How will it feel?
712 Words
Christiana picked at her eggs. Drank coffee she couldn't taste. The picture burned in her mind.
She had to know.
"How did you know my father?”
Silas's hand stilled on his cup. Slowly, he lifted his eyes.
"Excuse me?"
"My father." Her voice was steadier than she felt. "You knew him."
The temperature in the room dropped.
He set down his tablet with deliberate care. "What makes you think that?"
"I saw the photograph..." She hesitated. "In your study."
His jaw clenched. Something dangerous flickered in his eyes.
"You went through my things." He said, his voice barely controlled.
"The door was open..."
"So you thought you'd snoop." He stood. Moved toward her with measured steps that made her pulse spike. "Did the contract mean nothing? The non-disclosure? The boundaries?"
"I wasn't snooping," she said, her voice lower than she wanted. "I was just..."
"Invading my privacy." He stopped beside her chair. Looked down at her with eyes that had gone completely cold. "Breaking our agreement before you've even been here twenty-four hours."
She lifted her chin. Met his gaze even though everything in her screamed to look away.
"You knew my father." She said sharply. "The photo said partners. What does that mean?"
For a long moment, he just stared at her. Then something in his expression hardened.
"You really don't know." His voice was hollow. "He never told you about me."
"Told me what?" She asked confused.
Silas turned away. Moved to the windows. When he spoke, his voice was distant. Like he was talking about someone else's life.
"Your father was my mentor. My partner." He stared out at the grounds. "Fifteen years ago, I was twenty-three. Fresh out of business school with an idea and no capital. Your father saw potential. He invested everything he had. We built Langford Industries together. From nothing."
Christiana's throat tightened.
"It was going to be a fifty-fifty split. Equal partners. I handled strategy, operations. He handled the financial side, investor relations." His reflection in the glass showed nothing. "We were going to change everything."
The way he said it, past tense, like talking about the dead, made her skin crawl.
"Then the patents came through. The ones worth billions." His hand curled into a fist against the window frame. "And your father got creative."
"What did he do?" Christiana asked curious.
Silas turned. His eyes were dead.
"He stole everything."
The words hit her like a physical blow.
"He forged documents. Transferred the patents to himself. Sold them to our biggest competitor for forty million dollars." His voice never rose. Never wavered. "Then he disappeared."
"No." She stood. "My father wouldn't..."
"Your father destroyed my family." Each word was cold. "The company collapsed without those patents. My father lost everything trying to keep it afloat. He had a heart attack six months later. Died in debt."
Christiana couldn't breathe.
"I was left with nothing. Had to rebuild from scratch. Clawed my way back over ten years while your father lived comfortably on money that should have been mine." He moved closer. "Blood money."
"If this is true, why didn't you sue?" Christiana asked, still shocked. "Why didn't you.."
"He covered his tracks perfectly. Made it look legal. Made it look like I'd sold my shares willingly." His jaw tightened. "By the time I had enough money for lawyers good enough to prove otherwise, the statute of limitations had passed."
She shook her head. "This doesn't...my father never mentioned you...." She struggled to speak. "Never mentioned a partner or..."
"Because he's a thief." Silas's voice cracked like a whip. "And thieves don't talk about their crimes."
"So this..." Her voice broke. "The contract. The marriage. All of it. This is revenge."
"This is justice."
"I didn't do anything to you!" Her voice rose.
"Neither did I." His eyes bored into hers. "But I paid anyway. For fifteen years, I paid for your father's sins. Now it's your turn."
Horror crawled up her spine. "You're using me to punish him."
"I'm giving you both exactly what you deserve." He stepped closer. Close enough she could see the fury carefully controlled behind his eyes. "Your father gets to watch his daughter become exactly what he made me, powerless. Controlled. Owned by someone else's will."
- Writer
