Chapter 16: Forty-Eight Hous

Chapter 16: Forty-Eight Hous

The words on the screen seemed to burn themselves into Jhonatan's vision, the photograph beneath them stark evidence of exactly how exposed they'd already become.

"How does he know?" Jhonatan's voice came out barely above a whisper. "We only found out this morning."

"The clinic," Glenmorrin said, his jaw clenched so tight the muscle stood out along his cheek. "Someone there talked, or Castellan has eyes on every discreet clinic in the city as a precaution."

"You said it was safe," Jhonatan said, panic bleeding into his voice now. "You said no connections to either of them."

"I was wrong," Glenmorrin admitted, the words clearly costing him something. "And I'm going to find out exactly how, and make sure it never happens again."

Reyna glanced back at them through the rearview mirror, her expression grim. "Forty-eight hours isn't a lot of time to prepare for whatever he's planning."

"It's not a negotiation," Glenmorrin said. "It's a countdown. Castellan wants us reacting, not thinking."

"So what do we do?" Jhonatan asked, his hand instinctively tightening over his stomach.

Glenmorrin turned to face him fully, something steady and fierce settling into his expression despite the tension radiating off him. "We don't give him forty-eight hours of fear. We use forty-eight hours to become a problem he can't afford to have."

"Meaning what, exactly?" Jhonatan pressed.

"Meaning I call in every favor I have," Glenmorrin said. "Every ally, every debt owed to me, every piece of leverage I've collected over the years. Castellan built his empire on fear and secrecy. We're about to make both of those very expensive for him."

Reyna's eyes flicked to Glenmorrin in the mirror. "You're talking about the Verrone alliance."

Something tensed in Glenmorrin's posture at the name. "If it comes to that."

"What's the Verrone alliance?" Jhonatan asked, catching the shift immediately.

Glenmorrin hesitated, and Jhonatan recognized the particular quality of that hesitation now—the same one he'd worn right before revealing something Jhonatan wouldn't want to hear.

"Your father mentioned a wedding contract," Glenmorrin said carefully. "With the Verrone family. Before Castellan's debt made that plan fall through."

Jhonatan's stomach turned cold. "You're saying I was supposed to marry into the Verrone family."

"That was the original arrangement, yes," Glenmorrin confirmed. "The Verrones are one of the few families in this city with enough standing to challenge Castellan directly. If I approach them now, with proof of what your father tried to do to you, they may have their own reasons to want Castellan weakened."

"You want to use me as leverage against Castellan by bringing up the marriage I was supposed to have with someone else," Jhonatan said slowly, something bitter creeping into his voice.

"I want to use the truth to build an alliance strong enough to keep you and our child alive," Glenmorrin corrected, his voice softening slightly. "Nothing more than that."

The word *our* settled between them, quiet but unmistakable, and Jhonatan felt some of his anger ease, even as the fear remained.

"Would they help?" Jhonatan asked. "The Verrones?"

"I don't know yet," Glenmorrin admitted. "But it's a door worth knocking on, given the timeline we're working with."

The car fell quiet, the weight of the plan settling over all three of them as the city lights blurred past the windows.

"There's something else," Reyna said after a moment, her voice hesitant in a way that made Jhonatan brace himself. "About the note. The handwriting."

"What about it?" Glenmorrin asked.

"I ran a comparison against our old files," Reyna said. "The style matches someone we thought was long out of the business. Someone who used to work directly for your father, actually. Before he passed the operation to you."

Glenmorrin's entire body went still. "Who?"

"Sebastian Kray," Reyna said quietly.

Whatever color remained in Glenmorrin's face drained instantly, his hands curling into fists against his thighs.

"That's not possible," Glenmorrin said, his voice tight with something Jhonatan hadn't heard from him before—not fear exactly, but something close to it. "Kray died six years ago. I was there. I watched it happen."

"Apparently not as thoroughly as you thought," Reyna said grimly. "Because either someone's gone to a lot of trouble to imitate his handwriting perfectly, or he's very much alive and now working for Castellan."

Jhonatan watched the exchange with growing unease, aware he was missing crucial context but unwilling to interrupt the moment.

"Who is Sebastian Kray?" Jhonatan finally asked.

Glenmorrin didn't answer immediately, his eyes distant, caught somewhere in a memory Jhonatan couldn't see.

"He was my father's second-in-command," Glenmorrin said finally, his voice low. "And the man I refused to kill, six years ago, the night my own father threw me out for the first time."

The pieces clicked together in Jhonatan's mind with sudden, unsettling clarity.

"He's the person from the story you told me," Jhonatan said quietly. "During my heat."

Glenmorrin nodded once, tightly. "I was supposed to execute him for betraying my father. Instead, I helped him disappear. I thought that was the end of it."

"But if he's alive," Jhonatan said slowly, "and working with Castellan now—"

"Then everything I did that night to save his life," Glenmorrin finished grimly, "may have just come back to destroy everything I've built since."

The car went silent except for the hum of the engine, the weight of old choices and new threats pressing down on all three of them as the safehouse came into view ahead, offering shelter that suddenly felt far less secure than it had moments before.