“Twenty-four hours and nothing? Not a single goddamn word?”
The muscle in Jameson’s jaw hadn’t stopped twitching since he’d started pacing. I’d seen that twitch before, in other men, in other rooms. It always came right before the asking stopped.
He took two steps toward me, the kitchen island between us, and pressed his hands to the polished marble. Skin blotched red, eyes bloodshot, the tendons in his neck pulled tight. He looked like a man on the edge.
“If you’re lying to me, if you failed me again, I swear to God there is nothing that will keep you safe.”
“I swear I didn’t fail you. Check the vial; it’s in my bag. I gave him the poison. I watched him drink it. He slumped over in his chair. The glass fell out of his hand. I left him there.” I made myself hold his gaze. Looking away was the same as bleeding in front of a predator. “Then I sent that mousy girl to find him. Told her he might do something reckless. She ran straight to his side.”
Jameson stared at me. The silence was worse than the shouting.
“Tompkins is probably waiting for word from the doctor before he calls. Unless...”
“Unless what?”
“Madison. What if she got in the way?”
“How?” Jameson took a slow step left. I mirrored him right.
“Pierce had her arrested for murder, then made sure no competent lawyer would touch her case. She would hate him. If she found him unconscious with no one around, who knows what she’d do. Maybe she called her own people. Maybe shemoved him somewhere before Tompkins could find him. That would explain why there’s been no hospital admission, no news.”
I’d checked every news feed twice while Jameson was in the bathroom. Nothing. No breaking story about Pierce Worthington hospitalized. No anonymous tips, no society column whispers. A man that powerful didn’t slip into a coma without someone noticing. Unless he hadn’t. Unless the poison hadn’t worked the way Jameson promised it would.
Jameson tipped his head back and laughed.
“You think some little townie bitch had it in her to drag a grown man out of that house? She was nothing. Just a pretty face. She was so mediocre, I couldn’t even get it up for her.”
I bit back the obvious question.Then why were you with her?But I already knew the answer. She wasn’t for wanting. She was for using.
We’d been circling for three minutes.
I was running out of kitchen.
“She didn’t do it. This was you failing a simple task.”
“No. I gave him the poison exactly as you told me to.” Each word was a small, careful thing. “Let me call the house. Ask to speak with Pierce directly. If he answers, we’ll know something went wrong. If he doesn’t...”
Jameson leapt over the counter.
There was no warning.
No escalation.
One moment the island was between us and the next his hand was around my throat.
My fingers locked around his wrist. His grip tightened. My lips went numb.
“Please,” I choked out. “Please.”
He leaned close. “This is a kindness. Nothing compared to what I’m going to do to that brother-fucking cunt and the thief who stole my inheritance.”
Black at the edges of my vision.
I thought, absurdly, of the glasses. Of my mother’s hands wrapping each one in tissue. Of all the things I had traded away. Just to end up here, in this penthouse I’d clawed for, dying at the hands of a man I’d chosen.
A knock at the door.
Jameson dropped me.
