When the room emptied,Gideon stayed behind.
The silence wasn’t peace but a void echoing everything left unsaid.
The air reeked of bourbon and ambition. The table gleamed, catching the chandelier’s glow, but the reflections warped, broken.
He rested a hand on the back of his chair, fingers curled against the cool leather.
Power without principle isn’t power; it’s fear in disguise.
His grandfather’s words echoed through him, as present as the fury threading through his blood.
Henry Hawthorne hadn’t only left him wealth. He’d left him a choice. A legacy Gideon hadn’t asked for, but one he was determined to shape.
He remembered the day the will was read, how every word had sliced through the room.
How Evelyn’s jaw had locked. How Alex had faked disinterest, even as his grip on the chair went white-knuckled.
How every one of them had revealed their true faces.
He’d sat there knowing he was the outsider. The threat. The one who could dismantle the entire machine if he wanted to.
And now?
Now the walls of this empire were closing in, and he was running out of time.
He looked to the window, the city glittering beyond the glass. His reflection hovered there—splintered, hollowed, restless.
What would walking away even mean?
But Henry’s voice returned, steel and warning.
Never leave your battles for someone else to finish.
His jaw set.
The empire could crumble. Let it.
But they would not take her. Not Arden.
He turned toward the door, spine straight, every step echoing a promise.
Let the empire fall. She wouldn’t. And he was just getting started.
CHAPTER 36
Legacy of Shadows
Ten Years Ago
Slants of sunlightcarved gold through the room, catching on mahogany and cut crystal.
Evelyn Blackwell’s dining room didn’t just showcase wealth; it broadcast control, every surface a mirror of calculated legacy and restraint.
Gideon sat near the far end, posture composed, eyes sharp. He scanned the faces around the table: Evelyn, regal in her seat at the head, her diamond collar glinting like a threat; Alex, his smirk poorly disguising resentment; Cate, poised but tense, her fingers clenched too tightly around Alex’s; Sebastian, lounging with predator’s ease, his smile as cutting as the edge of his glass.
There were others—distant relatives, legal advisors, a handful of well-dressed vultures masquerading as mourners, but they blurred at the edges. Only these few mattered.
This wasn’t a reading of a will; it was a battlefield.
