Page 47 of His Verdict

Beneath the photos are papers. Report cards from elementary school, with teachers' comments in the margins.Olivia is a bright but sometimes talkative student.My college acceptance letters. A copy of my LSAT scores. A transcript of my classes from Columbia Law. Financial statements. My student loan applications. A complete, detailed psychological and academic profile, compiled over two decades.

And then, there are the notes. Dozens of pages, all in his sharp, black, instantly recognizable handwriting. They are surveillance logs, but they are more than that. They are… a journal. An obsession laid bare on the page.

October 12th. O.S. attended homecoming dance with Marcus Thorne. Thorne appears possessive. Inadequate.

May 25th. O.S. graduated. Top ten percent of her class. As expected.

September 3rd. O.S. begins her first year as a public defender. A foolish, idealistic choice. But a noble one. She is trying to save the world, one hopeless case at a time. She will burn out. When she does, I will be there to catch her.

I read on, my blood turning to ice. He has tracked my movements, my relationships, my triumphs, my failures. He knew about my mounting debt. He knew about my disillusionment with the legal system. He knew about my painful breakup with Marcus. He didn't just stumble upon me in my moment of weakness. He had been waiting for it. He had been cultivating it. This wasn't a crime of opportunity. It was the culmination of a twenty-year plan.

The sheer, suffocating depth of his obsession is a physical weight, pressing down on my chest, making it hard to breathe. Iwas never a person to him. I was a project. A prize to be won. A thing to be collected at the end of a long, patient hunt.

My fingers are numb as I put my own file aside. My curiosity, a dark, morbid, self-destructive thing, is not sated. There are other files in the drawer. The ones with the other names. The names of the women who came before me. The ones who, as he so chillingly put it,didn't work out.

I go back to the desk and pull out three more folders. Their names are Amelia, Catherine, and Isabelle.

I open Amelia’s file. She was a journalist. Sharp, ambitious, beautiful. The file contains a similar collection of surveillance photos, financial reports. And then, a series of frantic, handwritten notes from Jasper.

A. approached by federal agents. Standard procedure. Will monitor her reaction.

Another entry, a week later.A. has become withdrawn. Paranoid. She is lying about her movements.

The final entry is cold, clinical.A. made a poor choice. Asset compromised. Initiating exit protocol.

Tucked into the back of the file is a single, laminated newspaper clipping.Local Journalist Dies in Tragic Hiking Accident.

My stomach heaves. I open Catherine’s file. She was an art curator. The same story. The same pattern. Surveillance. The approach by the FBI. A period of deception. And then, the final, chilling entry.C. has become a liability. Exit protocol enacted.Her newspaper clipping is a small piece about a single-car crash on a winding country road. An accident.

Isabelle’s is the same. A talented cellist. An FBI approach. A betrayal. Her death was ruled a suicide. An overdose.

Three women. Three bright, talented, beautiful women who had the misfortune of catching the eye of Jasper Donovan Sinclair. Three women who were offered the same impossible choice I was. Three women who, unlike me, chose silence. Who chose to try and play both sides. And who paid the ultimate price for their mistake.

The truth hits me with the force of a physical blow, knocking the air from my lungs. I didn’t survive because I was special. I didn’t survive because he cherished a childhood photograph of me. I survived because, in a moment of pure, blind panic, I had accidentally passed his twisted, monstrous loyalty test. I survived because I tattled. My confession in the bedroom wasn't a pledge of allegiance. It was the desperate, reflexive act of a terrified animal, and it had inadvertently saved my life.

I am not his queen. I am not his partner. I am just the first of his lab rats to successfully navigate the maze.

I carefully, silently, put all the files back into the drawer. I re-lock it using the thumbprint on the glass. I wipe the glass clean with the sleeve of my robe, erasing any trace of my presence. I slip out of the study and back into the master bedroom.

He is still asleep, a beautiful, peaceful monster in a sea of white sheets. The man who has been obsessed with me my entire life. The man who has murdered at least four people that I know of. The man who would, without a moment's hesitation, add me to the collection of files in his desk if I ever gave him a reason to.

I have a choice between a quick death and a long life. And I have made my choice. Now, all I have to do is survive it.

Chapter 23

The discovery in his study changed everything.

My survival is no longer a given; it’s a conditional state, a tightrope I have to walk every single day. My fear is a constant, low-grade hum beneath my skin, a second heartbeat.

But fear, I am learning, is a phenomenal motivator.

I throw myself into the work at Donovan & Creed with a desperate, manic energy. I am not just a lawyer anymore; I am a student of my captor. I study his methods, his logic, his ruthlessness. I learn to think like him, to anticipate his moves, to see the world through his eyes. The flirtatious, playful dynamic is gone, replaced by a sharp, professional focus that he seems to find even more compelling.

A week after my midnight discovery, my old life makes an unwelcome intrusion. I’m at my desk, reviewing a complex international trade agreement, when my phone buzzes. The screen displays a number I thought I had blocked, a ghost from a past I am desperately trying to outrun.

Marcus.

My first instinct is to decline the call, to smash the phone against the wall again. But curiosity, a dark and dangerous impulse, gets the better of me. I answer, but I don't speak.