Page 45 of Damsel in Disguise

Luca considers for a long moment. “No logs. No cross-department access. If the Keinstons escalate you’ll personally absorb the impact, Alistair Hertley.”

That is the language that closes doors.

The Crown inclines his head almost imperceptibly. “Temporary jurisdiction. No archival logs. No Council observation unless reactivated. You can have her,” he gives the final decision.

Victor exhales through his teeth but says nothing.

I almost let out a sloppy sigh of relief, but then he says in a cold timbre, “She remains your liability, Hertley,” the Crown finishes with an unnerving calmness.

I know what it implies—should she retaliate, I pay the ultimate price.

Even after knowing that, I met his masked gaze and say, “She already is.”

When I return to the private ward, the lights are still low.

She hasn’t moved.

The monitors hum softly. Sedation holds her under deep and complete control, lashes resting against bruised cheeks. The assigned doctors have done exactly as instructed while I was gone. No deviations. Nothing I didn’t authorize.

Good. But I should leave.

Reports are waiting. Classes tomorrow. Oxford doesn’t tolerate absence, even from men like me.

Every additional hour of her being unconscious collapses risk of collapse. So is if she wakes up before I make her absence look valid.

The trickiest part is to take care of her family. I need to breach where she leaves, get myself authorized into all her devices—her phone and backpack are already brought here in a plastic bag. I need to carefully craft a lie to convince her family that she’ll be offline for at least a month, and they can’t come to visit in the meantime.

And also take care of her academic life so that nothing gets flagged or raises any sort of suspicion.

Instead of doing anything worth requiring my immediate attention, I pull a chair to sit by her bedside.

This is temporary, I tell myself.

She’s safer sedated than waking, confused, frightened, throwing questions at me—she isn’t yet ready to know the answers.

I study her face—the slack vulnerability of someone who’s unfortunately infatuated with the very wrong person.

Stalking me, of all people. Foolish girl.

I watch the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest. My mind subconsciously counts her breaths, guarding the silence surrounding us.

I adjust the blanket when she shivers, a reflex I pretend not to notice. My hand lingers a second too long before I pull it back.

She’ll not wake until I think she’s ready. Months, if necessary. Longer, if required. I won’t hand her over to any institutional curiosity.

After all, we only die once, so live before we do. And Ariella Keinston just wanted to live by chasing a recklessly dangerous thrill.

17. COVER-UP

alistair

The human mind is fundamentally a system of predictable inputs and expected outputs. When a vehicle traveling at approximately forty-five miles per hour collides with a concrete barrier, the kinetic energy transferred to the biological structure obeys standard physical laws.

Asphalt vs. skin.

Velocity vs. mass.

The variables are clinical. Easily calculated.