The Montgory master bedroom was a private cathedral of rot — expensive, tasteful, and completely hollow. Two separate beds. Two separate nightstands.
A deliberate, asured gap between the matching headboards like a demilitarized zone carved into thousand-dollar furniture. The room had cost more than most people’s hos, decorated in tasteful neutrals and subtle luxury, but it reeked of a marriage that had been dead and rotting from the inside for years.
Jonathan stood by the window, still in his dinner suit, tie loosened like a noose he’d decided not to tighten yet.
He watched his wife’s reflection in the dark glass, eyes flat and calculating.
Roxanne moved through the room with the careful precision and quietly. She had learned to make herself small in her own ho.
Every step asured. Every movent quiet and every breath was controlled.
"Where were you?"
The question ca out flat. Controlled. His voice suggested he already knew the answer and was simply handing her the rope to hang herself with.
Roxanne paused by her vanity. Her fingers trembled slightly as she removed her earrings — expensive diamonds he had bought her for their fifteenth anniversary, back when gifts still pretended to an sothing other than apologies for bruises.
"I told you. I went to say goodnight to Sierra and saw her guests out."
"You were gone for forty minutes."
"I was talking to lissa. Making polite conversation. That’s what hosts do, Jonathan."
He turned from the window. Slow. Deliberate like he was a predator who had already cornered his prey and was now deciding exactly how much pain to apply.
"And Phei? Were you making polite conversation with him too?"
Her hands stilled on the second earring.
"I spoke to him briefly. Asked him to take care of our daughter. That’s all."
"That’s all."
"Yes."
"Then why did Sierra call —" his voice climbed, cracking with sothing that might have been rage or might have been fear, "—telling she’s not coming back? Why did I go to her room and find half her things missing? Why is my daughter gone, Roxanne?"
She finally turned to face him. Her chin lifted — not quite defiance, but sothing close enough to make his jaw tighten.
"I didn’t know she was leaving until she called too. She made her own choice. She’s seventeen, Jonathan. Old enough to—"
"Old enough to what?" He took a step toward her. "Run off with that piece of shit? Humiliate this family? Humiliate ?"
Roxanne’s expression flickered. She knew the warning signs as intimately as she knew her own heartbeat — the rigid set of his shoulders, the way his hands curled slightly at his sides, the particular pitch his voice took on right before things got bad.
"I didn’t tell her to leave," she said quietly. "I didn’t know."
"Bullshit." He took another step towards and she took one back.
It was automatic now. Instinctive. The choreography of twenty years of marriage — he advanced, she retreated, and the dance continued until she ran out of space and left at his rcy.
"You weren’t surprised when I told you her things were missing." Another step. "You weren’t surprised when I said she called. Not even a little bit. You just stood there with that blank fucking face like you already knew everything."
"Jonathan—"
"What did you tell him?" His voice dropped lower and more dangerous with suspicion he was hoping was wrong... because help him gods! "In that room. Alone. With the caras suddenly going dark. What did you tell Phei that you couldn’t say in front of ?"
Roxanne’s back hit the edge of her bed. No more room to run to. She knew this was going to happen when Jonathan realizes his spy caras in Sierra’s rom had stopped working... that he’d suspect sothing.
"Nothing. I told you — I asked him to take care of Sierra. That’s all. What’s so wrong with talking to him? He’s dating our daughter. I wanted to know what kind of man he—"
"What kind of man?" Jonathan laughed — a harsh, ugly sound that scraped against the walls. "The kind who fucks his aunt. The kind who’s building a harem of desperate whores. The kind who looked at across my own dinner table and told I neglect my wife."
He was close now. Close enough that she could sll the whiskey on his breath. "That’s the kind of man you were having private conversations with."
"I was just—"
"You were just what, Roxanne?"
She tried to slip sideways toward the bathroom, toward any door that would put distance between them.
His hand snapped around her wrist like a steel trap, fingers crushing flesh and bone in one vicious yank that jerked her entire body backward. Pain lanced up her arm as her ankle twisted with a wet pop, sending her half-collapsing at his feet, wrist still locked in his grip, eyes locked on his without a flicker of fear—only the dead, hollow stare of soone who had already survived too many nights like this.
Jonathan dropped into a crouch, slow and deliberate, his free hand clamping onto her chin hard enough to grind her jawbones together and hard—just enough to keep her conscious for what ca next.
"Who the fuck do you think you’re lying to, bitch?" His voice was low, almost gentle, but the fingers dug deeper, twisting until she felt the joints in her jaw creak and pop. "You weren’t surprised when I said her things were gone. You weren’t surprised when I said she wasn’t coming back. You already knew. You helped her."
She opened her mouth. "I didn—"
"What did you tell him?" The grip tightened until white stars burst behind her eyes. "What does he know? I saw the cara feed before it went dark. You were in Sierra’s room. Alone. With him. What the hell did you say?"
"Nothing."
He shoved her hard. The force hurled her backward across the room; her elbow cracked against the edge where carpet t hardwood, a bright spike of agony shooting straight to her spine.
She hit the floor in a sprawl, champagne robe twisted around her thighs, dark honey hair spilling over her face, but she made no sound.
Not anymore.
Years of this had burned the screams out of her.
Jonathan rose and stepped closer, looming over her like a shadow carved from every nightmare she’d ever had.
"What did you tell him, Roxanne?" His boot nudged her ribs, not quite a kick—yet—pressing so hard to remind her how easily he could break them. "What does he know?"
She said nothing. Just lay there, blank and breathing, the sa careful emptiness she had perfected over years of nights exactly like this one.
What Sierra would never know—what no one outside these walls would ever know—was that the hell had never stopped. It had been going on for years. Every night. Every bruise. Every broken bone whispered away as an accident.
This was just another page in the sa endless, soul-shredding book.
Jonathan had always been careful.
The Legacy world ran on appearances, and a man who beat his wife where it showed was a man who lacked control. So he hit where the bruises could be hidden. Ribs. Stomach. Upper arms that long sleeves covered.
The soft flesh of her thighs that no one ever saw.
But Sierra was gone now.
And with their daughter out of the house, he could finally grip and abuse her face as much as he’d always desired to.
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