Chapter 54
He'd already shown mercy because of Ethan's life back then. He hadn't just kept Charlotte out of jail; he'd even swallowed his pride and pressured Isabella into dropping the charges.
He'd thought that was the last of what he owed the Johnson Family. Who knew that vicious woman had the nerve to go further behind his back, using filthy, reputation-ruining tricks to go after Isabella?
'Charlotte. Did she really think James's bottom line was something she could trample again and again?'
"About Sophia—package up every disgusting thing she's ever done, along with all the hard evidence from last night: hiring someone, drugging, all of it. Send it to every media outlet in the Amber District and the builders' association. Then let her rot in prison and think about what she's done."
There was no warmth left in James's tone, not even the last thread of humanity. It was the cold, predatory calm of someone who'd spent too long at the top.
"As for Charlotte…" A flicker of something vicious cut through his narrow, black eyes. "I'll handle her myself."
He ended the call. He didn't even bother changing out of his robe, slid a long finger across his screen, found a number, and dialed.
At the same time, in Novaria, inside a luxury apartment in Emerald City, Charlotte was pacing the living room, restless and on edge. She'd waited all night for news from Sophia and that paparazzo, but by morning her phone had stayed silent as a gravestone.
Not only had there been no scandal about Isabella sneaking into a hotel in the middle of the night, but she couldn't even get Sophia to pick up.
Just as she lifted her hand toward her mouth, ready to bite down on a nail, the phone on the table buzzed.
When she saw the caller ID—James—her breath caught.
She forced out a few tears, put on her most helpless voice, and answered.
"James…" Her tone carried a perfectly measured surprise. "Why are you calling me all of a sudden? I thought you were really never going to talk to me again…"
James didn't respond.
Instead, a recording played on the other end, so clear it might as well have been in the room with her.
"Sophia, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Let's make a deal. You keep an eye on Isabella, and as long as she's disgraced, the future chief designer position is yours."
"That stuff in the juice? I paid a fortune for it—high concentration. As long as that bitch Isabella drinks it, she'll be ruined."
Charlotte's teeth started to chatter. "W-what… what is this…" She clung to the last scrap of hope, trying to force it into place. "James, this is fake. Someone spliced audio to frame me!"
"Frame you?" James finally spoke.
His voice was low, heavy, like it crawled up from somewhere underground. It carried a pressure that didn't ask permission. It simply closed around a person's throat.
"Charlotte, looks like these last six years, I really have been too kind to you. Kind enough that you started believing Ethan's life meant you could cash it in here, over and over, for a free pass."
"No—no, that's not it!" She broke apart. She gripped the phone as if it could save her, sobbing hard, ugly, beyond any pretense of dignity.
"James, listen, let me explain! It's because I love you. I really do. I was just scared of losing you and Jasper! Isabella pushed me, she—"
James cut her off, cold and sharp. "Don't say her name. You don't deserve to."
"I gave you one last chance. You chose to die on this."
"From this second on, not just the Sinclair Family—no one in the Amber District business circle will have a place for you, Charlotte. I'll use every dollar the Sinclair Group has and personally crush what's left of the Johnson Family's bottom-tier businesses."
"And you—get ready to go to court. Conspiracy to drug someone and attempted assault are both serious felonies. You're looking at at least ten years."
"No!" Charlotte screamed, wild. "You can't do this to me, James! You promised Ethan you'd take care of me!"
Her voice turned shrill, hysterical, scraping at the air. "Ethan took three bullets for you! How can you be so ungrateful? If you send me to prison, how do you face him? How do you explain it to everyone?"
"Explain it?" James gave a low laugh, the kind with nothing in it but contempt.
"Charlotte, you've got one thing wrong. Since when do I need to explain myself to anybody?"
"As for what I owed Ethan…"
His tone turned glacial, the last bit of mercy snapping clean in two. "The last time, I already paid that debt—with Isabella's reputation and the humiliation she swallowed for you."
A beat of silence, and then he went even colder."From now on, even if you dropped dead on the street in Novaria today, I wouldn't spare you a second glance."
"Wait for the summons."
He hung up without giving her another second to scream.
The dead tone drilled into her ear. Charlotte hurled the phone at the wall, hard enough that it burst apart with a sharp crack.
She collapsed to the floor like something boneless, fingers digging into the carpet until her knuckles blanched. The face that used to look gentle and polished twisted into something ugly, almost unrecognizable.
It was over. All of it.
James was really going to wipe her out.
He wasn't just going to destroy the last scraps of the Johnson Family's holdings. He was going to personally throw her into that women's prison, the kind that chewed people up and never spit them back out, and keep her there for ten full years.
Ten years.
For a woman who valued status and appearances more than life itself, it was worse than death.
No. She couldn't go to prison. She couldn't.
Fear and resentment spread through her head like poison, eating away at her ability to think. Charlotte tore through her mind for anything—anything—that could still save her.
The Sinclair parents wouldn't dare go against James. And James himself had gone past cold; he was done with her.
What did she have left? What could she possibly use to force his hand?
Then her bloodshot eyes lit up, sudden and sharp, like she'd grabbed a strand of web in a dark pit.
Jasper. Jasper.
Half an hour later, in Novaria, outside Emerald City's most elite private elementary school, it was midday recess.
Charlotte wore oversized sunglasses and turned her collar up high, moving like she didn't belong anywhere near the place. She slipped past the Sinclair Family's assigned bodyguards at the gate, taking advantage of the moment the nanny stepped away to buy Jasper his customized hot lunch.
Quietly, she made her way to a secluded kids' play area just beyond the school grounds.
Jasper had a mild aversion to crowds. At lunch, he liked to sit here alone on the swing, zoning out.
Sure enough, she spotted him from a distance—tiny legs in polished uniform shoes, his expensive school blazer too neat for the way his head hung. He rocked back and forth in slow, bored arcs, staring at nothing.
Ever since James had confiscated his social media accounts and sternly warned him not to have contact with Charlotte, Jasper's mood had stayed low.
He didn't understand adults, their messy calculations, their dirty games. He only knew that Charlotte—who used to play with him and buy him ice cream—had suddenly disappeared, and the mother everyone insisted loved him still hadn't come to see him.
"Jasper…"