“It’s not enough,” Mr. Stone shouts, his rage blasting through the sudden quiet. “Your biased son can’t even bid in the auction under his own name—he has to use my son’s legacy as a proxy.” He points at the House of Capricorn. “Oliver should have the final say, as the one who holds power over the queen this month.”

The air leaves my lungs, apprehension clamping around me like a vise.

Too many seconds pass.

Because Oliver is drawing this out. Making them wait.

Making me wait.

Finally, he straightens, eyes locked on Liam, and says, “I change my mind. Novalee won’t be harmed under my care.”

A noxious fog engulfs the room, thickening before the inevitable detonation. Pandemonium spreads, voices clamoring over one another.

I barely register the noise. The verdict is set, yet the reality of what happened glues me to the spot. I’m too stunned to move.

Then Oliver rises, calm and composed, as if he didn’t just flip the summons on its head. He reaches for me, guiding me to my feet, and my legs quake beneath me as the adrenaline drains away now that the danger has passed.

For now.

Gripping me by the elbow, he leads me toward the exit, where Liam waits.

“Why did you change your vote?” Cautious gratitude hijacks the chancellor’s tone, layered with suspicion.

Oliver settles a possessive hand on my lower back, and a confident smirk tugs at his mouth. “Consider it an advance payment.”

“A payment for what?”

“Permission to travel off the island with her.”

“Travel where?” Liam asks through clenched teeth.

“You know where.”

A lethal shadow darkens Liam’s expression. “Absolutely not.”

“I think you’ll change your mind, like I did today.“ Oliver steps around him, pulling me along, but his parting shot says it all. “Otherwise, I won’t be so generous with my vote next time.”

13

I should be grateful. Oliver changed his vote, sparing me from Pax Monroe’s sadism, but all I hear is him saying yes. Maybe it was a test. Maybe it was a performance. Either way, when it counted, he reversed course and stood between me and the dungeon.

But redemption doesn’t stand a chance when betrayal is still shouting, which is why I’m still furious.

He lounges across from me in a leather armchair, apparently unbothered after playing executioner and savior in the same breath. A glass of something expensive rests on the table beside him, untouched.

It’s all I can do not to glower, my emotional upheaval threatening to turn the sitting room to ash. The fireplace has nothing on me. If anything, those flames only feed my ire, spreading too much heat across my skin.

Oblivious, he flips through a thick binder of year-end financial projections, wire-rimmed reading glasses perched on his nose. Spreadsheets, budgets, numbers, he said. Something about the accounting coming due for Zodiac Corporation.