THE KING'S PROPERTY

Chapter 6: The Summons

Xavier read the message twice, and Abigail watched the muscle in his jaw tighten with each pass, the softness from a moment ago gone entirely, replaced by something cold and calculating.

"You're not going," he said.

"She has my number, Xavier. She knows where I live is probably next on the list if I don't."

"That's exactly why you're not going alone."

"I didn't say alone." Abigail took her phone back, reading the message a third time like it might soften if she stared at it long enough. It didn't. "I said I'm not ignoring it. Ignoring a woman like your mother feels like a worse idea than showing up."

"You don't know her." His voice had dropped into something low and urgent. "Vivienne doesn't make threats she doesn't intend to follow through on. If she's asking to see you alone, it's because she's already decided what leverage she wants to use against you, and she wants to deliver it without witnesses."

"Then come with me."

"She said alone."

"She said a lot of things in a text message meant to scare me." Abigail folded her arms, steadier now that the shock had worn into something closer to resolve. "I'm not going to spend the rest of this week jumping every time my phone buzzes. If she wants to threaten me, she can do it to my face, and I'd rather have you there when she does."

Xavier studied her for a long moment, something warring behind his eyes, protectiveness colliding with the calculation of a man who'd spent eight months learning exactly how far his mother would go.

"Fine," he said finally. "But not inside the house. Somewhere public. Somewhere she can't control the room."

"She's not going to agree to that."

"She will if I'm the one asking." His phone was already out, thumb moving fast across the screen. "I'm telling her the coffee house on Fifth. Ten o'clock. If she wants to talk to you, she does it where I can walk in whenever I choose."

Abigail watched him type, something unfamiliar unfurling in her chest at the sight of him fighting for her like this, a man who six hours ago had accused her of trespassing now rearranging his mother's terms to keep her safe.

His phone buzzed almost immediately. He read the reply, and whatever color was left in his face drained further.

"What," Abigail said.

"She agreed." He turned the phone toward her, and the message on the screen made her stomach twist.

*Fine. Fifth Street, ten o'clock. Bring her. But you should know, darling, I've already spoken to Delphine's tech team. They compared the timestamps twenty minutes ago. I know exactly what you handed me was not the original card. We have a great deal to discuss tomorrow. All three of us.*

"She knows," Abigail whispered.

"She was always going to know." Xavier's voice was tight, controlled in the way that meant he was working very hard not to let it crack. "I bought us hours, not days. I told you that."

"So tomorrow isn't just about me anymore."

"No." He met her eyes, and the fear she saw there, quick and gone almost as fast as it appeared, was more unsettling than anything Vivienne's text had said. "Tomorrow she's coming after both of us."

Abigail's phone buzzed again, a second message from the same unknown number, shorter this time.

*One more thing. I know about your sister's hospital bills, Abigail. I made a call this afternoon. It would be a shame if her insurance suddenly found a reason to deny the claim.*

The world tilted sideways. Abigail's hand went numb around the phone, her sister's name sitting on the screen in a stranger's cruelty like a threat carved into stone.

"Abigail." Xavier's voice seemed to come from very far away. "What did she send."

She turned the phone toward him without a word, unable to make her mouth form the sentence out loud.

Xavier read it, and something in him went perfectly, terrifyingly still.

"She doesn't bluff," he said quietly. "I need you to understand that. Whatever she just threatened, she has the means to do it."

"How does she even know I have a sister? I've been in this house for one day."

"Because she's been building a file on everyone who's walked onto this property since the day my father died. She's been ready for something like this to happen." His hands curled into fists at his sides, controlled fury radiating off him in a way that made the air between them feel charged. "I'm sorry. I should have warned you the moment you told me your name. I should have known she'd move this fast."

"This isn't your fault."

"It's exactly my fault. You walked into a war that has nothing to do with you, and within six hours my mother is threatening your family to control what you say about my house." His voice cracked on the last word, the first real crack she'd seen in him all day. "I need to call my lawyer. Tonight. Before she does anything else."

Abigail's phone rang before she could respond, an actual call this time, and her heart lurched when she saw the name on the screen.

Her sister, Naomi.

"I have to take this," she said, already answering, already bracing for something worse.

"Abby?" Naomi's voice was thin, shaking. "Something's wrong. The hospital just called. They said my claim got flagged for review, out of nowhere, right in the middle of my treatment. They said it might take weeks to sort out and I don't know what that means for next week's appointment, I don't—"

"Naomi, slow down. Breathe." Abigail's own voice wavered despite her best effort to sound steady. "I'm going to fix this. I promise you, I'm going to fix this."

"How? Abby, this is my chemo, I can't just skip a week, the doctor said—"

"I know. I know what the doctor said." Abigail closed her eyes, feeling Xavier's gaze on her, feeling the weight of a threat that had already reached out and touched the one person in the world she'd protect over anything else. "I'll call you back tonight. I promise."

She hung up, hands shaking, and when she looked up Xavier's expression had transformed into something she hadn't seen from him yet, quiet, lethal resolve.

"Your sister has cancer," he said. It wasn't a question.

"Stage two. She's been in treatment for four months." Abigail's voice cracked on the words, months of careful composure finally slipping. "I took this job because the money was going straight to her bills. I needed it. And now your mother is using her as a weapon because I happened to be standing in your study for an hour."

"She won't touch your sister's insurance." Xavier's voice had gone flat and final, the voice of a man closing a deal he had no intention of losing. "I'll cover whatever the claim doesn't. Tonight. Before her doctor's office even opens tomorrow."

"You don't have to do that."

"I'm not doing it for you to owe me anything. I'm doing it because my mother just threatened a woman with cancer to control a story about cracked stone in my garden, and I refuse to let that stand." He pulled out his own phone, already dialing. "Give me her hospital's information. Now."

Abigail hesitated only a second before rattling off the details, watching him relay them to someone on the other end of the line with the crisp authority of a man used to making problems disappear with a single phone call.

He hung up a few minutes later, jaw still tight but something in his shoulders loosening slightly.

"It's handled," he said. "The claim will clear by morning. I have someone looking into it personally."

"Just like that."

"Money doesn't fix everything." His eyes found hers, dark and serious. "But it fixes this. Tonight, at least."

Abigail should have felt relief. Instead, standing in the fading light at the edge of his property, she felt the full weight of exactly how far she'd fallen into his world in the span of a single day, tangled now in a fight for a fortune that had already reached into her family and threatened the one person she couldn't afford to lose.

Her phone buzzed one final time. A third message from the unknown number, and this one made her blood run cold.

See you both tomorrow at ten. And Abigail, dear, one more thing. You should ask Xavier what really happened to his father. I don't think he's told you the whole truth about that either.

Abigail looked up slowly, meeting Xavier's eyes, and the sudden flicker of something like fear behind his composed expression told her, with terrible certainty, that whatever his mother meant by that message, it was true.