I nod.
He smiles, faint and fond. “Keep it. It suits you.”
He hands it back, and I don’t know what to do except hold it.
He says, “I like you, Landon. It’s inconvenient, but there it is. There’s something… electric about you and I can’t help but wonder how you’d feel submitting to me. Now, you must understand… this isn’t something that happens often for me. Usually my playthings die under my hands, but you… I want you to bend.”
He brushes my hair off my forehead, then lets his hand fall to his side. I’m too shocked to say anything. To move. To breathe.
How could this beast of a man feel some kind of way about me? He doesn’t know anything about me.
Briar lets me stand there for a minute, not saying anything. He stands at my side, his profile defined against the dark. I feel him watch me, gauging how I’ll react.
He moves to the rail, leaning with one hip against it. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” he says, gesturing at the city.
I nod. “Makes you wonder how many people you could lose from up here before anyone noticed.”
He smiles, full and bright. “You’re not nearly as boring as your file made you out to be.”
That makes me laugh, and I feel some of the fear bleed off. I step up to the rail, grip it with both hands. My knuckles whiten, not from cold but from trying not to tremble. I look down, counting the floors, the distance.
Briar says, “You’re thinking of jumping?”
“No,” I say, and it’s the truth. “If I was going to, I’d have done it years ago.”
He hums, like he approves of the answer. “I don’t like people who throw things away.”
I glance at him, at the way the wind ruffles his hair. It’s lighter out here, almost gold. There’s nothing accidental about the wayhe’s put together, and it makes me feel even more fake, with my outgrown jacket and the mask still dangling from my fingers.
He doesn’t break eye contact. “You’re still scared of me.”
I want to say no, but I can’t. So I just stare at the lights below and say, “Shouldn’t I be?”
He shrugs, like it’s an old joke. “I suppose.”
We’re quiet for a while. My body wants to fidget, but I force myself to stay still, to match his composure. He makes it look effortless, like he’s practiced being the only thing in a room worth seeing.
He says, “Tell me what you see when you look down there, at the city crawling beyond the estate.”
I squint, and the city wobbles. “A lot of people who don’t know what’s really happening.”
He nods, satisfied. “And what happens if they find out?”
I answer honestly. “They’ll panic, or they’ll pretend it isn’t real. But most of them will just keep going.”
He turns to face me fully, arms crossed now, and for the first time I notice a ring on his finger—a simple gold band, no stone. “And you?” he asks. “Why did you have to dig?”
I think about it. “Someone hired me and then it became an obsession. It bothered me that the numbers didn’t add up. I didn’t care who got caught, as long as I could make the puzzle make sense.”
He’s quiet, and in that silence I hear the orchestra switch songs, something familiar but slowed down, like a pop song rewritten as a requiem.
“I believe you,” he says, and it feels like a test I didn’t know I was taking.
Then he steps in, closer than before. “You have a choice, Landon. You can choose to stay… as mine. You’d be under my protection, but also be mine to do with what I please. You’d be afforded the protections I can offer within my power under House Harrington. You can choose to walk away… but then I’d have to dispatch you.”
The implication is clear. My heart thuds in my chest.
“Not much of a choice, is it? What happens if I stay?” I ask, and my voice comes out steady.
