The Price

Chapter Five:

Jade's POV

The ride home was quiet. It was the kind of heavy, pressurized silence that should have comforted me after the chaos of the last twelve hours, but it did not. Instead, it allowed the memories of that hotel room to play on a loop behind my eyes.

I could still hear his voice. I could see the way the light caught the sharp angles of his jaw and the terrifyingly calm offer he had made. Marry me. It sounded like a lifeline and a death sentence all at once. I hated that he had made it sound so reasonable. I hated even more that, for a split second, I had actually listened.

By the time the cab pulled up to the wrought iron gates of my father’s estate, the sun was already climbing into the sky. The light was pale and unforgiving, exposing the fatigue in my bones. I stepped out and walked toward the front door, slipping inside as quietly as a shadow. I wanted to avoid my stepmother’s smug comments and my father’s cold stares.

All I wanted was a quick shower, a change of clothes, and enough time to get to the office before the workday officially started. If I could just bury myself in spreadsheets and quarterly reports, maybe the humiliation would finally begin to dull. Work was the only thing I had left that felt like mine.

The house was unusually quiet. I hurried upstairs to my room, the sanctuary that felt less like a home and more like a waiting room for a life that had never started. I dropped the bag from the hotel on the bed and changed into a fitted navy dress. I paired it with low heels that were comfortable enough for a long day of standing my ground.

I grabbed my briefcase and headed back downstairs, already calculating the traffic to the Vane Building. I was halfway down the grand staircase when the sound of my father’s voice stopped me cold.

He was standing near the floor-to-ceiling window in the foyer, his phone pressed to his ear. His tone was sharp and impatient, the way it always was when he was chasing a whale.

“I do not care what you have to do,” he barked into the receiver. “I want a meeting with Killian Montclair before he leaves the state. I want that contract signed before he boards his private jet.”

I tightened my grip on the banister. Killian Montclair. The name sent a ripple of unease through me. I had heard it in whispers across boardrooms and in the hushed conversations of business titans. He was a man people feared and admired in equal measure. A contract with him was more than a breakthrough; it was absolute power. He was the kind of man who broke empires just to see how they were built.

“I am not paying you to give me excuses,” my father snapped, his face reddening. “Get it done.”

He ended the call abruptly and turned around. His eyes landed on me, and for a second, I saw a flash of irritation before his expression smoothed into a mask of cold indifference.

“Where are you going, Jade?” he asked.

I straightened my spine and met his gaze. “To work. There is a lot to handle after... after last night.”

He scanned my outfit, his lip curling slightly. “Cancel that plan.”

I blinked, confused by the finality in his voice. “Cancel what? I have a meeting with the marketing team at nine.”

“You will no longer be working for the company,” he said flatly. He walked over to a side table and poured himself a finger of whiskey, despite the early hour.

The words did not register at first. They felt like a foreign language. “What do you mean? I have spent years in that office. I am the lead analyst on the Sterling merger.”

“It is a bad look for this family,” he replied, dismissively waving a hand toward me. “After the spectacle Elio made of you on that rooftop, it is better if you stop showing up at the company. I do not want the press hanging around the lobby trying to get a quote from the jilted bride. You are dragging our name into the tabloids.”

The humiliation flashed through me like a physical fire. My own father was calling me a spectacle.

“So your solution is to hide me?” I asked. My voice was shaking, but I didn't care. “You are stripping me of my career because Elio decided to cheat with my sister? I am the victim here, Father.”

“Do not accuse me,” he snapped, his voice rising. “Aren’t you supposed to be grateful?”

A hollow, jagged laugh escaped me. “Grateful for what? For being publicly replaced? For being insulted in front of the entire city?”

“Yes,” he said coldly. He took a slow sip of his whiskey and looked at me with eyes that held no warmth. “You came to me for help last night, and I helped you. I managed the fallout.”

My throat tightened. I felt a sudden, sickening dread settling in my stomach. “What do you mean you managed it?”

He continued as if he were discussing a routine business transaction. “Convincing Elio and the Sterling family to change the bride at the last minute required a great deal of negotiation. It was a messy situation, Jade. I had to ensure the merger stayed intact despite your failure to keep your fiancé’s interest.”

My stomach twisted into a knot. Negotiation?

“Why would you have to negotiate,” I whispered, “if he already wanted Sheila? They were already together.”

My father’s eyes sharpened. “The plan was not originally to marry her. Elio had a contract with you. To break that contract and substitute your sister without a legal war required a sacrifice.”

Something about the way he said the word sacrifice made my blood run cold. I felt as if the floor were tilting beneath my feet.

“What was the negotiation about?” I asked.

He did not answer immediately. Instead, he disappeared into his study for a moment. I stood there in the foyer, my heart pounding against my ribs like a trapped bird. When he returned, he was holding a thick manila envelope. He sat down at the mahogany table and dropped it onto the surface with a heavy thud.

“That,” he said, “is what saved you from a forced marriage and saved this family from a lawsuit.”

My hands were trembling so violently I could barely grasp the paper. I tore the envelope open, my vision blurring as I stared at the legal jargon. I read the first page once. Then I read it again. The air left my lungs completely.

“What is this?” I whispered.

My father did not hesitate. He did not even look ashamed. “You will transfer half of your inheritance shares to your sister. It is the only way the Sterlings would agree to the swap without demanding a massive penalty for the breach of contract.”

I stared at him in total disbelief. “My shares? Those were my mother’s. She left them to me.”

“And I am your trustee,” he said, his voice as hard as iron. “I have already signed the preliminary agreement. You just need to finalize the transfer. Sheila is the one marrying into the Sterling line now. She needs the leverage. You, on the other hand, have become a liability.”

I looked at the documents and then at the man I had called my father. He hadn't just replaced me in the marriage. He was stripping me of my mother's legacy to pay for his own greed. He was giving my life’s work and my future to the woman who had stolen my fiancé.

I felt the black card in my pocket. It felt heavy now. It felt like the only thing in the world that wasn't trying to bury me alive.

“You’re taking everything,” I whispered.

“I am saving what is left of your reputation,” he corrected. “Sign the papers, Jade. It is the only way you stay in this house.”

I looked down at the signature line, and for the first time in my life, I didn't feel like a Good Daughter. I felt like a woman with nothing left to lose.