There, in a heavy silver frame tucked in the corner — half-hidden behind a stack of files — was a photograph I hadn’t noticed before.
Three men stood together, arms slung casually over shoulders, grinning at the camera like they owned the world.
The older one in the center — distinguished, silver hair at the temples, sharp suit and sharper eyes — was the exact man from the massive oil portrait hanging in the east wing. Jacob Stonewood. Ben’s father. The one who’d built the empire and died under suspicious circumstances.
Flanking him on the left was a younger Henry, in his mid-thirties maybe, buzz-cut, broad-shouldered, the same unyielding stance and green eyes that watched everything now.
And on the right...
The young man with his father’s arm around him. Dark hair artfully messy. Sharp jaw. Piercing blue eyes that crinkled at the corners with that crooked, boyish smile — the exact one Jacob had given me when he stopped to help me with my flat ire.
In the photo, Jacob was maybe eighteen, unscarred, perfect, and handsome in a way that made my chest ache. A key fob for a Porsche dangled from his fingers, and his tailored clothes screamed wealth and privilege.
I wanted to scream.
Ben Stonewood and Jacob really were the same fucking person.
My knees buckled.
Two stepped forward and caught my elbow before I hit the floor.
The room spun. Every mark on my body throbbed in sudden, sick recognition.
Jacob’s gentle hands were the same ones that had bruised and choked me last night. Jacob’s soft voice was the same one to growl and force me to scream I was his perfect little whore. Jacob’s reverent touch was the same one that had marked me as his, over and over.
It had all been him, all along… one man playing both parts.
He was both the monster I’d feared and the mercy I’d craved, and I’d fallen for both, screaming his ownership loud enough for the whole goddamn house to hear me.
I fucking fell for it.
“What do I have to do?” I whispered.
Both of them exhaled in relief.
“Good,” Eight murmured. “Very good. Trust us. It’s your only chance.”
Trust them? No, but rage made my legs move anyway. Betrayal made me follow them through the silent halls. Fear made me reach the door leading outside.
I looked out at the storm-ravaged landscape, ice clinging to branches like crystal bones, the world glazed and deathly still, coated in a blanket of ice that could almost pass for snow, and realized that my odds of getting out of here without wrecking something were slim to none.
But staying? Staying suddenly felt like the greater danger.
I stepped out into the frozen air anyway, because whatever waited outside had to be better than what I’d just seen inside.
The wind nearly punched the breath out of me when I stepped outside.
Ice-laced air sliced across my cheeks, sharp enough to make my eyes water. The world had gone white overnight, frozen and glassy and treacherous. Ice clung to every branch and railing like someone had dipped the entire hunting lodge in sugar and then shattered it.
Two grabbed my elbow to steady me.
“Careful. It’s slick.”
“No shit.”
My boots slid across the porch as we moved into the storm frosted landscape. The cold cut straight through my sweater, settling in my bones, making my fingers ache.
Every time I looked back, the lodge loomed in the distance behind us like some monstrous, sleeping thing. Its windows stared blankly through the frost. Its lights were off, except one, flickering faintly in the West wing.
