The silence that followed Serathine's departure was broken only by the faint sound of her heels on the marble floor of the hall.
Christian remained where he stood, the closed folder still in his hand, its edges neat and unassuming, as if it didn't bear the weight of someone's stolen life within its pages.
Outside, the city moved on. Slow and glittering. Unaware.
He didn't move for a long time. Christian's thoughts raced through his mind.
Lucas had chosen Trevor.
Of course he had. Of course Serathine would want him aligned with someone polished, presentable, and politically clean. Of course the boy, torn, fragile, rebuilding his bones from memory, would lean toward the man who hadn't been tied to a forged contract, who hadn't been the monster standing in a hallway as everything inside him collapsed.
But that didn't make it right or final.
Christian walked back to his desk, each step measured. He placed the folder down on the surface like he was setting the first stone of a foundation, not evidence of betrayal.
Trevor hadn't earned Lucas.
He'd simply caught him before he hit the ground.
Christian—he had been building the ground.
He sat, finally, fingers steepled before him, and let the silence settle fully.
They thought this was about pride or control.
But it had never been that.
It was about the fact that Lucas had been taken from him, shaped into something he wasn't allowed to know, handed to him on a leash soaked in lies, and then torn away before he'd even spoken his name with meaning.
The boy had been weaponized. Softened in places that were never supposed to break. Programmed to flinch when he should have stood tall.
Christian could see it in his eyes: fear was not a natural reaction. It was taught. And now they had wrapped him in silk and called him chosen. As if that erased the years he'd spent behind the curtain, never told the play was already written.
Serathine and the others might doubt him. They should.
It would be safer that way.
Let them watch him like a threat. Let them mistake his silence for surrender. He had no interest in fighting them—not now. There was no need to make enemies when patience would do the work for him.
Because eventually, Lucas would come to him.
Not because of romance. Not because of pity.
But because he'd need something—a question, a truth, a thread that only Christian still held. Some part of him would want to understand, to untangle the version of himself that Misty sold and the one everyone else tried to salvage.
Christian would be ready to open the door for him and greet him. Like nothing happened.
And if Lucas came seeking closure, Christian would give it.
But if he came looking for more. for something real, something still sharp beneath all the broken pieces—
Then he would give him that too.
Christian pressed a button on the embedded panel at the edge of his desk.
The line clicked once.
"Yes, Your Excellency?" came Aaron's voice, crisp and unobtrusive, the kind of tone trained to sound like presence without opinion.
"When you find out who Faceless Agatha is," Christian said, leaning back slowly in his chair, "send the information to Serathine."
A brief pause on the line.
Aaron knew better than to question him, but the silence spoke enough.
Christian continued, tone as flat as a stone polished smooth.
"Let them deal with whoever was meant to pick up the leash after I failed to yank it. Or should I say"—he lifted his glass again, but didn't drink—"the third buyer?"
Another beat.
"Yes, sir," Aaron said. "I'll send the file once we have confirmation."
Christian didn't answer right away.
He simply watched the liquid settle in the glass, amber and still, reflecting the light from the window like a promise not yet broken.
"Good," he said at last. "Let them strike first."
And in the quiet that followed, he allowed himself the smallest thought—
Let them believe I've stepped back. Let them lower their guard.
Because if the boy ever looked back with a question, he would make sure he was the only one holding the answer.
—
The air in the manor had gone still again.
Lucas sat near the window, the late morning light spilling across the arm of the chair, warming the fabric without reaching his skin. He wasn't dressed for court. No jewelry. No embroidery. Just a dark sweater, clean trousers, and the faint scent of lavender from the soap he still wasn't used to.
Trevor sat opposite him, long legs crossed, a tablet forgotten on the low table between them. He hadn't spoken in several minutes. He didn't need to.
Lucas had asked for time.
He was quiet now not because he didn't know what to say—but because he did.
"I'll accept the offer," Lucas said at last, his voice low, even. "The engagement. The alliance."
Trevor didn't move right away.
But the sharpness behind his eyes—there since the gala—eased just slightly.
Lucas continued, gaze fixed on a spot beyond the window, somewhere past the hedge wall.
"I know how dangerous Christian is," he said. "Misty is loud. Brutal. Desperate. But she can be dealt with."
He finally turned to look at Trevor. The light reflected in his eyes, making his purple eyes even more striking.
"Christian can hide who he is," Lucas said. "And that makes him worse. He's patient. He'd wait years if that's what it takes—wait for everyone to lower their guard, wait until someone else makes the first mistake."
Trevor's expression didn't shift, but the edge behind his stillness sharpened.
He'd known Christian was dangerous.
But hearing it like this—from the source of the fallout—made it real in a different way.
"Serathine is meeting with him," Trevor said, voice even. "That's already in motion."
Lucas didn't flinch.
"Then we'll let him believe the story he wants to see. That Misty is the only one we're watching. That she's the threat. That he's been dismissed."
Trevor nodded once.
"He'll play the long game."
"And so will we," Lucas replied.