Chapter 56 Chapter Fifty-five
ARA
Tires screamed outside the penthouse windows and ripped me out of sleep.
I reached for Thayne, but I only touched cold sheets. His side of the bed was empty and cold. He must have left a long while ago.
Did he regret helping me forget about yesterday?
My stomach dropped at that thought.
I slid out of bed, pulled his robe around me, and padded barefoot toward the low, vicious voices drifting down the hall.
Did he have guests? The voices were all male, Thayne's included. So it couldn't be Sasha and the PR team.
His private suite's door stood open just enough for the venomous voice speaking to leak through.
A chill ran down my spine.
Mr. Slade Senior’s voice sliced the air, sharp and poisonous. What was he here for?
Hadn't he threatened Thayne enough?
“I called you a bastard once, Thayne. You never asked why.”
There was a cruel pause before he resumed speaking. “He is my son. My first son. He inherits everything. And there is nothing you can say or do to change that.”
Thayne’s reply came low, lethal. “We had a deal. Marriage first. Then an heir. I’m months from thirty.”
His father laughed, a cold and ugly sound. “Your older brother has a prior claim. Birthright beats paperwork anytime, boy.”
Older brother? Wait…. Liliana had two sons?
My heart slammed against my ribs and my tongue instantly went dry.
“You’re lying,” Thayne snarled. “You spring an older brother on me now? After how many years?”
“He’s been in and out of rehab since he was sixteen,” Mr. Slade Senior said, almost bored. “His mother kept him hidden. She couldn’t hide him anymore, so she reached me.”
I tried to think fast.
If it wasn't Liliana who birthed the said older brother, then who?
I couldn’t stay in the hallway like a coward. I needed to see for myself what the hell was happening.
I pushed the door wider and stepped inside.
I immediately regretted it.
Thayne stood rigid, fists clenched so tight his knuckles were white, veins corded in his forearms.
Rage rolled off him in angry waves, and he looked like a living hurricane ready to blow right through everything and everyone in his path.
His father lounged in the leather chair, lips curled in a snake’s smile.
And beside him, legs crossed, in a white suit pristine and pompous, sat a man who didn't look like Thayne at all.
Was that makeup on his face? He was wearing makeup?!
He didn't have Thayne's sharp bones, or his green eyes. He didn't have or carry Thayne's commanding aura. There was nothing royal or majestic about him.
He had the eyes of a chronic smoker, and those eyes locked on me the second I appeared in the private meeting suite.
He dragged his gaze down my body, slow and filthy, then flashed a wolfish grin.
“Well, well, well. Hello, gorgeous.” His tongue touched his bottom lip. “Tell me, brother, does she scream pretty when you pound her cun—”
Thayne moved so fast the air cracked.
One second the man was smirking. The next his head snapped back, blood spraying from his mouth and staining his white suit as Thayne’s fist collided with his jaw.
A jaw-rearranging crack followed right after.
The stranger fell forward the moment Thayne let him ago and hit the floor hard.
Thayne towered over him, chest heaving, ready to kill, ready to spill blood.
Mr. Slade Senior didn’t even flinch. He just sipped his coffee and smiled like he was watching an entertainment show he’d paid for.
Thayne’s eyes cut to me, wild and furious. I wasn't supposed to be here.
“No need to be so dramatic, Thayne. Mind you, if you cause him serious harm that will affect or prevent him from inheriting the family legacy, I will throw you in jail and lock you up. You won't ever see the sky again. Ethan is my firstborn heir, and that's final.” Mr. Slade Senior stood, dusting off his shiny suit.
“I won't go down without a fight, father. You know that.” Thayne said, giving his father a dangerous smile.
“Is this who would have inherited the legacy? A man who loses his shit when another man talks about his whore?” Ethan sneered, his lips swollen, his jaw hanging open.
Thayne shot him a murderous glare. “Say that again and your jaw won't be the only part of your miserable body hanging open.”
Ethan thought better about Thayne's threat and said nothing else.
Mr. Slade Senior rose from the chair like a shadow stretching across the room.
He walked toward me slowly, deliberately, the way a butcher studies a cut he’s already decided to ruin.
His eyes were flat, dead, pale blue and merciless, the eyes of a man who had never lost anything he truly wanted.
He stopped so close I could smell the expensive cologne mixed with something sour underneath.
He leaned in until his lips almost brushed my ear. His breath was hot, stale coffee and cruelty.
“I promised you one thing the day we met,” he whispered, each word soft and slow, dripping with venom.
Thayne was too busy glaring at Ethan to notice his father was threatening me.
“You will never marry into the Slade family.”
His tongue clicked once, a wet little sound that made my stomach turn.
“You caused this for him,” he continued, voice barely louder than a heartbeat, but it filled my skull. “And he is paying heavily for it.”
He inhaled through his nose, a long, disgusting sniff right at my neck, like he was tasting my fear.
“Leave with your sisters and never come back.”
His lips grazed the shell of my ear as he finished, “That’s the only way you can save him.”
My skin crawled. Every inch of me wanted to recoil, to run, to scream.
But I didn’t move. I didn’t even breathe.
Because his eyes never left mine the whole time he spoke, cold, triumphant, daring me to cry or fight or break.
I felt the threat sink into my bones.
If I stayed, he would destroy Thayne just to prove he could. He had already started proving it.
My hands shook at my sides.
My throat closed so tight I couldn’t swallow.
When Thayne finally noticed the way his father had gotten so close to me, he took one furious step forward, murder written across his face, but I lifted one trembling hand, just enough to stop him.
Because the old man was right about one thing.
Everything he was doing, every knife he twisted, was because of me.
And I had never hated myself more than I did in that moment.