Edinburgh to NYC

Bye Jade !

The heavy oak doors of the mansion clicked shut, sealing out the chaotic wail of sirens and the harsh glare of police lights, leaving the foyer in a profound, heavy silence. For the first time in what felt like a lifetime, the air in the estate didn't feel like it was vibrating with secrets or threat; it simply existed, quiet and still. Jayden stood by the threshold, his shoulders finally dropping from their rigid, defensive posture, while Emma stood at the center of the marble floor, the weight of the last few months visibly lifting from her frame. As the moonlight filtered through the high windows, casting soft, silver beams across the dust-free floor, they shared a look that held no more questions and no more traps—just the raw, tired relief of two people who had stepped out of a storm and into a stillness they had almost forgotten how to breathe.

The house, once a fortress, now felt cavernous in the wake of the police departure. While Emma sought the sanctuary of her suite, exhaustion finally claiming her, Jayden retreated to the south-west wing—the forbidden territory he had once strictly guarded. The room was grand, draped in heavy shadows, but it centered entirely around a sprawling, ornate piano that seemed to hold the weight of all his unspoken history.

As his fingers touched the keys, the melody flowed with a haunting, jagged rhythm that reflected the wreckage of his soul. He played as if he were exhaling twenty-two years of suffocating silence. The music began with a deceptive sweetness—soft, ethereal notes that whispered of a time before the betrayal, before the bridge, before the cage—but as the tempo accelerated, the harmony twisted. The smooth, flowing progressions curdled into sharp, staccato chords, vibrating with a raw, unadulterated anger that seemed to bleed from his very fingertips. Each sequence was a battle between the man he had been forced to become and the boy who had lost everything, leading inevitably to a final, jarring dissonance—a dissonant, weeping note that hung in the stagnant air of the west wing, unresolved and trembling, like a scream trapped behind a closed door.

---

The dissonance of the final piano note still hung in the air, a metallic vibration that mirrored the fracture in Jayden’s chest. As his hands hovered over the keys, the silence of the room began to fray.

"My little prince..."

The voice drifted through the stale air of the west wing—ethereal, soft, and impossibly familiar. Jayden’s eyes snapped shut, his breath hitching in his throat. It was his mother, Evelyn Morgan, her voice a ghost haunting the very rafters of his life. For a heartbeat, the twenty-two years of cold stone walls, of business deals, and of vengeance vanished. He was a boy again, safe, untouched by cruelty.

He leaned his head back, gulping in air to stop the sudden, jagged prick of tears, reaching out into the empty air for a hand that wasn't there. He opened his eyes, but the room was empty. The ghost had retreated back into the shadows of his mind.

With a trembling hand, Jayden moved to close the piano lid, the wood groaning softly, when he heard it—a different voice, cutting through the silence.

"Jade?"

Jayden froze. He turned slowly, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. Emma stood in the doorway, her eyes wide, glistening with a terrifying, lucid clarity.

Before he could react, she crossed the room and hugged him tightly, burying her face against his chest. "Jade! I remember... I remember everything," she sobbed, the words muffled against his sweater. "Can you forgive me? For the mess I did?"

Jayden stood still as stone. He did not return the hug. His arms remained at his sides, dead weights, his fingers curling into tight, trembling fists. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to force his heart to stop racing, but it was useless. Every time he closed his eyes now, he didn't see the woman who he loved—he saw her, pointing the gun towards him on the bridge, the cold barrel reflecting the moonlight.

He was paralyzed. He was happy, a frantic, desperate joy spiking in his chest that she finally knew who he was, but his love felt raw and betrayed. The man who had been a fortress for weeks was now crumbling, unable to decide if this was a reconciliation or the final, cruelest trick of his own mind.

"Leave me alone, Emma," Jayden said, his voice a low, gravelly rasp. He pushed her away, his movements slow and deliberate, as if he were trying to keep his composure from shattering entirely.

Emma staggered back, her eyes wide and wet. "Emma? Will you not call me by the name you gave me, 'Em'?" she whispered, the nickname hanging in the air like a ghost of the life they once shared.

Jayden flinched, but he didn't turn to face her. "I said leave me alone, or I am leaving," he warned, his tone dangerously brittle.

"No! Please... stay," she begged, her voice breaking.

Jayden stopped, his posture rigid as he stared at the darkened wall. He didn't look at her; he couldn't. The phantom image of the gun on the bridge was still burning in his mind, searing away the warmth he felt for her. "I am going to Paris for a meeting," he stated, his voice devoid of emotion.

"When will you return?" Emma asked, desperate to find some tether to him.

"No idea," he replied, his voice chillingly cold.

"Come fast," she pleaded. Without waiting for a response, Emma turned and walked away, her footsteps fading into the silence of the mansion. Jayden stood alone in the dark for a long time, the weight of the moment pressing down on him, before he finally walked out of the hall.

---

The next morning, the gray light of dawn bled into the foyer. Emma stood at the entrance, a solitary figure watching as Jayden prepared to leave for the airport. As he crossed the threshold, his path taking him away from her and back into the world of cold business and distance, she whispered, "Bye Jade. Take care, and come fast."

Jayden paused, his hand gripping his briefcase. He didn't speak, but he gave a curt, almost imperceptible nod. He stepped outside, where the crisp morning air met him, and immediately turned to Ruth, who was waiting by the black sedan.

"Take care of her," Jayden commanded, his voice sharp and absolute. "She needs her medicine. And I don't want to see her roaming this house like a ghost. Inform the guards—if anything happens to her, they are all dead. I will slit their throats one by one. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sir," Ruth replied, bowing his head.

"Good."

Jayden turned back one final time. He gave Emma a long, lingering look—his expression an unreadable mask of turmoil—before he ducked into the car. As the vehicle pulled away, leaving her standing in the vast, silent shadow of the mansion, he stared straight ahead, closing his eyes against the image of her face, forcing himself to leave his heart behind in the only place he felt he could truly control.