The Substitute Bride’s Payback

THE GHOST WE CREATE

CHAPTER 11: THE GHOST WE CREATE

The machinery of deceit required not just money, but a deep, cynical understanding of human frailty. Sebastian’s first call was to Alistair Finch, a publicist whose reputation had curdled from sharp to septic over a decade of covering up scandals for the ethically flexible. Finch’s voice, when he answered, was a gravelly wheeze of suspicion.

“Blackthorn. To what do I owe this… unexpected resuscitation?”

“A retainer, Alistair. A significant one. And a task that requires your particular talent for archival fiction.”

There was a pause, the sound of a lighter flicking, a long exhale. “I’m listening.”

Sebastian laid it out with clinical precision. They needed a phantom a woman with enough credible connection to the Blackthorn world to trigger panic, but enough distance to be untouchable. He suggested the Rossi name, the fabricated cousin, the Milan narrative. Finch listened, interrupting only to ask for specific dates, locations, and the kind of jewelry she might have been given.

“You want me to ghost-write a mistress,” Finch finally said, a macabre amusement in his tone. “Complete with supporting documentation.”

“Birth records. Clinic letterhead. A trail of digital dust. The kind of thing that would hold up under a few hours of frantic digging by a paranoid man with resources.”

“And the purpose of this specter?”

“To make my father open a door he keeps locked.”

Another pause, longer this time. Finch was calculating the risk against the number Sebastian had just named. The number was astronomically persuasive. “The retainer is transferred now. The rest is upon delivery of the dossier. And my subsequent, permanent vacation to a non-extradition country.”

“Agreed.”

The call ended. Sebastian placed the phone on the desk with a soft click. He didn’t look at Emery, who had been standing by the window, listening to his side of the conversation. The ease with which he had just commissioned a fictional life, a fictional child, was chilling.

“He’ll do it?” she asked.

“Greed is the most reliable motive.” Sebastian finally turned, his face illuminated by the grey morning light filtering through the rain-streaked glass. He looked weary, as if the act of manipulation had drained something essential from him. “He’s already drafting. We’ll have the package by tonight.”

Emery walked to the desk, her fingers tracing its cool, polished edge. “And the lawyer? The delivery system?”

“That requires a gentler poison.” Sebastian’s gaze grew distant, strategic. “Arthur Stevens’s grandson, Peter. He’s… ambitious in the way young men are when they stand in the shadow of a monument. He wants his grandfather’s respect, but he wants his own success more. He sees the old man’s methods as antiquated. We offer him a shortcut.”

“You’re going to exploit his ambition.”

“I’m going to validate it,” Sebastian corrected, though his tone held no warmth. “I’ll frame it as an initiation. A test of his discretion and loyalty to the future of the family, not its calcified past. He’ll believe he’s choosing a side in a quiet generational shift. He won’t see the knife until it’s at his grandfather’s throat.”

The plan was taking shape, each component a testament to a different sin Finch’s greed, Peter’s ambition, Charles’s paranoia, their own desperation. Emery felt a cold clarity settle over her. This was the reality of revenge. It wasn’t a bolt of lightning; it was a patient, spreading stain.

“And when Peter realizes he’s been used?” she asked.

Sebastian met her eyes, his expression unflinching. “He’ll have enough money to soothe his conscience and a stark lesson about the price of the world he’s so eager to join.”