Page 51 of His Verdict
There's no guard, no call box. The gates just swing inward with a silent, hydraulic hiss, granting us passage. They close behind us with a soft, final thud, sealing us inside.
We’re no longer in a place governed by the laws of man.
The driveway is a winding path of crushed stone that cuts through acres of perfectly manicured, winter-brown lawn. The house appears in the distance, rising from the flat earth like a stone fortress. It's not a home; it's a monument to dynastic power, a sprawling Gilded Age mansion of dark gray stone, sharp gables, and countless windows that look like vacant, unblinking eyes. It’s oppressive, gothic, and it seems to suck the very color from the sky around it.
The car pulls to a stop before a massive oak door. Anton gets out and opens my door, his face as impassive as ever. Jasper emerges from the other side, his movements stiff, coiled. He doesn't look at me. He just starts walking toward the entrance.I have no choice but to follow, my heels clicking a nervous, staccato rhythm on the stone steps.
The door is opened before we reach it by a man who looks to be in his late sixties, rail-thin and dressed in a simple, perfectly tailored dark suit. He has the kind of severe, unreadable face that comes from a lifetime of witnessing things he will never speak of.
"Mr. Jasper," he says, his voice a dry rustle of leaves. He dips his head in a gesture that is less a bow and more a grudging acknowledgment. His cold, pale eyes flick to me for a fraction of a second, and in that fleeting glance, I am weighed, measured, and dismissed.
"Is he in the study, Alistair?" Jasper’s voice is tight, strained.
"He is waiting for you," the man replies, stepping back to allow us entry.
The inside of the house is even more intimidating than the outside. A grand foyer with a soaring, cathedral-like ceiling. The floor is a dizzying checkerboard of black and white marble. The air is cold, still, and smells of lemon oil and old secrets. Dark-wood-paneled walls are lined with portraits of stern-faced men and women, their painted eyes following me as we walk. It feels like a mausoleum, a museum dedicated to a long line of predators.
Alistair leads us down a long, echoing hallway, our footsteps the only sound. My heart is a frantic drum against my ribs. My palms are slick with sweat. I am walking to my own sentencing.
He stops at a set of double doors, pushes one open, and announces, "Mr. Jasper is here, sir." Then he steps aside, and Jasper walks in.
I hesitate on the threshold, a wave of pure, primal fear washing over me. Jasper stops and looks back at me, his expression unreadable, but his eyes command me to follow. I take a breath that does nothing to steady me and step inside.
The office is cavernous, lined floor to ceiling with leather-bound books that have never been read. A fire crackles silently behind a black iron screen in a massive stone fireplace. A wall of windows looks out onto the desolate, empty fields. But all of it is just background noise.
The center of the room, the center of this entire universe, is the man sitting behind a desk the size of a small car.
Corvus Sinclair.
He is an older, more weathered version of Jasper, but where Jasper is a controlled storm, his father is a cataclysm. His hair is more silver than black, but it’s just as thick. His face is a roadmap of cruelties, carved with lines of impatience and absolute authority. He's wearing a dark, pinstriped suit that probably cost more than my law school education. He doesn't look up when we enter. He's examining a document, his focus absolute. The power radiating from him is a physical force, pressing down on me.
Jasper comes to a stop in front of the desk. I stand a few feet behind him, to his right, trying to make myself as small as possible. I feel like a lamb brought to the slaughter.
Finally, after a silence that stretches for an eternity, Corvus Sinclair sets the document down. He still doesn't look at us. He looks out the window, at his vast, empty kingdom.
"I received a call this morning," he says. His voice is a low, gravelly rumble, like stones grinding together. "From an old friend at the Department of Justice. He tells me my company—the company I built from nothing—was raided by a pack of federal hyenas."
He finally turns his head, and his eyes, a startlingly pale, cold blue, land on his son.
"So, tell me, Jasper. Why is my life's work being threatened? And why," his gaze slides past his son, past me, and lands on me like a physical blow, "isthatstill breathing?"
The question hits me with the force of a punch to the gut. The air evacuates my lungs.That.He didn't say "she." He didn't say "the girl." He called me an object. A thing that should have been disposed of.
Jasper’s shoulders tense. "She's loyal," he says, his voice a low, warning growl. "She held. The Feds tried to turn her in the middle of the raid, and she told them to get out."
Corvus lets out a short, sharp bark of a laugh. It’s a terrifying sound, utterly devoid of humor. "Sheheld? The bitch is a liability. A loose end. She was there for the Meridian deal. Her name is on everything. She is the star witness they have been praying for, and you brought her into my home?" He leans forward, his hands flat on the desk, his voice dropping to a furious whisper. "Have you lost your goddamn mind? I told you to take care of her."
"She is an asset," Jasper insists, his own voice hardening. He takes a half-step to his left, subtly positioning himself more fully in front of me. "The Feds will get nothing."
"I can buy a thousand lawyers," Corvus snarls, rising slowly from his chair. He is taller than I expected, a looming, predatory figure. "What I cannot buy is silence. Not the kind that matters. You're getting soft, boy. Letting your cock do the thinking for you just because she's a good whore."
The insult is so crude, so vile, it sends a jolt of hot shame through me, immediately followed by the iciest terror I have ever known.
"She can be replaced," Corvus continues, his eyes locked on Jasper, but his words are meant to flay me alive. "Everything can be replaced. A lesson you seem to have forgotten. You let one loose end dangle, and it becomes a noose."
He opens a drawer in his desk. My blood turns to ice. Every instinct in my body screams at me to run, but I'm paralyzed, my feet fused to the floor.
He pulls out a gun.