Chapter 5
Ada’s hands shook as she turned page after page.
Not hidden-camera photographs.
Public places.
Taken from distance.
Enough to map her life.
I looked at Sebastian.
“Why her?”
“Because she’s the only person you still protect without calculation.”
Wrong.
But useful insight into how he thought.
He believed every relationship contained leverage.
So the person I loved most became my most valuable weakness.
Ada found one page marked:
LIKELY RESPONSE IF ADA THREATENED.
Underneath:
NEGOTIATE — 45%
ATTACK — 30%
SURRENDER SYMBOLIC AUTHORITY — 25%
I laughed.
Sebastian frowned.
“You find this amusing?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“You put percentages on family.”
He looked offended.
“This is risk.”
“No.”
I closed the folder.
“This is obsession pretending to be analysis.”
Then Ada found another section.
PHASE TWO.
Sebastian reached for it.
Rafe stepped between them.
I opened the page.
If Ronan refused to kneel, the second phase involved a public internal challenge.
Seven captains would refuse my orders simultaneously.
Not violence.
Disobedience.
Then Sebastian would announce that the Inner Chair must return to prevent civil fracture.
Elegant.
Manufacture disorder.
Sell the cure.
I looked at him.
“You planned the crisis you intend to solve.”
He shrugged.
“Leadership is often timing.”
“No.”
I leaned forward.
“Manipulation is.”
He smiled.
“You sound like your mother.”
That hit differently.
My mother died eight years earlier.
She hated the Inner Chair.
I had forgotten how loudly.
Sebastian noticed.
“She tried to abolish it before your father died.”
I stared.
“What?”
My father had always told me dismantling the chair was my idea.
Apparently not.
Sebastian smiled.
“You inherited more than you realized.”
Ada looked at me.
Then at him.
“What happened to our mother?”
The room changed.
Sebastian’s smile disappeared.
May you like
Interesting.
Ada had asked the right question without knowing it.
