Chapter 38 Alex Harrington
Alex sat on the edge of his bed, his back hunched, staring at the ceiling as if the cracked plaster held the answers to a thousand questions he didn't want to ask. The silence in the small space was deafening. It wasn't the peaceful silence of a home; it was the hollow, ringing quiet of a vacuum.
For the rest of the world, he was just Alex. The student. The guy who worked out too much. The quiet friend of Mark Hayes. But in the dark, he knew the truth.
He was a Harrington.
He was the only son and heir of Richard Harrington, a man who viewed the city as a chessboard and everyone in it as a pawn.
Seven years had passed since his mother finally walked away from the Harrington mansion, dragging a teenage Alex with her. The divorce had been a bloodbath of lawyers and headlines, ending with his mother retreating to the sanctuary of London. Alex had stayed behind for college, choosing to live in a cramped apartment and drive an old truck, desperate to prove he didn't need a single cent of the Harrington money. He had built a wall between himself and his father, but lately, that wall was starting to crumble.
He reached out and pulled his laptop onto his lap. The glow of the screen was blinding in the dark room. He logged into a private banking portal, his fingers moving with a muscle memory he hated. The numbers on the screen were staggering. After his maternal grandfather passed away last year, the Vane Estate had settled entirely on his shoulders. He was the only grandchild, the last of a line of quiet, dignified wealth that Richard Harrington had always envied.
The balance in the account was enough to buy the Veridian District ten times over. It was enough to unfreeze Sarah’s corporate accounts with a single wire transfer. He could save her firm. He could end her nightmare with a click.
"She’d never take it," he whispered, his voice raspy from hours of disuse.
He knew Sarah. He knew the pride that lived in the set of her jaw and the way she stood tall in a boardroom full of men who wanted her to fail. If he showed up with the Vane fortune, she wouldn't see a savior. She would see another man trying to own her. She would see the very thing she was currently fighting against.
He closed the laptop with a sharp snap and shoved it aside. The money felt like a curse. It sat there, useless, while the woman he adored was being picked apart by his father’s legal team.
The ache in his chest shifted from frustration to a sharp, physical pain when his mind drifted to Mark. He rolled onto his back, staring at the dark ceiling again. He and Mark were supposed to be brothers forever. They had shared everything—late-night study sessions, cheap beer, dreams of the future. Mark was the only person who had ever treated Alex like a human being instead of a trophy or a target.
"I broke it," Alex muttered, closing his eyes tight.
He could still see the look of pure disgust on Mark’s face in the living room. It wasn't just anger; it was the look of a person who had realized their entire foundation was a lie. Alex had stepped into the one place he was never supposed to go. He had fallen for the mother of his best friend, and in doing so, he had set a fire that was burning everything to the ground.
He reached for his phone on the nightstand. The screen lit up, showing a dozen unsent drafts. He opened a new message to Mark.
I’m sorry. I never wanted to lose you.
His thumb hovered over the send button. The blue light of the phone flickered against his bruised face. He stared at the words until they blurred. What would an apology do? It wouldn't erase the memory of finding them together. It wouldn't bring Mark back to the house. It wouldn't fix the fact that Alex was keeping a secret that would likely destroy whatever was left of their friendship.
He hit the delete button, watching the letters vanish one by one.
"Words are useless," he sighed, dropping the phone onto the mattress.
He felt like he was floating in a void. He was the Prince of Nowhere—too much of a Harrington to be a normal man, too much of a Vane to be the monster his father wanted him to be. He had tried to protect Sarah by being a shield, by using his fists and his wits, but the higher the stakes grew, the more he realized that a shield wasn't enough. You couldn't fight a god of industry with a bodyguard’s instincts.
He thought about Sarah’s crash out earlier that evening. Her voice had been full of such raw, jagged pain. She had called their love a mistake. She had called him a curse. He knew she was lashing out because she was terrified, but the words had cut deeper than any blade. He wanted to go back to her. He wanted to pin her against the door, kiss the anger out of her, and remind her that he was the only thing standing between her and the abyss. But he had promised her space. He had promised to stay away.
His possessiveness struggled with his respect for her. He wanted to claim her, to lock the doors and tell the world to go to hell, but he knew Sarah needed to be the hero of her own story. If he took that away from her, he would lose her just as surely as Richard Harrington intended to take her.
The room was silent for a long time, the only sound being the distant hum of traffic outside. Alex felt the weight of his inheritance and his heritage pressing down on him. He was a man with all the power in the world and absolutely no way to use it without destroying the very person he loved.
Suddenly, the silence was shattered.
His phone began to vibrate on the bed, the bright screen cutting through the dark like a flare. He picked it up, expecting it to be Stacy or even a wrong number.
His heart skipped a beat when he saw the caller ID. It was an international number.
He answered immediately. "Mom?"
"Alex," her voice came through the line, clear and sharp despite the thousands of miles between them. She was in London, safe in the Vane family townhouse, but she sounded more anxious than he had heard her in years.
"Is everything okay?" Alex asked, sitting up straight.
"Did something happen with the estate?"
"The estate is fine, Alex. It’s you I’m worried about," she said. He could hear her pacing on the other end.
"I heard from one of the old board members. Richard is moving on a certain Veridian project. He’s not just looking for a contract anymore, Alex. He knows."
Alex felt the blood turn to ice in his veins. "He knows what?"
"He knows you’re seeing her," his mother whispered, her voice trembling with a mother’s instinctual fear.
"He’s been watching you for weeks. He knows Sarah Hayes is the reason you’ve stayed in that city after graduating instead of coming home. Alex, you know how your father is. He doesn't see people; he sees levers. He’s not trying to buy her company because he needs the money. He’s probably going to use her to get to you.”
Alex gripped the phone so hard the casing groaned. The Prince of Nowhere finally had a direction, but it was a path leading straight into a slaughterhouse.
"He won't touch her," Alex growled, his voice dropping into a lethal, Harrington register.
"He already has, Alex," his mother replied.
"Get out of there. Please. I don't need you fighting with your father.”
Alex ended the call and looked at the bank statement on his laptop.