Chapter 61 The Ghost of the Gala
Chapter 61 The Ghost of the Gala
Alexander
"Smile, Sandra, because every camera in this ballroom is connected to a short-seller waiting for us to drop our guard."
I tightened my grip on her waist as we stepped onto the polished marble floor of the Grand Crystal Hall. The room was a sea of glittering diamonds, expensive tuxedos, and fake smiles.
It was the annual Draken Global Benefactors Gala, the exact public stage where we needed to project absolute victory. After surviving the bunker incident and clearing the digital framework, we had to show the board that we were untouchable. Sandra looked breathtaking in an emerald silk gown, her posture elegant and cold, though I could feel the tension vibrating through her body.
The thought was nothing but a ghost now, a shield I tried to use to protect myself from the terrifying reality that I loved her. The secret of her identity as Alpha-X was locked away, but the knowledge of what my father did to her mother hung over us like a shadow.
"I am smiling, Alexander," she murmured, her voice carrying a sharp, witty edge that only I could hear. "But if your security team doesn't filter the guest list in the next five minutes, the Vane proxy group is going to vote against our restructuring before the champagne is poured."
"The proxies are handled," I said, a slow, cynical smile cutting through my own anxiety. "We successfully bought out their third-tier block this morning. We won the numbers game, Sandra. Tonight is just the theater."
We moved through the crowd with an against-the-world energy that was completely magnetic. The elites of the city parted for us, whispering about the "Replacement Bride" who had somehow consolidated the Thorne assets overnight.
It was a flawless performance. We had defeated the legal threats, bypassed the public scandal, and taken control of the narrative. For a brief moment, the high-stakes pressure seemed to lift, replaced by a heavy, attractive friction as she leaned slightly against my shoulder.
Why is my heart racing? It wasn't the threat of a corporate coup. It was the way her hand felt in mine, warm and solid despite the terrible history that divided our bloodlines. I was the son of her enemy, yet here we were, fighting the same war side by side.
Suddenly, the live orchestra stopped playing, the music cutting off in a jagged, uncomfortable discord. The massive double doors of the ballroom swung open, and the temperature in the room seemed to drop to absolute zero.
A tall man in a dark, vintage tailored suit stepped into the light. He carried a silver-headed cane, his silver hair combed back, and his eyes possessing the same terrifying, dominant calculation that I saw in my own mirror. The crowd gasped, a collective shock rippling through the hundred-billion-dollar audience. It was Arthur Draken. My father. The man who had been exiled to a Swiss sanatorium five years ago, the man everyone believed was a broken, dying ghost.
He had returned. And he didn't look broken at all.
"Alexander," my father’s deep voice boomed through the silent hall, a low, dangerous vibration that made my security detail instantly freeze in place. He didn't look at the board members or the cameras. His gaze locked directly onto us, moving with a slow, predatory confidence.
I stepped in front of Sandra, my unfiltered internal fury exploding in my chest. My hands balled into fists as he approached, his cane clicking rhythmically against the marble. The public event was instantly ruined, turned into a battlefield where the darkest family secrets were about to leak.
"You don't have a seat at this table anymore, old man," I hissed, my voice low enough to keep the microphones from picking it up, yet sharp enough to kill. "Your exile was permanent."
"An empire built on my foundation always belongs to me, boy," Arthur whispered, a cynical, arrogant smile stretching across his wrinkled face. He didn't argue with me. He didn't even look at me.
Instead, my father stepped directly around my shoulder, completely ignoring my threat. He walked straight toward Sandra, his eyes wide with a sudden, disturbing intensity that made my blood turn to absolute ice. He reached out a shaking, pale hand, his fingers stopping just short of touching her cheek
Sandra didn't flinch, her gaze locking onto his with a brilliant, witty defiance that shocked the entire room. But my father’s expression didn't show anger; it showed a terrifying, ancient recognition. "Eleanor," Arthur whispered, his voice echoing clearly through the silent microphones on the nearby podium, using her mother's name with an intimate, haunting tenderness that made the entire board of directors gasp.
"You haven't changed a single bit since the day I locked you in the vault. I knew your cowardly husband couldn't hide you from me forever." I felt the entire world drop out from under me as Sandra’s phone suddenly flashed a bright, warning red in her palm—a direct alert from the estate's automated medical core.
"Alexander," she whispered, her face losing all its color as she looked down at the biometric screen. "The signal... it’s not coming from a remote server. The tracking chip your father just activated isn't in the briefcase. It’s a localized pulse that just targeted the pacemaker in my father's hospital bed."
Before I could pull her away from him, my father smiled, a cold, ruthless glint in his eyes as he leaned closer to her ear. "The third trimester has officially begun, my dear Eleanor. Let’s see if Alexander is willing to trade his child to save the man who stole you from me thirty years ago.”