A Broken Inheritance

Chapter 57: The Cost of Divinity

James let out a sharp breath and stood too, his movements controlled but tense. "Try me."

She kept her back to him, gripping the edges of the desk. Her research was still sprawled across it, half-finished notes, theories scrawled in neat script, but she couldn't focus on any of it. She felt sick. Not just from what had happened tonight, but from the way James was looking at her now. From the way she knew he was trying to put the pieces together, and the fact that he was probably getting it all wrong.

But wasn't that better?

Better for him to think she had stood there, done nothing, let someone else's blood spill because she was a coward.

Better than him knowing the truth.

Better than him knowing that she had welcomed it.

She heard James take a step closer.

"Did he—" he cut himself off, exhaling sharply. "Did he make you—"

She turned back around before he could finish, shaking her head.

"It wasn't like that."

James studied her, his eyes scanning her face, searching for something, anything that would tell him what had really happened. But she wasn't ready to give it to him. Not yet. Not when she could still taste the blood in her mouth.

Anastasia swallowed hard, gripping the edge of her desk as if it could anchor her, as if she could press herself into the wood and make herself disappear. Her hands were still shaking, her heartbeat uneven, the weight of James' stare pressing down on her like something tangible.

"I— I don't know how to explain," she said finally, her voice quieter than she intended.

James was still watching her, his body tense, his hands curled into fists at his sides, his jaw set in a way that told her he was fighting every instinct to shake the truth out of her. He took a slow breath, his voice measured when he finally spoke.

"Did someone get hurt?"

Anastasia flinched.

"No," she said too quickly, the word snapping from her lips like a defence mechanism, like a shield she had thrown up without thinking.

James frowned immediately. His head tilted slightly, his brows pulling together, his entire expression shifting from barely restrained frustration to something sharper. She knew that look. It was the same one he had when he caught someone in a lie. He took a step closer.

"That doesn't make sense."

Anastasia exhaled slowly, forcing herself to meet his eyes.

"I told you," she said, trying to keep her voice steady, "it was nothing."

James ran a hand through his hair, the tension radiating off him in waves. He stepped forward again, closer now, close enough that she could feel the heat of him, close enough that if she reached out, she could press her fingers into the fabric of his shirt and ground herself in something real.

"Talk to me, Ana," he said, quieter this time. "I need you to talk to me."

Anastasia felt the weight of the moment pressing down on her like a vice. The room was too quiet, too still, and James was standing too close, his presence burning at the edges of her frayed composure. She couldn't run from this. She couldn't outmanoeuvre him with half-truths or carefully placed silences.

So she told him.

"It's Tom's."

James blinked, his breath hitching almost imperceptibly. His head tilted slightly, his frown deepening, like he hadn't heard her right.