The servant's entrance to the Rockefeller Mansion was unlocked.
Jason slipped inside. He moved like a ghost through the silent hallways. The gala was over. The guests were gone. The house was asleep, dreaming of money.
He didn't go to the master suite. He went down the narrow stairs to the basement level, where the maids lived.
He counted the doors. One. Two. Three.
He stopped at the third door. He didn't knock. He turned the handle and pushed it open.
A single candle burned on a crate in the corner.
Sarah sat on the edge of the narrow cot. She was still wearing the black uniform, the white apron stained with the wine he had spilled to save her. Her knees were pulled up to her chest. She was shivering, though the room was warm.
She looked up as he entered.
Her eyes were red-rimmed. Terror lived in them.
"He's gone," Jason said.
He closed the door quietly behind him. He stood there in his black suit, looking like the grim reaper's accountant.
Sarah didn't move. She stared at him.
"Gone?" she whispered. "Did you pay him? Did he take the money?"
"He didn't want money," Jason said. "He wanted everything. He wanted to own us."
Jason walked to the candle. He held his hands over the flame, warming them. They were cold from the pier.
"He won't bother you again, Sarah. He won't bother anyone again."
Sarah went still.
She looked at Jason's back. She looked at the stiffness of his shoulders. The lack of tension.
"What did you do?" she asked. Her voice trembled.
Jason turned. His face was a blank slate.
"I called the police. I told them he was an anarchist with a bomb. They met him at the pier."
Sarah's hand flew to her mouth. "Jason..."
"He drew a gun," Jason continued, his voice flat, reciting the facts like a stock report. "They shot him. Twelve times. He was dead before he hit the ground."
Sarah gasped. She scrambled back on the bed, pressing herself against the wall as if trying to put distance between herself and him.
"You killed him," she breathed.
"The police killed him," Jason corrected.
"You set him up! You executed him!"
"It was him or us!" Jason snapped. The calm mask cracked for a second, revealing the desperate fury underneath. "He had the photo, Sarah! He was going to show Alta! He was going to blackmail me for the rest of my life! Do you think he would have stopped? He would have bled me dry and then thrown you to the wolves!"
"So you murdered him?" Sarah cried. Tears streamed down her face. "Is that who you are now? A man who kills people to protect his bank account?"
"I did it to protect you!"
"Don't you dare," she hissed. "Don't you dare put this on me. You didn't do it for me. You did it for the empire. You did it for the Rockefeller name."
She stood up. She was shaking, but her eyes were fierce.
"I knew Jason Underwood," she said. "He was a failure. He was broke. He was depressed. But he wasn't a monster. He wouldn't have looked a man in the eye and sent him to a firing squad."
"Jason Underwood is dead," Jason said coldly. "He jumped out of a window in 2024. I am what survived."
The silence stretched between them. Heavy. Final.
Sarah looked at him. She really looked at him. She searched his face for a trace of the man she had loved.
She found nothing but Ezra Prentice's weak chin and eyes that had seen too much.
"You're right," she whispered. "He is dead."
She grabbed a small canvas bag from under the bed. She shoved her few belongings into it—a hairbrush, a change of clothes, a locket.
She walked to the door. She stopped in front of him.
She was small. Helpless. But in that moment, she looked stronger than him.
"I'm leaving," she said.
"Take the money," Jason said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the blood-stained envelope he had taken from her room. "Five thousand. It's still yours."
Sarah looked at the envelope. She looked at the dark stain on the corner—Gates' blood? Wine? It didn't matter. It was all the same corruption.
She hesitated.
She wanted to throw it in his face. She wanted to scream that she would rather starve than take his blood money.
But she was a woman alone in 1908. Without money, she was dead.
She snatched the envelope from his hand.
"I'm taking this," she said, her voice hard. "Not because I forgive you. But because you owe me. You owe me a life."
"Where will you go?" Jason asked.
"Away from you," she said. "Away from this city. I hope you rot in it."
She opened the door.
She stepped out into the hallway. She didn't look back. She didn't say goodbye.
Jason listened to her footsteps fade away. The back door opened, then closed with a soft click.
She was gone.
The only person in the world who knew his real name. The only person who remembered the future.
Gone.
Jason stood alone in the maid's room. It smelled of lavender soap and poverty.
He looked at the small, cracked mirror on the wall above the washbasin.
He stepped closer.
He studied his reflection.
The panic was gone. The fear was gone. The guilt...
He waited for the guilt to hit him. He waited to feel the crushing weight of murder.
But it didn't come.
Instead, he felt lighter.
He felt efficient. He felt streamlined.
He had identified a threat. He had formulated a strategy. He had executed the solution. The liability was removed. The asset (Sarah) was secured (alive, but gone). The secret was safe.
It was just business.
Jason straightened his tie in the mirror. He smoothed his hair.
He smiled.
It wasn't a happy smile. It was a shark's smile. Cold. Dead. Perfect.
"Goodbye, Jason," he whispered to the reflection.
He blew out the candle.
Darkness swallowed the room.
Jason walked out. He climbed the stairs, leaving the basement behind. He ascended to the main floor.
He walked into his study. The room was massive, lined with books, smelling of expensive leather and old money.
He sat behind the desk.
He looked at the map of the world on the wall. The pins in Detroit. The pins in Saudi Arabia.
He picked up the phone.
"Operator," Jason said. His voice was strong. Commanding. "Connect me to Detroit. I need to speak to Mr. Ford's factory manager. Wake him up."
He waited. He tapped his finger on the desk.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Not nervously. Impatiently.
"Hello? This is Future Holdings. The funds have cleared. I want the assembly line started immediately. Tonight. Double the shifts. If the men complain, fire them and hire new ones."
He listened for a moment.
"I don't care about morale," Jason said, staring at the empty chair where Gates would never sit again. "I care about results. Build the machines. The world isn't going to conquer itself."
He hung up.
He leaned back in his chair. He looked out the window at the New York skyline. The sun was beginning to rise, painting the sky in bruised purples and bloody reds.
A new day.
A new era.
And he was the king of it all.