Page 54 of His Verdict
I am terrified of doing the wrong thing. Of speaking out of turn. Of using the wrong fork. Of breathing too loudly. Every move I make is calculated, minimized. I am trying to become invisible, to prove that I am not a threat, that I am nothing more than a quiet, obedient decoration at his son’s side.
Halfway through the main course, he speaks to me.
“Ms. Sutton.”
My head snaps up. My heart leaps into my throat, hammering against my ribs.
“Sir?” The word is a breathless whisper.
“Jasper tells me you graduated from Columbia,” he says, his tone mild, almost pleasant. But his eyes are like shards of ice. "An excellent school. Tell me, in all your studies of the law, did they ever teach you the difference between a calculated risk and a foolish one?"
The question is a trap. A perfectly crafted, silk-lined snare. He isn't asking about law school.
The room is utterly silent. Jasper’s hand rests on the table, a few inches from mine. I can feel the tension radiating from him. He is waiting to see how I will answer.
I take a small, steadying breath, meeting Corvus Sinclair's chilling gaze directly.
“They taught me,” I say, my voice quiet but clear, “that the most foolish risk of all is to bet against the house.”
I let the words hang in the air. I have declared my allegiance. I have stated, in no uncertain terms, that I know who holds the power, and I have no intention of challenging it.
A long, agonizing moment passes. Corvus stares at me, his face an unreadable mask. I can feel Jasper’s gaze on me, intense, analytical. I don’t dare look at him.
Then, the corner of Corvus Sinclair's mouth twitches. It is not a smile. A flicker of approval.
He picks up his wine glass.
“Indeed,” he says, and takes a slow, deliberate sip. The test is over.
For now. I may have passed, but I know, with a certainty that chills me to the soul, that I will be tested again. And again. And for the rest of my life I will have to keep giving the right answer.
Chapter 26
The rest of the weekend is a masterclass in psychological warfare conducted through silence. No one raises a voice. No guns are drawn. We eat three meals a day at that monstrous mahogany table, the three of us locked in civilized restraint while the echoes of a brutal, bloody fight linger in the air between us like gunpowder smoke.
I don’t sleep. Not really. I drift in a shallow, gray twilight of exhaustion, my body rigid, my ears straining against the profound silence of the house. I jolt awake every hour, gasping for air that won’t come, my heart hammering against my ribs, convinced that this is the moment. The moment Alistair glides into the room with a pillow to smother me in my sleep, or Corvus himself decides to finish the job he started in the study. I see the barrel of the gun every time I close my eyes.
Jasper is a ghost beside me in the massive bed. He sleeps, or pretends to, a dark, still shape under the sheets. He offers no comfort. No words of reassurance. No touch. The bruised, battered state of his body is the only evidence that he fought for me, but it feels less like a gesture of protection and more like a man refusing to relinquish a prized possession. He won the argument. He got to keep his toy. He offers the toy no comfort.
When we finally leave on Sunday evening, the iron gates hissing shut behind us, a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding for forty-eight hours escapes my lips in a ragged, shuddering sigh. I slump against the cool leather of the town car, the tension draining out of me, leaving behind a hollow, trembling exhaustion. I am asleep before we hit the main highway, myhead lolling against the cold glass of the window. It is a dead, dreamless sleep, the sleep of a soldier coming off the front lines. It is an escape, not a rest.
We arrive back at the penthouse in the dead of night. Jasper says nothing as we ride the elevator up in silence. He walks into the apartment and immediately pours himself a whiskey. He still hasn’t said a word to me. He does nothing to ease the terror that’s taken up permanent residence in my bones.
I stand by the floor-to-ceiling windows, looking out at the glittering, indifferent sprawl of Chicago. Down there, people are living their lives, bound by laws and morals and the mundane concerns of jobs and rent. Up here, in this gilded cage, there are no laws. There is only power.
And I realize, with a clarity so sharp it feels like a blade sliding between my ribs, that I have been given none. Not really.
The weekend wasn’t a reprieve. It was a demonstration. Corvus Sinclair showed me exactly what I am to them: a problem to be managed. A risk to be mitigated. A thing that could be, at any moment, erased. Jasper fought for me, yes, but what happens next time? What happens when the risk I represent finally outweighs my usefulness? He didn’t fight his father out of love. He fought him out of pride. Out of a refusal to be told what to do with his property.
I’ve been playing defense. From the very first day I met him, I have been reacting. Responding to his moves. His manipulations. His orders. I have been surviving, adapting, bending, and nearly breaking. I have let him and his federal agent adversaries move me around the board like a goddamn pawn. A pawn that has, through some miracle of circumstance,made it to the other side of the board, only to find herself surrounded by kings who still see her as disposable.
Fuck. That.
The thought is an explosion in my mind. A supernova of fury and defiance that burns away the last vestiges of my fear, leaving behind something cold, hard, and sharp.
I am not a pawn. I’m a fucking lawyer. I graduated from one of the best law schools in the country. I am smart. I am ruthless when I need to be. And for months, I have been sitting at the right hand of the devil, granted a private tour of hell. I’ve seen the books. I’ve drafted the contracts. I don’t just know where the bodies are buried; I drew the fucking map.
A shield is a temporary defense. A sword is a permanent solution. I have been acting like a shield, something for Jasper to hide behind when it suits him. It’s time I became a sword.