Page 91 of Reaper's Desire

Vivienne stares at the folder like it's a snake. For a long moment, she doesn't move. Then she reaches for it with trembling fingers, opening it and scanning the first few pages. I watch her face as she reads. The color drains from her cheeks, and her jaw tightens as the careful mask she wears begins to crack and splinter.

When she looks up, her eyes are hard and cold, and filled with something that looks almost like hatred. "Where did you get this?" Her voice is barely above a whisper.

"Does it matter?" Julian asks. "It's all real. All verifiable. And if you don't cooperate, it all goes to the police. And to your husband."

Vivienne's hands are shaking now. She sets the folder down and takes a step back, her composure finally shattering. "You don't understand. You don't know what it's like?—"

"What what's like?" I demand. "Being so desperate for money that you're willing to murder someone? That you're willing to have your own stepdaughter killed?"

"You have everything!" The words burst out of her. "You've always had everything! Your father's attention, his money, his love—everything I've worked for, everything I've tried to build, and you just get it handed to you because you're his precious daughter!"

The venom in her voice makes me take a step back. I've always known Vivienne didn't like me, but this is something else entirely— years of resentment and jealousy and rage that's been festering beneath the surface. "So you decided to kill me?" My voice breaks on the words. "That was your solution?"

"I didn't have a choice!" Vivienne's voice rises to a near-shout. "Do you have any idea how much debt I'm in? How much I owe? I've been living on borrowed time for years, and your trust fund just keeps growing while I—" She cuts herself off, pressing her hands to her face.

Julian speaks, his voice low and dangerous. "You had a choice. You chose to place a contract on her life, to hire assassins to hunt her down and kill her. You chose to make her a target."

He's standing close enough now that Vivienne has to look up to meet his eyes. I can see the fear in her face, the realization that she's not dealing with someone she can manipulate or dismiss. Julian is something else entirely—something lethal.

"You have two options," Julian continues, his voice never rising above that quiet, deadly tone. "Option one: you call off the contract immediately. You contact the broker, you cancel the hit, and you face the legal consequences of your financial crimes. Fraud, embezzlement, theft—you'll go to prison, but you'll be alive."

Vivienne's breathing is rapid and shallow. "And option two?"

"Option two is one you won't like, Vivienne. But I promise you, you are a liability to the one person I care to keep alive in this world." He leans in slightly, and I can see Vivienne shrink back. "Do you know what happens to liabilities in this world? They disappear. Quietly. Permanently. And no one asks questions."

The threat hangs in the air. Vivienne's face has gone completely white, her hands trembling at her sides. She looks between Julian and me, and I can see the moment she realizes she's trapped. That there's no way out of this that doesn't end with her losing everything.

"You're bluffing," she whispers, but there's no conviction in her voice.

"I'm not." Julian's eyes are cold. "I've killed more people than you can imagine. I've done things that would give you nightmares. And I will do whatever it takes to keep her alive. So you need to decide right now—are you going to cooperate, or are you going to make this harder than it needs to be?"

The silence stretches out. I can hear my own heartbeat pounding in my ears and feel the tension radiating off Julian's body. I can see the way Vivienne's carefully constructed world is crumbling around her.

And then she breaks.

"I did it." The words come out in a rush, like she can't hold them back anymore. "I placed the contract. I hired the broker through your father's connections. I—I was desperate. I'd spent so much money, and I couldn't stop, and your trust fund was just sitting there, growing, and I thought—" Her voice cracks. "I thought if you were gone, I could access it. Through your father. Through the estate. I thought it would be simple. Clean. No one would know."

Hearing her say it out loud is something else entirely. This woman raised me. She was there at family dinners and charity galas and holidays. And she planned my death.

"You were going to have me murdered." My voice sounds distant. "For money."

"I didn't have a choice!" Vivienne's voice rises again, desperate now. "You don't understand what it's like to be afraid you'll have nothing! I clawed my way up, and I married your father, and I thought—I thought I'd finally made it. But it's never enough. It's never fucking enough, and you just get everything handed to you on a silver platter?—"

"So you decided I should die."

Vivienne doesn't answer. She just stands there, trembling, her face streaked with tears that I don't believe for a second are genuine.

Julian moves then, pulling zip ties from his pocket. "Sit down."

"What are you?—"

"Sit. Down." The command in his voice leaves no room for argument.

Vivienne sinks onto the nearest chair, and Julian moves behind her, pulling her wrists together and securing them with the zip ties. She doesn't resist—she's too defeated. Within seconds, she's bound to the chair, her hands behind her back, completely helpless.

I watch it happen with a strange sense of detachment. This woman tried to have me killed. She spent God knows how long planning it, arranging it, and paying for it. And now she's sitting in her elegant living room, bound and powerless, while I stand over her.

There should be satisfaction in this moment. But all I feel is sick.