chapter 166

chapter 166
Sebastian's POV:
Jessica lay sprawled on the floor where I'd shoved her, her chest heaving with great, ragged gasps as she struggled to draw air back into her lungs, one hand braced against the hardwood to keep herself upright.
When she finally lifted her gaze to meet mine, I saw something that gave me pause—those eyes that had once looked at me with such pathetic, desperate adoration now burned with pure, undiluted hatred, the kind of loathing that came from having every illusion shattered and every vulnerability exploited.
I stood over her, watching her slowly regain control of her breathing, and felt something far more complicated than simple satisfaction churning in my chest—a twisted knot of contempt, regret, and something that might have been self-loathing if I allowed myself to examine it too closely.
"I heard," I said, my voice returning to something approaching normal conversational tones even as my pulse still hammered in my ears, "that you and your mother have quite the touching relationship. Regular weekly phone calls, I believe? "
Jessica's head snapped up at that, her eyes going wide with a different kind of fear now, the kind that came from understanding that there were worse things I could do than simply kill her, that the people she loved could be made to suffer for her mistakes in ways that would be far more devastating than any physical harm I might inflict on her directly.
I let the implication hang in the air between us, heavy and suffocating.
The sound of footsteps in the hallway outside—multiple sets, moving with purpose—registered half a second before my apartment door burst open, uniformed officers flooding into the space with weapons drawn, their voices overlapping in a cacophony of shouted commands that I let wash over me without reaction.
"Sebastian Thorne?" The lead officer approached cautiously, his gaze moving between me and Jessica's crumpled form with practiced assessment. "We received a call about a disturbance."
"Officers, thank God," I said, allowing genuine relief to color my tone as I raised my hands in a gesture of cooperation, making certain they could see the blood still dripping from my forearm, the torn fabric of my shirt, the defensive wounds that told a very specific story about what had transpired here.
"She attacked me—I tried to talk her down, but she just kept coming. I was afraid she was going to kill me."
Two officers moved to Jessica's side, hauling her to her feet with professional efficiency despite her attempts to resist.
Jessica's voice was coming out in a raw, damaged rasp as she tried to explain, to make them understand that I was lying, that everything I'd said was carefully calculated manipulation designed to paint her as the aggressor while I played the victim.
But they weren't listening—not really—because all they could see was a hysterical woman and a man with visible injuries.
"Thank you for calling this in, Mr. Thorne," one of the officers said, nodding respectfully as his colleagues restrained Jessica. "And if I'm not mistaken, Ms. Walker here is also a suspect in that hit-and-run case from earlier today. We'll need to take her in for questioning on that matter as well."
I nodded slowly. "I'm glad I could help," I said, my voice carrying just the right amount of somber civility. "I only hope justice is served."
The lie tasted like ash on my tongue, but I delivered it with perfect sincerity, watching Jessica's face contort with impotent rage as they led her toward the door, her eyes promising retribution she would never be in a position to deliver.
The moment the door closed behind them, I crossed to where the recording device still lay against the baseboard, picking it up and examining it for a long moment before methodically dismantling it, extracting the memory card and snapping it in half, then grinding the pieces beneath my heel until nothing remained but plastic shards and crushed circuitry.
My private physician arrived twenty minutes later, summoned by a text I'd sent while the police were still processing the scene, and worked in efficient silence to clean and bandage the wound on my forearm.
After he left, I climbed the stairs to my bedroom and stripped off my ruined clothes, standing before the full-length mirror and taking inventory of the various marks and scars that decorated my torso—the still-healing puncture wounds in my palms from Maverick's knife, the mottled bruising across my ribs from where his friends had taken turns demonstrating their loyalty, the fresh cut on my forearm that would leave yet another permanent reminder of my own spectacular failures.
I looked like exactly what I was—a man who had gambled everything on a series of increasingly desperate plays and lost spectacularly at every turn—and the face staring back at me from the mirror held an expression I couldn't quite identify, something hovering between resignation and a kind of grim determination that suggested I still hadn't learned when to fold.
Fresh clothes helped somewhat—crisp white shirt, charcoal slacks, the kind of outfit that projected confidence and control even when I felt neither—and I took my time with my tie, watching my reflection's fingers work through the familiar motions until the knot sat perfectly centered, a small gesture of order in the chaos my life had become.
The florist three blocks from St. Jude Memorial Hospital kept late hours catering to guilty relatives and last-minute well-wishers, and the elderly woman behind the counter barely glanced up when I entered.
"I need white roses. " I said quietly, watching her hands still mid-motion, confusion flickering across her weathered features.
Understanding dawned slowly, her expression shifting to something approaching sympathy as she nodded and turned to the refrigerated case where funeral flowers waited in sterile rows.
The hospital's main entrance was nearly deserted at this hour, only a skeleton crew manning the information desk and a handful of exhausted-looking visitors scattered throughout the lobby.
The emergency room waiting area came into view around the final corner, and I slowed my pace, taking in the scene with the same clinical detachment.
The red light above the surgical suite doors burned with steady, unblinking intensity, a beacon of ongoing crisis that drew my attention like a lodestone.
And there, standing vigil by the surgical suite doors, were Grace White and Noah, her twin brother's arm wrapped protectively around her shoulders as he murmured something I couldn't hear into her ear.
Grace's face was a portrait of absolute despair—eyes red-rimmed and unfocused.
She stared at the red light above the operating room with the kind of hollow, desperate intensity.