Back To Make Them Pay

Chapter 4

Clara

The quiet of the conservatory was suffocating. Outside the high arched glass, snow drifted through the dark capital sky, but inside, the air was thick with the heavy, humid scent of night-blooming jasmine and damp earth.

​I stood near a towering marble fountain, the drip of water echoing through the greenery. Beside me, Duke Silas Vance moved like a shadow in his dark military uniform, his broad shoulders cutting off the warm light cast from the distant ballroom doors.

He simply stood with his hands folded behind his back, his gray eyes searching my face with a terrifying, unblinking intensity.

​"You have five minutes before your absence causes a scandal, Lady Clara," Silas said, his voice a low, gravelly baritone that seemed to vibrate the very air between us.

"Tell me why the daughter of Arthur Mercer is offering me secret trade routes."

​I pulled a small, leather-bound cipher book from the hidden pocket of my velvet skirt. The leather was aged, stamped with my mother’s private crest; a seal Julian had spent three years trying to locate in my past life.

​"Because my father was a merchant, Your Grace, but my mother was a cartographer," I said, stepping closer so our shadows overlapped on the stone floor.

I opened the book, displaying a hand-drawn map of the northern archipelago, marked with precise sonar depths and hidden sea channels.

"These are the Frost-Passes. They are deep-water channels that remain unfrozen even during the deep winter thaw. They bypass the Crown’s toll gates entirely and shave six days off the voyage to the iron mines."

​Silas didn't look at the book immediately. Instead, his sharp gaze lingered on my fingers, noting the steady, unshakeable hold I maintained on the heavy leather.

​"If these charts are real, they are worth a fortune to the Imperial Navy," Silas noted, his tone devoid of emotion. He was already calculating what I wanted to gain from him.

"And yet, you are offering them to me instead of selling them to the highest bidder at the Merchant's Guild. Why?"

​"Because the Guild is corrupt, and Julian Vance is currently using my family's credit lines to buy off their key auditors," I replied, my voice turning to ice. "Julian is drowning in debt. Within three months, he intends to declare the Mercer line insolvent, force a court-ordered sale of our ships, and buy them back for pennies on the pound through a proxy firm registered in your family's secondary name."

​Silas’s eyes narrowed slightly, a subtle shift in his expression that signalled I had struck a nerve. "The Vance family name is bound to my house, but Julian's branch is a rot I have long intended to cut off. He would not dare use my collateral."

​"He already has," I said, pulling a folded sheet of parchment from the ledger book; a copy of a forged bill of exchange Master Kenneth and I had uncovered just hours before.

"He signed this three weeks ago in a high-stakes gambling den in the lower docks. He used the Vance seal to back his loan, listing the Mercer fleet as his secondary guarantee."

​Silas took the paper from my hand. As his fingers brushed mine, a shock of absolute, searing heat shot through my skin, a stark contrast to the cold composure he projected.

He skimmed the document, his jaw tightening until the muscle flexed beneath his skin.

​"He dares," Silas murmured, his voice dropping an octave into something dark and dangerous. He crushed the forged paper in his fist, the heavy parchment crackling under his strength. "He drags my house into the mud to cover his vices."

​"Yes, he did," I said calmly. "And he will destroy us both if we allow him to play his game. So, I offer you a counter-proposal, Duke Vance. I will grant the Imperial Navy exclusive military and commercial rights to the Frost-Passes. In exchange, you will issue an immediate imperial blockade on all unauthorized credit lines bearing the Vance seal."

​Silas looked down at me, a faint, dangerous spark igniting in his storm-gray eyes. "You want me to cut off his air."

​"I want you to starve him," I corrected, stepping so close I could feel the heat radiating off his broad chest.

"I want every banker, every loan shark, and every corrupt Guild member in this city to demand immediate repayment of his debts by tomorrow morning. When he realizes he cannot touch my fleet, he will turn to his only remaining asset: his secret holdings in the overseas rubber trade."

​"Holdings that do not exist," Silas realized instantly, a slow, dark realization dawning on his face. "He’s been running a phantom syndicate."

​"Precisely. And when his creditors realize they are holding empty promises, he will be ruined beyond salvation."

​Silas was quiet for a long, heavy moment. The water dropped into the marble fountain…drip, drip, drip…measuring the pulse of our unspoken bargain.

He leaned in slightly, his towering frame casting a dark, protective shadow over me, his scent of ozone and cold steel washing over my senses.

​"What happened Lady Clara," he said softly, his gray eyes searching deep into mine, as if trying to read the secrets buried beneath my composure. "Why this change? Weren't you in love with Julian."

"Love?" ​The word left my lips as a cold, bitter exhale that froze in the air between us. I didn't look away from the piercing gray of his gaze.

​"I was in love with an illusion, Your Grace," I said softly, my voice laced with the quiet, terrifying weight of a woman who had already seen her own end. "I was blind, naive, and foolishly willing to let him extinguish me bit by bit."

​I took a slow, deliberate step closer to Silas, letting the dark velvet of my gown brush against his boots. The heat radiating from him was a sharp contrast to the frost lingering in my bones.

​Silas held my gaze for three long seconds before nodding his head slightly; a sign of absolute respect from a man who bowed to no one.

​"The imperial blockade will be signed before dawn," Silas declared, his low voice settling the fate of my enemies. "Julian Vance will not receive another silver coin in this capital. But know this, Clara; once we light this fire, there is no turning back. He will grow desperate and desperate men commit desperate acts."

​"Let him," I whispered, my past death rising in my chest. "I am waiting for him."

​Before Silas could respond, the silk curtains at the conservatory entrance rustled violently.

​"Clara!"

​Julian stepped into the greenery, his hair slightly disheveled, his face flushed with a mixture of rage and frantic anxiety.

His eyes darted from me to Duke Silas, catching the intimate proximity between us. The glass of wine in his hand trembled violently, splashing dark red liquid onto the marble floor.

​"What is the meaning of this?" Julian spat, trying to summon his usual domineering authority, though his voice cracked at the edges. "You leave the ballroom to hide in the dark with my cousin? Have you forgotten your place, Clara? You are my betrothed!"

​I turned around slowly, letting the blue velvet of my gown rustle against the flagstones. I looked at his pale, sweating face, then down at the red wine dripping from his trembling fingers like blood.

​"I have not forgotten my place, Julian," I said, stepping out from Silas's shadow to face him directly, my voice echoing through the quiet leaves. "I have simply realized where yours is.”