Her family’s empire had crumbled. Oliver was gone. Her father was a traitor. Her mother was shattered.
But she wasn’t. Not completely.
Because Jonas was there, steady and solid, his hand warm over hers, anchoring her in the storm.
The house blurred at the edges, the noise of boots on polished wood, Savannah’s clipped instructions, Duchess’sorders, all of it became a muffled hum against the steady thrum of Jonas’s heartbeat under her cheek.
She clung to it. To him. To the one solid thing that hadn’t cracked in this night of breaking.
Her father’s ragged breathing scraped at her nerves. Her mother’s soft sobbing was a blade that wouldn’t stop cutting. None of it mattered half as much as the way Jonas’s hand smoothed once down her spine, grounding her, steadying her in a way she hadn’t known she needed until this moment.
“Breathe,” he murmured again. And she did. Because when he told her to, her body listened.
She tilted her head, searching his eyes. There was no judgement there. Only shadows. Old ones. Deep ones. But steady all the same. She wanted to tell him she saw it, that she knew his calm was something hard-won, that it cost him to hold it. But before the words came, heavy footsteps approached.
Bás.
He looked carved from granite, arms folded, eyes assessing, his presence filling the room in a way that drew every thread of attention. The team parted for him without thought. He stopped in front of Jonas, gaze flicking once to Clara before settling back on him.
“They’re secured,” he said simply. His voice carried the weight of finality. “Savannah has Sutton stable enough for transport. Oliver’s gone.” His eyes hardened further. “That leaves one more.”
Something electric crackled through Jonas, though his body didn’t move. Clara felt it under her hands, a wire drawn tight.
Bás’s tone dropped lower, colder. “Hendrik Voss. We pulled him from the south wing. He’s in the garden. What do you want done?”
Clara froze. The name meant nothing to her, yet everything in the way Jonas stilled, in the way his jaw locked and his pulse jumped beneath her palm, told her.
Her breath caught. Her stomach dropped. And then, all at once, the truth slammed into her.
This was the man. The one who’d hurt him. The one whose ghost lived in Jonas’s silence, in the shadows under his voice.
Jonas’s eyes met Bás’s, a thousand unspoken words in the stretch of quiet. Then he exhaled, sharp and controlled. “Hold him in the garden,” he said, voice level but laced with steel. “I’ll be right out.”
The hum of the room seemed to pause. Clara’s chest ached as she gripped his hand, realising what this meant, what he was about to face.
And for the first time, she wasn’t just afraid for herself. She was afraid for him.
Chapter 39
The night airsmelled of wet grass and gunpowder. Floodlights spilled across the Suttons’ garden in cold sheets, flattening hedges into hard geometry and turning breath into smoke. Boots had trampled a corridor through the dew from the terrace steps to the yew walk. At the far end, beneath a bare-limbed beech, Hendrik Voss knelt with his wrists cinched behind him. Reaper and Titan bracketed him, expressionless. Duchess stood to one side, arms folded, a witness and a wall.
Jonas walked out alone.
The murmur from the study dulled to a distant hum. He felt the night on his skin, felt the small bites of cold in his lungs, the thud of blood in his fingers. His body wanted him to be elsewhere, back under the glow of monitors where rules were code and outcomes could be predicted, but the only way out was through, and he was done letting a ghost live in his ribs.
Voss lifted his head. The floodlight washed him pale, turning his eyes a watery grey. A thin smile split his face. “Little Watchdog,” he said, voice smooth with the old taunt. “You came after all.”
Jonas stopped three paces away. “Stand him up.”
Reaper hauled Voss to his feet. The man swayed, then squared himself, chin tipped in lazy defiance.
Bás’s shadow fell long over the lawn as he came to a halt behind Jonas. He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. The team formed a loose horseshoe: Lotus, Bishop, Hurricane, Titan, Valentina, with Monty sitting at heel, the dog’s muscles quivering with restrained instinct. From the terrace, Clara stood with Charlie and Duchess, one hand pressed to the railing. He felt her there like a second pulse.
Jonas let the quiet sit. He wanted his voice when it came to land clean. “You’re going to hear me,” he said finally. He didn’t raise his volume. He didn’t need to. “All of you. Because I’m done carrying this in the dark.”
Voss laughed softly. “Is this where you tell your sob story? I remember you begging.”
“Don’t,” Duchess’s word cut like wire.
