it settles. She starts down, cane tapping the tempo of judgment.
I push upright, spine locking. “How long?” My voice scrapes. “How long have you and Kanyan De Scarzi known each other?”
She reaches the bottom step, meets my eyes, defiant and unwavering. “Long enough to know he comes when I call.”
The admission punches the air from my chest. “You put me on his radar?—”
“I kept you on it,” she corrects, calm as winter. “A different thing entirely.”
“Why?” The word detonates from my throat. “So he could walk in here and order me to kill the girl?”
Nina’s chin lifts, proud, unyielding. “To make sure you’re strong enough to do what needs to be done when you take your place.”
“We’ve talked about this,” I growl.
“Ten years ago?” she fires back. “You’ve been gone ten long years, Jayson! It’s time!”
I flinch—because it lands. Every body, every cleanup, every quiet grave flashes behind my eyes.
She steps off the final stair and moves closer, cane whispering over the boards. “You’ve been gone a decade, Jayson. Did you truly believe I wasn’t watching? That I wouldn’t care what became of my only grandchild?”
“You’re not supposed to be part of this life.” My voice breaks around the edges. “You shouldn’t be anywhere near this.”
“And yet you brought ‘this’ here,” she says, eyes shining. “Now here we are. I’m a businesswoman, Jayson. Before anything else. It made all the sense in the world to shake hands with Dante Accardi and somehow keep you tethered to this family. Even if you didn’t know.”
The hallway feels too small, walls crowding. I rake a handthrough my hair, bite down on the tremor in my chest. “You should have stayed out of it.”
“Well, I didn’t. I won’t.”
“Kanyan wants the girl dead.”
