Chapter 27 The Weight of the Crown
Nate’s POV
The glass in my hand felt dangerously thin. I stared at the amber liquid—another glass of scotch I didn't really want—as the silence of the Salvatore library pressed in on me like a physical weight. On the mahogany desk sat a stack of files that represented my future: merger agreements, estate taxes, and a list of "suitable" families my mother had vetted for my next public appearance.
"You made a scene, Nathaniel."
My mother’s voice was like a scalpel—precise, cold, and designed to draw blood without leaving a mess. Alexandra Salvatore stood in the doorway, her silhouette as rigid as the family crest. With my father gone from the board and the daily operations, she was the sole architect of the Salvatore empire, holding the reins with a white-knuckled grip until the day I graduated and took my place beside her.
"I cut in on a dance," I said, my voice sounding hollow even to my own ears. "Hardly a diplomatic crisis."
"You humiliated a Beaumont in front of the board," she countered, stepping into the room. The scent of her expensive, floral perfume preceded her, cloying and suffocating. "And for what? A girl who is only here because of a momentary lapse in your security? You are a Salvatore. Your job is to be the sun around which this world revolves, not a moth crashing into a common candle. If you cannot control your impulses, I will be forced to conclude that you aren't ready for the responsibility I am holding for you."
A common candle. The description should have felt accurate. Mila Stone was everything I was supposed to ignore. She was loud, she was stubborn, and she smelled like cheap coffee and defiance. But as my mother spoke, all I could see was Mila in that emerald dress—the way her skin had glowed against the silk, and the way her eyes had widened in fear and something else when I’d cornered her in the hallway.
"It’s under control, Mother," I lied, the words tasting like ash.
"Is it? Fix it. Or I will." She swept out of the room, leaving me alone with the ghost of her expectations.
I felt the familiar, crushing pressure in my chest—the need to be the perfect heir, the cold king Alverstone expected me to be. But the ice was cracking. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her. I saw her pushing me onto the sidewalk, out of the way of that delivery truck. I saw her dancing with Theodore.
Theodore. My best friend. My brother in every way that mattered. And I was pushing him away because I couldn't stand the sight of his hand on her waist. It scared me. The "need" to see her react to me—to see her anger, her fear, anything that proved I still had an effect on her—was becoming a sickness.
I set the glass down and picked up the laptop on my desk. I had done something I told myself I wouldn’t do. I had used the Salvatore resources to dig into the Stone family.
I had been looking for a reason to hate her. I wanted to find proof that she was a greedy social climber, that the "medical bills" her father, Mark, had been moaning about were just a ploy to squeeze more money out of my family’s guilt. I wanted to see her as a predator so I could finally justify the way I wanted to break her.
But as the data scrolled across the screen, the breath left my lungs.
The "medical bills" were a fiction—a lie designed to elicit sympathy. Mark Stone didn't have hospital liens; he had a trail of shadows leading to offshore bookies and high-interest street loans. But he wasn't the only one. My stomach turned as I saw the credit card statements for Dawn Stone. While Mila was working double shifts at a cafe and scrubbing floors to keep her sisters, Grace and Zoe, fed, her mother was squandering every cent.
There were charges for designer knock-offs, expensive dinners, and frivolous luxuries that the family couldn't afford. They weren't just spending the "advance" my mother had given them; they were systematically draining Mila. They were bleeding her dry while she lived with no luxuries and worried about their survival.
A sharp, heartbreaking realization hit me. Mila wasn't a social climber. She was the only thing standing between her sisters and the abyss, and the very people she was trying to save were the ones sinking the ship. She was a girl trapped in a cage of her own loyalty, surrounded by parasites who shared her blood.
I looked at the "Team Beaumont" scarf I’d seen on campus earlier. Theodore wanted to be her savior. He wanted to take her on a date and tell her she was beautiful. He wanted to give her a fairy tale.
But a fairy tale wouldn't save her from the truth of who her parents were.
A red-hot flare of jealousy and rage erupted in my gut. Friday night. They were going to the Village. Theodore would smile at her, and she would look at him with that soft, hopeful expression I’d seen in the student center—a look she never gave me. She gave me fire. She gave me ice. But she gave him her light.
"Why does it have to be you?" I whispered to the empty room.
I had the information to destroy her family, to reveal her parents for the frauds they were. But looking at the data, all I felt was a savage, protective instinct I didn't know how to handle. I couldn't let her go to that dinner. I couldn't let her believe, even for a second, that she could find safety in Theodore's arms while her own home was a burning building.
I picked up my phone and dialed Gavin. My hand was shaking.
"I need to know exactly where they’re going Friday night," I snapped. "And Gavin? Don't let her see you. If she so much as smiles at him, I want to know about it."
I closed the laptop, my jaw set. Theodore wanted to be the hero. But in Mila Stone’s world, heroes got slaughtered. She needed a Salvatore. Even if she hated me for it.