Chapter 99 The Call Above Him
Chapter 99 The Call Above Him
Adrian hadn’t touched the alcohol tonight.
That was the first sign something was wrong.
The bottle sat open on the counter, untouched. The glass beside it still dry.
He’d been staring at his phone for the past ten minutes.
No messages.
No updates.
But the silence felt staged. Like something was moving without him.
Since his suspension, the office had stopped calling. The board had stopped pretending to include him. His cousin now sat in his chair, signed his approvals, answered to the same last name with none of the mess attached.
Adrian hated that more than he hated Damien.
His phone lit up.
Unknown number.
He stared at it.
It rang once.
Twice.
Three times.
He answered on the fourth.
Silence.
Not static. Not background noise.
Just breathing.
Low. Controlled.
Then a voice.
Distorted, but not robotic. Just altered enough to feel wrong.
“You were given a simple containment task.”
No greeting.
No name.
Adrian straightened slowly.
“Who is this?”
A small pause.
“You already know.”
His jaw tightened.
Of course he knew.
He just didn’t like being reminded.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“She remembered.”
That was it.
Two words.
But they hit harder than shouting.
Adrian didn’t ask how.
He didn’t ask who told them.
He asked the only thing that mattered.
“What exactly did she say?”
Another pause. Measuring him.
“You were instructed to destabilize her quietly,” the voice continued. “Not publicly. Not emotionally. Quietly.”
Destabilize.
Not break.
Not destroy.
Destabilize.
Operational.
Clean.
“You turned it into spectacle.”
His fingers tightened around the phone.
“That engagement was strategic,” Adrian said sharply. “It forced distance. It forced her out.”
“It forced attention,” the voice corrected.
No anger.
No rise in tone.
Just correction.
“You were given one task,” the voice continued. “One. And you couldn’t even manage a woman.”
The words didn’t come loud.
They didn’t need to.
They landed.
Adrian’s chest tightened, heat rising under his skin.
“I applied pressure,” Adrian said, jaw tight. “She was becoming unstable. Emotional fracture forces dependency. That was the strategy.”
A beat.
“She was supposed to come back. I didn’t account for Cross inserting himself.”
“You were suspended.”
The room went still.
Adrian’s throat went dry.
“That had nothing to do with...”
“You deviated.”
"You made it visible”
Each sentence felt documented.
Recorded.
Filed.
“You couldn’t manage a woman,” the voice repeated calmly. “Now she stands beside Damien Cross.”
And there it was.
The name.
Adrian’s jaw locked.
This wasn’t about Evelyn anymore.
It was about Damien.
“You underestimate him,” Adrian said.
“We never underestimate variables,” the voice replied.
A slight shift.
Almost clinical.
“We eliminate them.”
Adrian felt something cold settle in his spine.
This wasn’t ego.
This wasn’t family politics.
This was structural.
Calculated.
“If Damien uncovers the origin before we secure the witness,” the voice continued, “you will not be replaced again.”
A small pause.
“You will be erased.”
Adrian stopped breathing for a second.
Erased.
Not removed.
Not cut off.
Erased.
Like he had never been positioned there at all.
Like his name could be unlinked.
His access revoked.
His relevance rewritten.
“You need me,” Adrian said quietly.
“Do we?”
The question wasn’t rhetorical.
It was analytical.
Silence stretched.
Adrian forced control back into his voice.
“She doesn’t know enough,” he said. “She heard fragments. Tone. Nothing concrete.”
“She remembered tone,” the voice said. “Hierarchy. Deference.”
Adrian’s stomach tightened.
“She’s standing next to Cross,” the voice added. “That accelerates pattern recognition.”
He hated that word.
Pattern.
Like she was a problem forming.
Not a person.
“Contain her,” the voice said.
“How?” Adrian asked. “She blocked me.”
“Then become necessary.”
That made him pause.
Necessary.
“She still reacts to you,” the voice continued. “Emotion is leverage. Use it.”
“And if she resists?”
A small pause.
“Then we proceed to containment stage two.”
Adrian’s pulse spiked.
“What does that mean?”
Silence.
Measured.
“You don’t need full visibility to execute your function.”
There it was again.
Function.
He wasn’t a son.
He wasn’t heir.
He was a function.
“Cross is accelerating. We are already adjusting.”
Adjusting.
“Adjusting how?” Adrian demanded.
“That is above your clearance.”
His hand tightened around the phone.
“You’re asking me to stop him without giving me the full picture.”
“You were given the picture years ago,” the voice replied. “You simply mismanaged it.”
That hit deeper than the insult about Evelyn.
Because that meant—
They’d trusted him once.
And downgraded him.
“You couldn’t manage a woman,” the voice said again, almost bored. “Now manage yourself.”
Adrian’s vision sharpened.
“If you sideline me,” he said quietly, “you expose yourselves.”
A faint sound on the other end.
Not a laugh.
Just air.
“We exposed you,” the voice said. “You exposed yourself.”
That silence after that sentence felt heavier than anything said before.
“You have seventy-two hours,” the voice continued. “Contain her influence. Disrupt Cross’s proximity. Reassert instability.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Contain her,” the voice repeated.
A beat.
“Or we contain you.”
Click.
The line went dead.
Adrian stood there.
Still holding the phone to his ear.
The room felt smaller.
Not because of fear.
Because of clarity.
He wasn’t in control.
He had never been.
He lowered the phone slowly.
For a moment, he considered smashing it against the wall.
Breaking something.
Making noise.
Instead, he unlocked it.
Evelyn’s name was still pinned at the top of his call log.
He stared at it.
Then pressed call.
It rang.
Went to voicemail.
He called again.
Voicemail.
Again.
And again.
By the tenth call, his breathing had changed.
By the twentieth, his hand was shaking.
By the thirtieth, he understood something he hadn’t allowed himself to admit before.
This wasn’t about getting her back.
This was about losing control completely.
He opened their message thread.
Typed.
Deleted.
Typed again.
Don’t trust Damien.
He stared at it.
Added:
Don’t trust ANY of them.
He hit send.
The message delivered.
Then...
Blocked.
The status changed instantly.
He was cut off.
Adrian let out a slow breath.
Fine.
If she wouldn’t answer him
He would make sure she had to.
Across the city, somewhere in a secured building no one officially owned, a file was being accessed.
A name highlighted.
A location updated.
And next to it
A new note added:
Evelyn Hart — escalation risk increased.
Adrian didn’t see that.
But he felt it.
For the first time since the engagement announcement...
He wasn’t spiraling because he wanted her.
He was spiraling because someone above him had decided he was optional.
And optional men don’t survive in systems like this.
He picked up the untouched glass.
Poured the drink.
Didn’t sip it.
Just stared at it.
Seventy-two hours.
Contain her.
Disrupt Damien.
Reassert instability.
His phone buzzed again.
Not Evelyn.
A message from an internal number he hadn’t seen in months.
No name attached.
Just a time.
Tomorrow.
8:00 PM.
And one line beneath it:
Stage two authorization pending.
Adrian’s grip tightened.
Stage two.
He didn’t know who would execute it.
But he knew one thing...
If they moved before he did
Evelyn wouldn’t just be destabilized.
She would be removed from the board entirely.
And this time…
He wouldn’t be able to undo it.