Chapter 4

I froze, the phone still pressed to my ear. “No,” I whispered. “That can’t be my son. Please, check again—he’s not dead.”

But the detective’s voice was steady. “The DNA confirmed it, Mrs. Jameson. I’m sorry.”

The room spun. My knees gave out, and I fell into the chair, shaking. “No… no, not my Zane.”

I begged them to look again, to call the lab, to tell me there’d been a mistake—but all I got were quiet looks and paperwork sliding across the table.

Then an officer stepped forward, his voice flat and formal. “Caroline Jameson, you are under arrest for negligence related to the death of a minor.”

I stared at him, uncomprehending. “Negligence?” I repeated. “What are you—do you understand what’s happened? My son—” My words collapsed into a sob. “Zane is dead… and me?”

“You were responsible for supervision,” the officer said, jotting something down. “We need to hold you for questioning. Seventy-two hours while we investigate.”

Xander watched with a face that had slid into something hard and small. He stepped close and the words he spat were knives. “You deserve this,” he said. “You let him go. You let our son die.”

I stared at him. “What are you saying?” My voice, raw, trembled. “You left him with Maureen. You walked off. You used him for sympathy—”

“You used him?” he sneered. “You were always too busy to look up, Caroline. Too busy for your family. Maybe if you’d been paying attention—”

But Xander would not stop. “You need to spend time in jail while they sort this out,” he said, as if pronouncing it were agreement enough. As if the law would be on his side. As if grief could be measured in days and file numbers.

They led me away. I fought, not with fists—what good would fists do?—but with voice and with every stubborn syllable I had. I demanded a lawyer, I demanded witnesses, I screamed that they had the wrong person. The cuffs were cold; the cell was fluorescent and small and smelled like other people’s misfortune.

I thought of Zane—his soft hair, his sticky thumbprints on the window—and my chest wanted to split open.

I slept on a bench fitfully while sirens passed and pages were signed and questions came at me in a drone.

Colton arrived the next day like a king arriving at a courthouse. He moved through the officers as if they were a part of the furniture and not the law itself. One look from him and the paperwork shifted. He spoke in that measured voice that had made my father respect him years ago.

“Ms. Jameson is to be released on my assurance,” he said. “She is not a flight risk.” The guard’s eyebrows rose and then bowed. It was astonishing and obscene and I accepted it like a drowning woman accepting one last breath.

When he sat across from me in the interview room I was a broken thing, but when he placed a hand over mine I felt a thread pull taut. “You were hurt,” he observed simply. “And wronged.”

“I will get revenge,” I said before I could stop myself. It surprised me—how calm it sounded.

He smiled, that slight curl of the mouth that said whatever he planned was already in motion. “Then let us be methodical,” he said. “I will ready our marriage papers. There are moves to make and people to expose.” His gaze was steady as a scalpel. “We will not be hasty. We will dismantle them.”

When Colton left, his words still echoed in my head like the prelude to a war. I didn’t sleep that night—not even for a moment.

My body was exhausted, but my mind was wide awake, replaying Zane’s face, the cold voice on the phone, and Xander’s accusation that I had killed my own child.

By morning, I went home. The house was dark and empty—eerily so. I half expected Xander to be there, pretending to mourn, pretending to be a husband. But only silence greeted me. Then John, my butler, came from the hallway, his expression cautious.

“Ma’am,” he said carefully. “They’re not here.”

“Where are they?” I asked. My voice was calm, but the air around me felt electric.

John hesitated. “Mr. Xander and Miss Maureen boarded a cruise last night. They told the staff it was a business celebration.”

I reached the dock and I found a way aboard. They had a ring of people around them, champagne glasses ringing, someone had made a toast. They dare celebrate when my son just died?

Maureen was a dazzling thing in a dress I recognized—my taste, my tailors—Couture on her shoulders, pearls around her throat that I knew the receipts for. Xander held her as if she were a prize.

They were smiling and starting at each other the way conspirators do—eyes bright with the satisfaction of a plan that had worked.

“Are you sure about this?” Maureen asked softly to Xander, not noticing me at the edge of their conversation. “She’s in prison. For how long? What if she comes back?”

Xander’s laugh had no humor. “Let her come back,” he said. “It’s fine. She’s not really my wife anyway. We have the money from the ransom now. We’ve covered the leak in the business, set the ledgers right. She won’t be a threat.”

Maureen toyed with the pearl in her hand. “But if she finds out—if she proves the kid isn’t dead and comes home—what will we do?”

“You play the game,” Xander replied, casual as stepping over a puddle. “She still has money. She still thinks we’re married. Let her keep thinking. Once I get everything transferred—then we dispose of her.”

The word hit me like a hand to the face.

“Dispose of her?” I repeated, quiet as a guillotine.