Chapter 3 3

The study smelled of old paper and new money.

Jericho had escorted her here ten minutes ago. She was still in the maid's uniform, but she had washed the saliva off her hands.

Augustine sat behind a desk that was large enough to land a plane on. He wasn't looking at her. He was looking at a computer screen, a headset over one ear.

"...the volatility is temporary," he was saying. "The rumors of my health are exaggerated. A strategic alliance is imminent."

He pulled the headset off and turned the wheelchair to face her.

He didn't waste time on pleasantries. He slid a thick document across the polished mahogany.

"Strategic Alliance Agreement," she read the title upside down.

"I need a wife," he said. "Publicly. For six months."

She laughed. It was a dry, humorless sound. "You're joking. You assaulted me last night, held me prisoner today, and now you want to play house?"

"My stock dropped twelve percent this morning," he said. "The board thinks I'm dying. They think I have no heir, no stability. A wife fixes the stability. A pregnancy fixes the heir."

"I would rather die."

"Would you rather your father die?"

The air left the room.

"His bail is set at three million," Augustine said. "I pay it. I hire the best legal team in New York. He walks free in a week. Or..." He shrugged. "He stays in Rikers. I hear the general population is rough on stroke victims."

She stared at him. "You are a psychopath."

"I am a businessman."

"I have a fiancé," she lied. "Grant. He's coming for me."

Augustine's lip curled. It wasn't a smile. It was a sneer.

"Grant Sterling?" He tapped a key on his keyboard. "Your fiancé hasn't called the police. He hasn't called your lawyer. He's currently in the Hamptons."

"You're lying."

"Call him." He pushed a landline phone toward her.

She grabbed the receiver. She dialed Grant's number. Her fingers shook.

Ring. Ring. Ring.

"You've reached Grant. If this is about the Mann bankruptcy, please contact my attorney. If you're a creditor, fuck off."

Click.

The dial tone hummed in her ear. It sounded like mocking laughter.

"He's distancing himself," Augustine said softly. "Rats flee a sinking ship, Aislinn."

Rage, hot and blinding, exploded in her chest. Not at Grant. At the man sitting in front of her, looking so smug, so in control.

"Shut up!"

She grabbed the first thing her hand touched. A blue and white porcelain vase on the corner of his desk. Her appraiser's eye registered it instantly. A clumsy imitation, probably from the late 20th century, trying to pass as Ming Dynasty. The cobalt blue was too flat, the glaze too perfect. A fake.

She held it up, her hand steady.

Augustine didn't flinch. He didn't dodge. He just watched.

"You surround yourself with fakes, Augustine," she said, her voice dripping with contempt. "This vase, your staff's loyalty, your own health... it's all a lie."

CRASH.

She shattered the vase against the marble floor at his feet.

Blood sprayed instantly, dark red against his pale skin. No, not blood. A shard of porcelain had ricocheted, slicing a thin line across his temple.

His head snapped back. The wheelchair spun slightly from the impact. He slumped forward onto the desk, groaning.

She didn't wait to see if he was dead.

She saw the keycard sitting on the edge of the desk.

She snatched it.

She ran.

She was barefoot. The marble floor of the hallway was ice cold. The alarm began to blare-a high-pitched, rhythmic shriek that pierced her eardrums.

"Security breach! Sector 4!"

She sprinted. She didn't know where she was going. She just followed the scent of salt air.

She burst through a side door.

Wind hit her like a physical blow. It was still storming, rain lashing sideways.

She ran across the wet grass, toward the sound of the waves.

She stopped.

The ground ended.

She stood on the edge of a cliff. Fifty feet below, the ocean smashed against jagged black rocks. White foam churned like boiling milk.

There was nothing else. No dock. No boathouse. Just water. Endless, hopeless water.

"Miss Mann."

She spun around.

Jericho and three other guards stood in a semi-circle, blocking her path back to the house. They didn't have guns drawn, but they looked like walls of meat.

The crowd parted.

Augustine rolled through.

He held a white handkerchief to his temple. It was soaked red. Blood trickled down his cheek, staining his white collar.

He didn't look angry. He looked... exhilarated.

He stopped the chair ten feet from her.

"Jump," he said.

She stepped back, her heel catching on a loose stone. It tumbled over the edge. She didn't hear it hit the water.

"What?"

"Jump," he repeated. He lowered the handkerchief. The cut on his forehead was deep, jagged. "If you want to leave so badly, that's the exit. Take it."

She looked down at the swirling death below. Then back at him.

"Or," he said, his voice dropping an octave, cutting through the wind, "you come back inside. You sign the paper. And you pay for the vase."

"I can't pay for that," she whispered. "It was a fake."

"No," he agreed, a cruel smile touching his lips. "But the insurance report will say it was a three-million-dollar antique. Coincidentally, the exact amount of your father's bail."

He held out a hand. It was covered in his own blood.

"Your choice, Aislinn. Death or debt."

She looked at the water one last time. She thought of her father, alone in a cell, unable to speak properly. She thought of Leo, who would have no one if she died.

She stepped away from the edge.

She walked toward Augustine.

She didn't take his hand. She fell to her knees in the wet grass in front of his wheelchair. Defeated.

He looked down at her. He reached out and gripped her chin, tilting her face up to the rain.

"Good girl," he whispered. "Now we go to the mainland. You have a dress to try on."