The study was quiet again—too quiet for a house that had once throbbed with power.
Jacques sat in the high-backed chair near the fire, coat discarded, looking older in the low light but no less dangerous. Isabelle stood by the window, fingers resting lightly on the glass, watching the city she now controlled breathe beneath her.
"You'll be leaving tonight," she said calmly. "The eastern route. It's safer."
Jacques hummed, swirling the wine in his glass. "You've arranged everything. Efficient, as always." Then he looked at her sideways. "What else?"
Isabelle didn't turn. "Mary stays untouched."
The room stilled.
Jacques raised an eyebrow slowly. "Untouched?" he repeated, amused. "That's an unusual condition."
"She's irrelevant," Isabelle said quickly. "She believes the story. She'll stay quiet."
Jacques took a measured sip. "Irrelevant people are the easiest to remove. Accidents happen. Illness. A fall down the stairs." He smiled faintly. "Loose ends."
Isabelle's jaw tightened. "She's not a loose end."
Now Jacques turned fully toward her.
"You're sentimental," he observed. "That's new."
"She's my sister."
Jacques laughed softly. "Blood never stopped us before."
Isabelle finally faced him, her expression carefully neutral. "She's useful alive. Her grief, her loyalty—it anchors the narrative. If she dies, questions start."
Jacques studied her for a long moment, eyes sharp, probing.
"You're lying by omission," he said at last. "The question is—why?"
Isabelle said nothing.
Because how could she explain it?
How could she say that the one thing she had never written into her calculations, never turned into leverage, never dared to name—even to herself—was Mary?
That in a world she had reduced to maps and outcomes and necessary evils, there was one feeling she could not weaponize.
Love.
Not the safe kind.
Not the familial kind Jacques understood.
The kind that made her hesitate.
The kind that felt like sin in a world built on control.
Jacques leaned back, watching her too closely. "You care for her more than you should."
Isabelle's voice was steady. "I care enough not to waste an asset."
A half-smile tugged at his lips. "Ah. There it is. Rationality." He set the glass down. "Very well. Mary lives."
Isabelle's breath eased—just barely.
"But," Jacques continued, rising to his feet, "if she ever becomes a threat—if she starts digging, doubting, disobeying—then sentiment will not save her."
He stepped closer, lowering his voice. "And neither will love."
The word landed heavier than he knew.
Isabelle met his gaze without flinching. "She won't."
Jacques nodded once. "See that she doesn't."
He moved toward the door, pausing at the threshold. "You're stronger than I expected," he said. "Stronger than your mother."
When he was gone, Isabelle remained where she was, fingers curling slowly into her palm.
In another room of the vast estate, Mary slept peacefully—safe, for now—unaware that her life had just been bargained for like a clause in a contract.
Isabelle closed her eyes.
This, she told herself, was the price of power.
And this—this quiet, unspoken truth she buried deeper than any ledger—was the one weakness she would never allow the world to see.
Not even Jacques.
Especially not Jacques.