Chapter 7 · Glasshouse Terms

The silk was still around my wrists when my eyes cracked open. Dark blue. Tied off to the carved mahogany bedpost.

Dominic sat in the leather armchair across the room. Suit jacket gone, sleeves rolled to the forearms, an untouched glass of whiskey resting on his knee.

"You didn't sleep," I said, my voice rough from disuse.

"Neither did you." He pointed his chin at my hands. "Pull."

"What?"

"Pull your left hand, Mara. Go on."

I yanked. The knot gave immediately, sliding off the polished wood like water.

My stomach bottomed out. The tie had been loose the entire night. At three in the morning, while I lay staring at the ceiling plaster, counting his breaths, I could've slipped out and hit the hallway.

I hadn't even checked.

"That wasn't a restraint," I snapped, sitting up fast. "That was a joke."

"It was a test." He set the whiskey on the side table without looking at it. "You passed. I don't know what that says about you yet. Neither do you."

God, I hated how calm he was.

I rubbed the raw pink ring circling my skin. Before I could tuck my hands into my lap, his shadow blocked the bedside lamp. He stopped a single pace out—close enough that his cedar aftershave and cold smoke cut right through the stale room.

"May I?" he asked.

He asked every time. Soft, low, like he had manners. It pissed me off twice as hard as if he'd just grabbed.

"Whatever."

His thumb found the friction burn on my wrist. Light pressure. Warm skin against cold. My pulse kicked hard against his pad, betraying me on the spot.

He felt it. His jaw tightened once, a sharp muscle twitching under dark stubble, but he didn't pull away.

"I broke page forty last night," I said, jerking my arm back. "While you were sitting over there pretending you weren't watching my chest move."

"I wasn't pretending."

"One page, one rule. That was the bargain."

"That's still the bargain." He slid his hands into his slacks pockets. "Name it."

"Air."

He waited, completely still.

"Real air, Dominic. The bedroom windows are sealed. The counting room doesn't have daylight. I'm going stir-crazy in your concrete cage."

He went quiet for five long seconds. Then he unhooked a small brass key from his belt loop and rolled it across his knuckles.

"The glasshouse," he said. "South wing. Triple-pane glass on three sides, two armed men at every perimeter angle. You don't leave my line of sight."

"That's not air. That's a terrarium."

"Take it or stay locked in the sheets."

I swung my legs off the mattress. "Open the damn door."

***

The glasshouse hit me with damp heat, potting soil, and bitter lemon peel. It was a massive Victorian greenhouse grafted straight onto the limestone fortress. Potted citrus trees lined the flagstone path, and iron benches sat beneath the towering glass arches. Past the condensation, Lake Harrow stretched out flat, silver, and dead.

I sucked the air down until my ribs ached.

Three guards posted up at the entry points. Rocco was on the heavy iron latch. You can take the girl out of forensic accounting, but you can't stop her from calculating the choke points.

Dominic stopped by an overgrown Meyer lemon tree, his broad shoulders framed against the gray gray water outside.

"Terms," he said.

"You claimed you didn't negotiate."

"I don't. These aren't negotiations. They're boundaries so you don't get shot by my boys." He ticked them off with zero emotion. "You stay within ten feet of me. You don't look at the hardwired phones on the brick wall. And you give me what was on forty."

I dropped onto a cold wrought-iron bench. The chill bit right through my leggings.

"Straight to the invoice," I said.

"Mara."

"Shipping manifests," I said, leaning back. "Container serial numbers, dates, all logged in my father's private cipher. Eleven distinct drop-offs over three months."

Dominic stepped in close. He didn't sit. He stood right over me, cutting off the pale lake light.

"Whose containers?"

"Still working on the carrier codes. But the timestamps line up dollar-for-dollar with the dry spell in the Castellane syndicate accounts. Four million doesn't vanish into thin air. Danny didn't haul duffel bags out of the counting room. Somebody ran logistics for him."

Dominic's expression stayed completely flat. Only his hands betrayed him, curling tight inside his pockets.

"Run that by me again."

"Danny's an idiot with a gambling habit, not an international smuggler," I said, holding his dark stare. "He had a handler inside your house. And you already suspected it before you dragged me here."

"I had theories."

"You had theories, so you threw me in an iron-gated bedroom as bait."

Dominic dropped into a crouch. Suddenly we were dead-level. His eyes were pure pitch, zero apologies in them, his knees barely an inch from mine. The clean heat rolling off his chest hit my collarbone, thick and suffocating.

"I put you in that room because whoever handled Danny is going to gut anyone who can read the paper trail," he murmured. His voice dropped to a sandpaper rasp. "You think I'm the monster in your story. Maybe I am. But I'm the monster holding the front gate keys."

My breath hitched. "Is that your version of sweet talk?"

"It's the only truth you're getting today."

A heavy boot clattered against the stone tile behind us.

Rocco stood in the archway, his radio squawking static, holding out a cracked smartphone.

"Boss. North gate camera. You need to see this right now."

Dominic rose in one fluid motion, the raw proximity snapping like a severed wire. His face turned to stone.

"Stay by the bench," he ordered, eyes flicking to the two guards by the glass. "Nobody touches her. Nobody speaks to her. Mara—stay put."

He vanished through the iron door before I could answer. The latch clunked shut with a heavy, dead bolt.

The two guards immediately shifted, turning their backs to face the perimeter glass.

I waited eight seconds.

Then I bent down, pretending to re-tie the lace on my sneaker, and shoved two fingers into the dark, wet loam at the base of the lemon planter.

Three mornings ago, Gia had slipped a burner into my palm while shoving a breakfast tray into my ribs. I'd shoved it here during my first escort through the halls, wrapped tight in freezer plastic.

My fingers hit cold plastic.

Before I could drag it out, the phone buzzed against my skin. Short. Violent. Once.

I shielded my hands behind the iron bench leg and hit the side button. The tiny screen flared green. An unsaved number. One sentence:

*Blood hits the estate tonight. Run now or burn.*

A low metallic screech echoed through the glasshouse—the outer iron gates grinding open.