Page 69 of Jayson
“Talk to me. What was that about?”
The question wedges behind my ribs. Nobody has cared to know anything about me since my life detonated. I sip coffee to ground me; the porcelain rattles when I set it down.
Outside, lightning forks across the glass. For a heartbeat, Jayson glows silver—angel, devil, I can’t decide—before darkness drapes him again.
“I don’t know what I want,” I admit, words gravel-rough. “University feels pointless. Friends? Gone. Family?” I huff.
He watches without blinking, as if memorising each splinter. Hope shouldn’t look like him—scarred lip, assassin’s eyes—but it sits between us anyway, trembling. He looks like a beautiful, beautiful demon.
“Nothing keeps me here,” I continue, voice rising. “Except… this.” I flick the gold band on my finger; the metal sings a bitter note. “An unwanted marriage you arranged while I was too shocked to fight you.”
His jaw tightens. Thunder rolls overhead, deep enough to rattle the chandelier. He doesn’t reach for me, and that restraint somehow hurts worse.
“You took every choice I had left, Jayson. You turned my future into collateral without asking if I wanted to stake it.”
“I know,” he says, the words dragged from somewhere raw. “But you know why I did it.”
“Knowing the reasons why doesn’t make it right,” I lean in, heat flooding my cheeks. “How long will I have to stay here, married to you, my life in limbo?”
A muscle jumps in his cheek. “You know I can’t answer that.”
“Is this a ’til death kind of scenario, then?” My laugh cracks—anger skinned by grief. “You decided the trajectory of my entire existence in thirty-seconds.”
He rakes a hand through wet hair, water flinging onto the tabletop. “Would you rather be six feet under like your father, Keira? That’s the only language we speak when it comes to protecting what’s ours.”
Regret flares behind his eyes. He exhales, voice softer. “I don’t regret taking you, Keira. But I regret every second you spend thinking it robbed you of a future.” He scrubs a palm over his face. His gaze locks on mine, thunder echoing our heartbeats.
Lightning flashes again; this time I don’t flinch. Jayson’s hand twitches. I let the distance remain, but the wire between us feels less like a noose, more like a lifeline.
Outside, the storm rages. Inside, for the first time, I feel the house start to breathe with us instead of against us—two unwilling conspirators, renegotiating the terms of survival.
A gust rattles the kitchen windows. Rain spools down the glass like silver threads.
“Storm’s here,” Jayson murmurs.
“Looks that way,” I reply.
I watch the doorway long after he leaves me to shower. My pulse steadies, matching the drum of rain on the roof.
Sadness may be quiet—but hope makes noise. Little clicks and ticks, like gears starting to turn after years of rust. I wrap my hands around my mug and listen.
The storm outside is loud, but inside these walls, something louder begins to grow.
29
KEIRA
It’s just after 2:00am and the mansion is dead. It’s that terrible witching hour when even nightmares seem to sleep. I’m pacing the library with a mug of cold tea, trying to convince myself words on a page can drown the static in my head. But they can’t.
My phone dings.
I flinch so hard that tea sloshes over the rim. Wiping my fingers on my pajama pants, I glance down.
It’s an unknown number. My pulse lightens, ready to dismiss another spam text?—
Unknown Number: Some secrets should stay buried, K.
You don’t want to dig up ghosts you loved.
