Chapter 5
The old Sarto practice ring confirmed it.
I found it in Elias’s desk.
Child-sized.
Not valuable.
Symbolic.
The same ring my father once let me wear when I was twelve, then took away after I challenged him at dinner.
I remembered crying in the hallway afterward.
He told me leadership belonged to people who controlled themselves.
I learned not to cry where he could see.
Apparently he considered that success.
I placed the ring on the council table.
“Who is this for now?”
Elias said nothing.
Rowan did.
“Tyler.”
My stomach turned.
“Why?”
“He’s the oldest grandson.”
“So?”
She stared as though the answer should be obvious.
“The organization will need someone after you.”
I almost laughed.
“I’m twenty-nine.”
Silence.
“No illness. No retirement. No crisis.”
I looked at my father.
“You created a succession problem because I’m a woman and my son is four.”
His face hardened.
“This family needs continuity.”
“No.”
My voice stayed calm.
“You need relevance.”
That hit.
Because it was true.
Elias had been patriarch for thirty years.
Retirement removed the chair but not the instinct to control who sat near it.
I took over.
A daughter.
Then had Noah.
Another future he could not shape easily.
Tyler was older.
Male.
Impressionable.
Useful.
May you like
The ring was never about the boys.
It was about my father searching for a path back into the future.
