Cut wielded a power that made lesser men—including myself—want to run and hide.
When I was in charge, I would change that. I would change many things.
Cut moved deeper into the workshop, peering into the other rooms where paintings waited for restoration. Only once he was sure we were alone did he turn to me to follow.
With unease building in my gut, I did as ordered and moved into the back room where knick-knacks and miscellaneous childhood toys had been dumped.
“What is it that you wanted to discuss?” I asked, standing still in the centre of chaos. Deliberately, I pushed my heel harder against the ground, activating a deeper throb from the new cut. It wasn’t that I liked pain. In fact, I hated the stigma and weakness of cutting myself. I didn’t get pleasure from it—but I did get relief from my disease by being single-minded and focused.
Cut shrugged out of his leather jacket, placing the embroidered Black Diamond apparel on Jasmine’s old nursery cot. His hair was unruly and grey, his jawline sharp and unforgiving.
“Show, not discuss.” With a secretive smile, he moved to the large termite-riddled cupboard at the back of the room. He removed an old brass key from his pocket and inserted it into the lock.
As I moved closer, my heart stopped beating.
It couldn’t be.
Yet it was.
Cut grabbed the handles of the cupboard and swung the doors wide, revealing what he’d shown me the night of my sixteenth birthday. That same night, he’d made me watch what he did to Emma Weaver. He made me witness video after video of what he’d done to Nila’s mother, all while beating me if I ever dared look away.
Sickness rolled in my gut.
My hands balled.
Palms sweated.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Once again, my father had reminded me of my place and how fragile my wants, dreams, and very existence were.
My eyes burned as I drank in the age-old equipment passed down through generations. Shelf after shelf of torturous items used in extracting debts from the Weavers.
Cut’s face darkened, motioning me forward when I stayed locked to the floor. “I think it’s time you and I had a little chat, Jet.” Taking one particular item from the cupboard, I knew what he would make me do.
And I knew whatever love Nila felt for me would vanish like it never existed.
I couldn’t move, but it didn’t stop Cut from prowling toward me and placing the hated item into my shaking hands. Curling my fingers around the salt shaker, I hated that something so simple could deliver something so unforgivable.
My father murmured, “You have one last chance, Jethro. Use it well.”
Ice howled.
Snow fell.
Blizzards blew like fury.
I hung my head and gave in.
Motherfucking shit.
That was yesterday.
A Sunday I would never forget.
Today was Monday.
A Monday that I wished I could erase.
Last Monday had been full of freedom, kisses, and passion; polo and sex and blistering new beginnings.
This Monday was full of mourning and pain. Today was the day I became the true heir to Hawksridge because if I didn’t, I doubted I would wake in the morning.
Cut hadn’t said as much. But it was what he didn’t say that made the biggest impression.
Do this or I’ll kill you.
Obey me or this is the end.
Cut had seen what I knew he would. He took great pleasure in informing me that he knew I’d fucked Nila. He knew I’d chased after her during half-time at polo, and he knew my allegiances were changing.
It’d been a long fucking night.
After our talk, he’d forced me to go deep, deep inside. He tore away any progress Nila had made with me and filled me with snow once again.
In an odd way, I was grateful.
Grateful because without him tampering with my psyche, there was no way in flying fuck I would’ve got through today.
I thought I’d had months.
I thought I’d been the one in control of when the next payment would happen, but as always…I was wrong.
Cut had seen my ultimate plan before I’d even finalised the details.
He’d understood my tentative scheming of dragging out the debts until I was thirty. By then, I would’ve been in charge. By then, I might’ve found a way to spare Nila’s life without losing mine.
I had the Sacramental Pledge over the Debt Inheritance.
I’d put things in place to end this—once and for all.
But none of my forward thinking mattered anymore.
Today was the day Nila paid the Second Debt.
THE MOMENT JETHRO walked into my quarters, I knew.
We’d slept together three times, spent only weeks in each other’s company, yet I knew his soul almost as well as I knew my own.
Mystery still shrouded him, still hid so much, but I’d learned to read his body language.
I’d learned how to listen to his heart.
“No,” I whispered, clutching the tulle I’d been working on to my chest.
Jethro looked away, his face blank and unfeeling. “Yes.”
I didn’t need words to tell me what had happened. The truth was far too vivid to ignore.
His father.
His father had shoved him back into the blizzard and slammed the door in his face. He’d done something to him that wedged a canyon between us and left us with only one thing.
The debts.
Our emotions were on hold.
Our connection severed.
My heart sank.
I let the lilac tulle slip through my fingers, destroying the carefully pinned pattern of a ball gown that would be my centre piece of my Rainbow Diamond Collection.
Last night, I’d formulated a few goals. If I intended to stay at Hawksridge, to finish whatever had begun between Jethro and me, I had to give the outside world an explanation.
I had to put an end to the suspicion about what’d happened to me.
People were talking. This morning, I’d turned on my phone and browsed a few websites for what they thought happened to me. Scarily, there were a few very close to the truth—it seemed strange that something so incomprehensible could be guessed at so closely.
Almost as if someone had been telling secrets that they shouldn’t.