chapter 164

chapter 164
Sebastian's POV:
The hurts Maverick had left on my body throbbed with each breath. The Thorne estate had become my temporary sanctuary.
The news headline glowed on my phone screen: "Billionaire Heir Critically Injured in Suspected Hit-and-Run Attack."
Below it, a grainy photo showed the twisted wreckage of what had once been Maverick's Bugatti, emergency vehicles clustered around it like vultures.
In the background, Grace stood off to the side, her posture unnaturally rigid, her gaze hollow and fixed on nothing, blood staining her clothes and hands in dark, irregular patterns while a paramedic crouched beside her, attempting to bandage cuts on her palms.
I leaned back in the armchair, the leather cool against my spine, and allowed myself a smile that felt foreign on my face, like trying on a mask that no longer quite fit.
The satisfaction I'd expected—that rush of vindication I'd been chasing for years—remained frustratingly absent, replaced instead by a hollow ache that I refused to examine too closely.
My attention was caught by the sound of footsteps in the hallway outside my apartment, quick and eager, accompanied by the sharp click of heels that could only belong to one person.
The door burst open before I could decide whether to lock it, and Jessica Walker stumbled inside, her face flushed with exertion, her hair disheveled, and her clothes rumpled.
"Sebastian!" Her voice cracked with excitement as she rushed toward me, hands outstretched as if expecting an embrace, her eyes bright with manic energy. "I did it! I actually did it! Did you see the news? They're saying he might not make it through the night, that his injuries are—"
The sound of my palm connecting with her cheek echoed through the apartment like a gunshot, sharp and final, cutting through her breathless rambling with brutal efficiency.
Pain lanced through my bandaged hand—white-hot and immediate—but I swallowed it down, converted it into fuel for the rage.
Jessica staggered backward, one hand flying to her reddening face, her expression transforming from excitement to shock to something approaching disbelief in the space of a heartbeat. "What—what the fuck, Sebastian? I don't understand. I did exactly what you—"
"What you what?" I was on my feet before conscious thought caught up with action, closing the distance between us in three long strides until I loomed over her, close enough that she had to crane her neck back to meet my eyes, close enough that I could see the capillaries bursting in the whites of her eyes as understanding began to dawn.
"What exactly did you do, Jessica? Because from where I'm standing, it looks like you tried to murder Maverick using Grace White as your fucking weapon."
The words tasted like ash in my mouth.
Grace, who I'd spent two years carefully positioning, who I'd manipulated and pursued and told myself I was only using as a tool to hurt Maverick, who I'd convinced myself meant nothing beyond her strategic value—
The image from the news photo flashed through my mind again: her silhouette against the emergency lights, the way her body had curved inward like she was trying to physically hold herself together, and something in my chest twisted with an emotion I had no name for and absolutely no intention of examining.
"I—" Jessica's voice came out strangled, her fingers scrabbling at my wrist where I still held her collar. "So you hit me because of Grace?"
A harsh, disbelieving laugh tore from her throat, edged with hysteria. "You told me everything with her was just part of the plan—that pursuing her, acting like you cared, all of it was just another way to hurt Maverick, to threaten him where it would cut deepest. What, did you actually fall for her? "
"And what if I did?" I shoved her away hard enough that she stumbled, catching herself against the arm of the couch, my voice coming out cold and flat. "That's none of your fucking business."
"We had a plan," she whispered, her voice small and broken in a way that should have triggered some vestige of guilt but instead only amplified my contempt. "You said—after this was done, after Maverick was out of the way, we'd leave together. Find somewhere quiet, somewhere safe, somewhere we could just—"
"Be together?" I finished for her, moving to the bar cart and pouring myself two fingers of scotch with hands that remained perfectly steady despite the chaos churning in my gut. "Build a life? Play house like some fucking Hallmark movie?"
I turned back to face her, bringing the glass to my lips and savoring the burn of expensive liquor sliding down my throat, watching her crumble in real-time as every fantasy she'd constructed around my lies disintegrated into ash.
"Jesus Christ, Jessica. You're desperate and delusional enough to believe whatever bullshit I feed you."
"But I killed for you!" The words exploded from her in a shriek that probably carried through the walls to neighboring apartments, her composure shattering completely as she lurched toward me again, hands outstretched in supplication or accusation. "I committed murder because you said—because you promised—"
"Attempted murder," I corrected, taking another sip of scotch and letting the distinction hang in the air between us like a noose. "Maverick's still breathing—at least there's been no news of his death yet. "
I continued, circling around her like a predator toying with wounded prey, unable to stop myself from twisting the knife deeper.
"Even if Maverick dies—even if you actually succeed in killing him—I still won't want you. I never wanted you, Jessica. "
She stared at me for a long moment, her chest heaving with rapid breaths, her eyes red-rimmed and wild, and I braced myself for tears or screaming or physical violence—all reactions I'd witnessed from her before in various contexts.
Instead, her hand dove into her jacket pocket with surprising speed, emerging with something small and black that she thrust toward me like a talisman, her thumb working over its surface until a familiar voice—my voice—filled the apartment with damning clarity:
"—as long as you help me kill Maverick, we'll find somewhere and live a good life together."
My own words, recorded with crystal clarity, played back at me from the cheap drugstore recorder Jessica clutched like a lifeline, and I felt something cold and sharp settle in my stomach.
Jessica's smile held a manic edge that transformed her features into something almost unrecognable as she met my gaze with newfound steel in her spine.
"You think I'm stupid?" Her voice came out steady now, controlled in a way that sent warning bells clanging through my nervous system. "You think I didn't learn anything from all the times you fucked me over before?"