Page 59 of His Verdict
We make small talk for another twenty minutes. He shows me pictures of his family on his phone. A smiling wife. Two gap-toothed children. He talks about their upcoming vacation to Hawaii. I listen. I smile. I ask questions. I am a monster wearing the skin of a normal person, and he is too terrified to see the difference.
His phone buzzes on the table. He glances at it, a flicker of annoyance crossing his face. “Sorry, I have to take this. It’s my wife.”
He excuses himself from the table. “I’ll be right back.”
He doesn’t come back.
I wait. I finish my wine, a deep, blood-red Cabernet. I watch the other patrons laugh and talk. I check the time. Ten minutes pass. I know, with an absolute and chilling certainty, that I will never see David Morrison again.
I signal the waiter, pay the check—in cash—and leave.
The next morning, I am drinking coffee in the silent penthouse when the headline scrolls across the bottom of the financial news network.
MERIDIAN CFO DAVID MORRISON DEAD AT 54.
I turn up the volume. The news anchor reports the story with a practiced, somber expression. A tragic, unexpected death. Mr. Morrison was found in a downtown hotel room. An apparent heart attack. Preliminary reports from the coroner’s office suggest a previously undiagnosed congenital heart condition. So tragic. A wife and two children are left behind.
I watch, and I feel nothing.
No guilt. No remorse. No fear. Just a cold, clean, quiet satisfaction. I identified a problem and handled it.
Jasper returns two days later.
He doesn’t call. He doesn’t text. He simply appears, using his key to let himself into the penthouse just after dusk. I’m in his study, sitting in his chair, behind his desk, reviewing acquisition contracts for a new shell corporation.
I hear him walk down the hall. I don't look up. I continue making notes in the margins of a document, my pen scratching softly in the quiet room.
He stops in the doorway. I can feel the weight of his presence, the intensity of his gaze on me. He stands there for a long time, just watching me. I know Katherine has already briefed him. He knows what I did. He knows the call I made. He knows I solved the problem of David Morrison without so much as a tremor.
Finally, I finish my note. I cap my pen. I look up.
Our eyes meet across the expanse of the room. His face is unreadable, a mask of controlled neutrality, but his eyes aredark, searching, trying to understand the woman sitting in his chair.
“You killed him,” he says.
His voice is flat. It is not an accusation. It is not a judgment. It is an observation. A statement of fact.
I don’t flinch. I don’t look away. I hold his gaze.
“I protected us,” I correct him, my own voice quiet, steady, and utterly unshakable. I lean back in his chair. “Isn’t that what partners do?”
The word hangs in the air between us, charged and heavy with the weight of everything that has happened.Partner. It’s a challenge.
A redefinition of our entire twisted world.
He is silent for a long, charged moment. The city lights twinkle behind him, casting him in silhouette. I can’t read his expression. I can’t tell if he is furious, or impressed, or terrified.
Then, he moves.
He crosses the room, his footsteps silent on the thick, expensive rug. He doesn’t stop until he is standing directly in front of the desk, looking down at me. For a terrifying second, I think he might strike me. That this final transgression is the one that will finally push him over the edge.
But he doesn’t.
Instead, he reaches down, his movements slow, deliberate. He cups my face in his hands. His palms are warmagainst my skin, his calloused thumbs tracing the line of my jaw with a strange, almost reverent gentleness.
He says nothing. He just looks at me.
Chapter 27