Chapter 4
Cassian and Coralie had known each other before me.
Not intimately.
Not then.
They met seven years earlier through Ainsworth charity circles.
Cassian flirted.
Coralie ignored him.
Then he fell from Blackwell.
I met her two years later.
We began seeing each other.
By then Cassian was distant history.
Or so I thought.
Six months ago, Coralie contacted him.
Why?
She wanted advice about Blackwell.
That almost made me laugh.
“You became her marriage counselor?”
Cassian looked offended.
“Briefly.”
“Then?”
“She started asking why you threw me out.”
I had told Coralie the official version.
Cassian tried to split the family after my father died.
True.
But incomplete.
My father left no clear operational structure.
Three senior captains expected influence.
Cassian argued power should be distributed among branch leaders.
I argued command needed one center until the family stabilized.
Cassian gathered support anyway.
Private dinners.
Promises.
A faction.
I ended it before blood followed loyalty.
He left.
Not because he was powerless.
Because I gave him a choice.
Stay as cousin.
Leave as rival.
He left.
Cassian now said:
“I was wrong about how I did it.”
Not what he wanted.
Interesting.
“And Coralie agreed with you?”
“She agreed that nobody should need your permission to matter.”
That sentence landed.
Not because it justified anything.
Because I had heard versions of it before.
From staff.
Relatives.
Women I dated.
Even Rafe once.
I had mistaken consistency for fairness.
If everyone needed my permission, then everyone was treated equally.
Technically.
Still centered entirely on me.
Cassian pointed toward the eight glasses.
“She wanted to know who else felt the same.”
“You recruited eight people during my engagement.”
“No.”
He smiled.
“She did.”
That hurt differently.
Coralie had used my engagement celebration as a listening post.
Cassian merely supplied the room.
Then I asked:
“What was the gold key?”
He reached into his pocket.
Placed another on the table.
Two copies.
He had made them years ago.
Before exile.
My security had never changed the Founder Room lock because I believed I recovered the only key.
Carelessness.
Mine.
“What happens after tonight?”
Cassian looked upward.
“Tomorrow she asks you for real authority.”
“And if I say no?”
His face became unreadable.
“Then the eight people upstairs already know they aren’t alone.”
Not overthrow.
May you like
Leverage.
My future wife had built herself a constituency before the wedding.
