Chapter 3 #3

Chapter 3 #3
Chapter 3
~ Shailyn ~
"Dwayne," Tyler said warmly, and Dwayne bent to embrace him. "Welcome home, son."
Dwayne,
No, no, no.
The ginseng man was Dwayne? Dante's brother? The brother I'd never met? The brother I was supposed to hate?
He'd known from the very beginning at that shop, he'd known exactly who I was.
Fuck him.
"You must be Shailyn," he said, his voice that same low rumble that had unraveled me earlier. "My brother's wife."
The way he said wife, like it was a question, not a fact.
"I… yes." I forced the word out. "Nice to meet you."
"Is it?" he asked softly.
Dante slammed his hand on the table. "Can we eat already?"
But Dwayne didn't move. He just kept looking at me with those unreadable dark eyes, and I felt pinned in place, like a butterfly under glass.
Finally, he turned to Dante, who was still stubbornly sitting in the chair his father had told him not to take. "Move."
"Fuck you."
"Dante!" Tyler barked.
Dante shoved back his chair and stalked to the other side of the table, his face twisted with rage. Dwayne slid into the seat beside his father — the seat that had been Dante's for five years, and reached for his napkin like nothing had happened.
Like he hadn't just upended everything.
I couldn't stop staring at him. At the way he moved, all controlled power. 
He glanced at me again, and this time, I saw it clearly.
Amusement.
He was enjoying this.
"So," Cynthia said tightly, breaking the silence. "How long are you staying, Dwayne?"
"As long as it takes," he said.
"As long as what takes?" Monica demanded.
Dwayne gave a slow, dangerous smile that sent chills down my spine.
"To take back what's mine."
My heart leaped. Tyler cleared his throat, drawing everyone's attention.
"I wanted the whole family gathered to announce this before I tell the board." He set down his fork with deliberate care. "I'm stepping down as chairman of SentientIQ."
"What?"
The word exploded from three mouths at once — Dante, Cynthia, and Monica. I sat frozen, my mind spinning.
Only Dwayne remained calm, cutting into his steak like Tyler had just commented on the weather.
"I'm old enough to retire," Tyler continued with a chuckle. "And I'm expecting grandchildren from Dante and Shailyn soon, so I'd better rest now before I'm kept up by crying babies."
He looked at me, his eyes warm and expectant.
I forced out a laugh, the sound strangled and fake.
Grandchildren. With Dante.
A year ago, I might have believed it was possible. A year ago, I still thought Dante loved me somewhere deep down, that maybe we could fix this. But now? After everything I'd learned from those podcasts, after seeing how he treated me without mercy...
Dante would never want a family with me. I was just... convenient. A means to an end.
And yet, despite knowing this, despite the cheating and the infections and the humiliation, part of me still wanted to believe. Still wanted to count myself lucky just to be Mrs. Belmar.
‘Why can't I let go?’
"So," Tyler continued, "after two years of proving himself in the vice-chairman position, Dwayne will take my place as chairman of SentientIQ."
"What?"
Another chorus of shock. This time, my voice joined them but quieter, more subtle, because I'd learned long ago not to speak up in the Belmar family. But the word escaped anyway.
Dante shot to his feet. "What does that mean, Father?"
Tyler took a bite of his beef, unbothered. "Well, Dwayne developed X-Intel."
Dante dropped back into his chair like his strings had been cut.
"He developed X-Intel?"
The words burst out of me before I could stop them, louder than I'd intended. Shock and awe colored my voice.
Every head turned toward me. But I only noticed one pair of eyes.
Dwayne's.
They locked onto mine, dark and intense, and I couldn't look away.
X-Intel. The X-Intel. The AI model everyone in the tech world was buzzing about, the one that made H-GPT look like a calculator. I'd been following its development obsessively, dying to know who was behind it.
And it was him?
"Yes, Shailyn," Tyler said, pride evident in his voice. "He did. And it's truly revolutionary. He's releasing it under SentientIQ, and…"
"I can't believe this, Dad." Dante's voice cracked. "What about H-GPT?"
"H-GPT is history. It's been five years already. We can't keep dwelling on the past." Tyler waved his fork dismissively. "The market needs something new. Something that changes everything."
His eyes gleamed with that ruthless enthusiasm I'd seen before, the same look he'd had when he made Dante CEO. Tyler Belmar was a businessman first, a father second. Sentiment meant nothing to him.
Dante's gaze snapped to me.
I understood that look immediately. ‘We need to talk.’
My stomach dropped.
The rest of the dinner passed in tense silence, broken only by the clink of silverware as Tyler and Dwayne ate, completely unbothered by the chaos they'd just unleashed.
I picked at my food, my appetite gone. My mind kept circling back to the same thought: H-GPT, my creation, the code I'd built from my father's work was being scrapped and replaced.
It shouldn't hurt. I'd given it to Dante stupidly. I'd never gotten credit for it anyway.
But it did hurt. It hurt like hell.
"Shailyn."
I looked up. Dante stood beside the table, his expression tight.
"I need to speak with you. Now."
A chill ran down my spine. I knew that tone. I knew what was coming.
"Excuse me," I murmured, forcing an awkward smile as I stood.
I could feel Dwayne's eyes on me as I followed Dante out of the dining room, burning into my back. But I didn't dare look at him.
…
Dante led me to his bedroom in the manor, the room we usually stayed in during holidays in the manor.
The door clicked shut behind us.
"We need to do something, Shailyn."
He paced the room, his hands running through his hair. I saw real fear in his eyes. Fear that his brother would take everything. Fear that he'd be left with nothing.
"What?" I asked, already steeling myself.
‘Say no. Whatever he asks, say no. You're not a doormat.’
"We need to develop another model. Something better than X-Intel. We need to…"
"No."
The word came out clean and sharp.
Dante stopped pacing. Turned to stare at me.
"What?"
"I said no." My hands were shaking, but I kept my voice steady. "I'm not developing anything for you, Dante. I'm just a debugger, remember?"
The podcast narrator's voice echoed in my head: ‘Stand your ground. No compromise. You are not a doormat.’
This was the boldest thing I'd ever done. Three times in one day — the bathroom, the ginseng shop, and now this.
Maybe I really was changing.
Dante scoffed, disbelief written across his face. "You're joking."
"I'm not."
For a moment, we just stared at each other. Then his expression hardened into something cold and dangerous.
He moved so fast I didn't have time to react.
One second he was across the room. The next, his hands were on my shoulders, slamming me back against the wall. Pain shot through my spine.
"You are my wife," he hissed, his face inches from mine. "You will do as I say. You will support me and develop a better model to make me chairman. Understood?"
I almost peed myself.