Chapter 10
Victor finally told me why he wanted the chair.
Not power.
Not only.
Fear.
My father had died leaving one instruction for him.
Take care of Adrian.
I remembered the funeral.
Victor twenty-six.
Me nineteen.
Both angry.
He became my shadow after that.
Then I surpassed him.
Faster than either of us expected.
By twenty-eight, I was head of the family.
Victor became security adviser.
Useful.
Trusted.
Second.
Always second.
“Dad told me to protect you.”
I stared.
“And?”
“You stopped needing it.”
There.
He looked away.
“I became the man who stood behind you.”
His voice hardened.
“Then everyone started treating me like furniture.”
Interesting.
The same blindness he showed Elena.
Sophia.
Staff.
He hated being unseen.
So he tried to become central.
By making me fall.
I understood the wound.
Not the choice.
“You could have left.”
“And become what?”
“Your own man.”
He laughed bitterly.
“You make that sound easy.”
“No.”
I shook my head.
“I make it sound possible.”
Silence.
He looked at the leash around his arms.
“I never meant to kill you.”
“I know.”
That almost hurt him more.
He wanted the act recognized as controlled.
Strategic.
Not murderous.
As if that made betrayal elegant.
“You meant to make me helpless.”
His jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
“In my own office.”
“Yes.”
“In front of men you wanted to impress.”
He said nothing.
“And you trained my dog to act like proof I was no longer in control.”
Silence.
I leaned forward.
“You didn’t want my chair.”
He frowned.
“You wanted everyone to watch me need you.”
His face changed.
There.
That was it.
More intimate than ambition.
Victor wanted dependency.
My collapse was supposed to restore the relationship he remembered.
He rescues.
I rely.
He matters.
I sat back.
“My father told you to take care of me.”
Victor looked up.
“He did not tell you to make sure I stayed weak enough to need it.”
May you like
The room stayed quiet.
That distinction was going to cost him everything.
