Chapter 10
Miles was in the cellar.
Exactly where Agnes predicted.
He was trying to open the release valve when we arrived.
The bakery smelled like wet ash.
Fire crews had long gone.
The front room was blackened.
Counters ruined.
Windows cracked.
Agnes stopped at the doorway.
I looked at her.
“You don’t have to come in.”
She stared at me.
“Neither did you when you were eight.”
Fair.
We entered together.
Miles turned when he heard us.
His face did not show panic.
That hurt.
Sixteen years.
And he still believed he could explain.
“Adrian.”
“No.”
He stopped.
I had learned the value of one syllable from stronger women than me.
Rafe took the tool from his hand.
No fight.
Miles was too smart.
I asked:
“Why Agnes?”
He looked at her.
Then me.
“She recognized Harold.”
“Not enough.”
“She kept notes.”
“Not enough.”
Silence.
Then:
“She knows you.”
There.
I frowned.
Miles continued.
“She knows the version of you before power.”
Interesting.
“And?”
“She could make you doubt the structure.”
I almost laughed.
“By remembering I was hungry?”
“By reminding you why you hate gatekeepers.”
There.
That was the deepest threat.
Not evidence.
Memory.
Miles knew I had built Kingsley differently because I remembered being the child waiting outside adult decisions.
Agnes was one of the few people who could remind me of that without asking permission.
He needed her gone before rebuilding the old walls.
“You sent the flour.”
“Yes.”
“Knowing the fire time.”
“Yes.”
Estelle turned away.
Julian’s order had been to empty the bakery.
Miles made sure Agnes remained.
He tried to kill the woman who fed me because he believed my loyalty to her threatened his governance model.
That sentence was so absurd it became clear.
“You could have just disagreed with me.”
He smiled sadly.
“You don’t listen to men who want the old system back.”
“Correct.”
“So we built around you.”
There.
No apology.
At least honest.
I looked at Rafe.
“Take him out.”
Miles finally lost composure.
“Adrian, you need me.”
Old line.
Always.
“I built this hotel.”
“No.”
I looked around the burned bakery.
“You built doors.”
Then:
“I decide which ones stay open.”
He was removed.
No blood.
May you like
No spectacle.
Just sixteen years ending beneath a ceiling blackened by his ambition.
