I cross the distance in two steps and backhand him across the mouth. The force of the strike jerks his skull to the side, bursting his lip and sending blood running down his chin. I assess the damage to his mouth and find the injury acceptable.
“Don’t talk to her like that,” I say.
“Castien...”
The sound of helicopter blades interrupts whatever she was about to say. I look up and see it approaching from the north, flying low over the water. I turn back to the man who’s glaring at me with even more hatred.
“Monster Security Agency is taking you and your partners into custody,” I tell him. “We’ll transfer you to local law enforcement shortly.”
Then I turn to Jessa.
“Are you okay? Can you walk?”
“Yes, I’m fine.”
I place my hand on her lower back and lead her toward the open stretch of beach where the helicopter can land. The wind from the rotors whips sand into the air, and Jessa shields her eyes with her arm. I position myself between her and the worst of the wind. The helicopter touches down.
I look at Jessa and she looks back at me. Her forehead is still bleeding, there’s sand in her hair, and she’s exhausted. She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
I know I have to let her go. I must.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Jessa
Three months later
The first month is paperwork. Lawyers who specialize in inheritance law work with UK authorities to prove I own Hollowmere and everything in the vault. The castle deed is in my name, passed down through generations. There are forms, taxes, and export licenses, all requiring signatures and endless back-and-forth with government offices that move slowly. I pay the lawyers with a loan against the vault’s appraised value, and the bank extends my credit now that they know what I have sitting under the Cornish cliffs.
The second month is cataloguing and appraisal. Teams of experts descend on Hollowmere: gemologists, art historians, numismatists, rare book specialists. They work in the vault under my supervision, photographing and documenting every item, creating inventories that run hundreds of pages long. The gold and platinum bars alone are worth over four hundred million dollars. The jewelry and gemstones add another hundred and fifty million. The paintings, sculptures, coins, and manuscripts are harder to value because some items are so rare that comparable sales don’t exist. The total estimate comes back at just under a billion dollars. I sit in Garrick’s gatehouse staring at the number until it stops looking like real money.
I pay Garrick a bonus of seven hundred thousand dollars and release him from the contract. He tries to refuse the money because he’s ashamed of what his grandson did. I insist. He’s spent his whole life maintaining a crumbling castle for almost nothing, and he deserves something for his loyalty. I tell him to retire somewhere warm. He cries when he leaves Hollowmere, I give him a hug, then watch him drive away in his ancient truck.
The third month is moving and selling. I don’t want to keep everything, because managing that much wealth is overwhelming. The bulk of the precious metals goes to Pendragon Armored's private vault facility in London, transported by armored trucks. The jewelry and gemstones go to a specialized vault at Aurelian Vaults. I sell some of the paintings and sculptures through Sterling & Croft auction house, and the money from those sales alone pays off my debts and sets up my mother in a penthouse. It’s enough to open my psychology practice in Manhattan the way I always imagined it.
I keep a few pieces: a diamond necklace, a painting of the Cornish coast, a ruby ring that fits my finger. The rest stays secured in London.
I hire architects and contractors to begin restoration work on Hollowmere Castle. I want to turn it into a luxury hotel. It will take years and cost millions, but I have both now. I want to restore the castle properly, bring it back to what it was when the Holloways had power and respect. My ancestors lost everything through greed, stupidity, and bad luck. I’m going to build it back piece by piece.
My psychology practice is different than what I originally planned. I’m the owner and director now, not a therapist grinding through patient sessions day after day. I hire other therapists who specialize in Dark Triad disorders, pay them well, and give them the resources they need. I’ll take patients when I want to, when a case interests me, but mostly, I’ll manage from a distance. The practice doesn’t have to be everything anymore. It can just be one piece of the life I’m building.
Through all of this, I think about Castien constantly. Every day, I want to reach out to the MSA in London and ask how I could contact him, but I’m so busy that I never manage to do it. There’s always another meeting or another decision that needs my attention. The hours blur together in an endlessstream of phone calls and contract negotiations. I fall into bed exhausted every night and dream about him, about his glowing silver eyes and the way his steel body felt wrapped around me. I wake up thinking about him, wondering what he’s doing and if he’s thinking about me too. The more time passes, the more convinced I am that what we had wasn’t just physical attraction intensified by danger. I want him in a way that doesn’t fade. I just need to finish this first, get my life in order, and then I can reach out to him. Then I can figure out what we are to each other.
I’m in New York now, visiting the therapy offices in Manhattan with my assistant Tara. We’re getting ready to open in two weeks. There are already patients scheduled, appointments filling up the calendar faster than I expected. We’re working with Rikers Island on therapy visits for inmates who want help.
I’m standing in the main reception area when my phone rings and Yasmin Bayard’s name lights up the screen.
“Sorry, I have to take this,” I excuse myself to Tara.
I step into one of the offices and close the door. Seeing Yasmin’s name makes nausea rise in my throat. I catch my reflection in the glass window. My hair is still electric blue, gathered in a chignon instead of hanging loose the way I used to wear it. I’m wearing a charcoal suit and pearls around my neck and dangling delicately from my ear lobes. I’ve had to change my entire wardrobe over the past three months, because now I’m on the cover of financial magazines and getting invited to galas and events where people care what I’m wearing. I didn’t want to give up the blue hair though, no matter how many image consultants suggested something more professional. I need something to ground me and remind me who I was before the fortune.
“Yasmin, hi. How are–”
“You broke him,” she snaps.
“What are you talking about?”
“Castien,” she says. “You broke him.”
