Chapter 5
I removed my engagement ring from Veronica’s finger myself.
Not violently.
Slowly.
That hurt her more.
She stared at the empty place.
“What are you doing?”
“Correcting an assumption.”
Her face hardened.
“You can’t throw away three years because Sofia polished shoes.”
I looked at her.
“You still think this is about shoes.”
“It is.”
“No.”
I set the ring beside the notebook.
“It’s about you agreeing to marry me while planning where my daughter would rank beneath children you haven’t even had.”
She laughed bitterly.
“You think Evelyn wouldn’t have done the same if she survived?”
That was the wrong sentence.
I stepped closer.
“Do not use my dead wife to defend what you did to her daughter.”
Veronica flinched.
Good.
Miles interrupted.
“Alexander, Damian thinks the family needs certainty.”
“Certainty about what?”
“Succession.”
There it was.
Always succession eventually.
“I’m thirty-three.”
“That’s not the point.”
“What is?”
Miles looked at Sofia.
Of course.
A daughter.
No son.
Old men see a daughter and immediately imagine a vacancy.
“Say it.”
He rubbed his jaw.
“They don’t believe Sofia should inherit command.”
“I’ve never named her.”
“Exactly.”
I stared.
“How does that help your argument?”
“You haven’t named anyone.”
I understood.
Uncertainty makes old men restless.
Restless old men create rules.
Damian wanted the household charter restored now so that if I died without declaring succession, any future son born to Veronica automatically outranked Sofia.
“And if Veronica never has a son?”
Miles went silent.
That answer frightened me more.
“Who?”
He looked away.
“Miles.”
Finally:
“My son.”
I stared at him.
His son, Adrian, was eight.
So that was the backup.
Veronica’s future boy if possible.
Miles’s boy if not.
Sofia reduced either way.
I almost smiled at the elegance.
Every route ended with men getting what they already believed they deserved.
“And Veronica agreed to this?”
Her face changed.
That surprised her too.
Good.
She had not been told the backup.
I looked at her.
“You thought you were becoming matriarch.”
Silence.
“You didn’t know Miles’s son was next.”
Her eyes hardened.
“No.”
Miles closed his eyes.
The faction had already begun eating itself.
Perfect.
Then Veronica whispered:
“Damian promised me my child would inherit.”
I nodded.
“Of course he did.”
Different promises.
Same control.
May you like
Old men do not build loyalty.
They rent ambition.
