Again, I Loved the End.

Episode 10: The Third Child

The conference room hung in a taut, humming silence, broken only by the hum of the air conditioning. Arden cleared his throat again, a brittle attempt at decorum, while Elsie’s gaze sharpened to a knife point, radiating lethal intent.

"Well?" Riven bit out, his voice low and dangerous, vibrating with humiliation. "Get up, Esme. You're out of line. You're dismissed."

Kaelen, without looking away from the screen, spoke lazily, a smirk playing on his lips. "Careful, Riven. You might bruise something trying to order a Stormvein around. Especially, that Stormvein."

A ripple of confusion, then slow dawning realization, passed through the Velgraves. A Stormvein? They exchanged glances, a puzzle clicking into place. She wasn't just a random intern. She was theirs.

Tareth barked a sharp laugh, thoroughly enjoying the spectacle. "God, this is the best meeting we've had in years. Pass the popcorn."

Ivy huffed, throwing her phone onto the table with a sharp clatter, though her eyes remained glued to Esme. "This is a circus. Why are we entertaining this? Just call security."

Elsie, her voice a razor's edge, cut through the noise, her eyes fixed on Thane. "Am I to understand, Thane, that this… disruption is somehow linked to your family? Have you perhaps encountered this young woman before in, shall we say, a less professional capacity?" She gestured vaguely at Esme, her contempt palpable. Her gaze swept over the Stormveins, a dawning realization flickered in her eyes: they weren't shocked by Esme at all. In fact, they seemed amused.

Thane let out another long, weary sigh, pushing a hand through his silver hair. He looked directly at Elsie, his expression one of paternal exasperation, mixed with something akin to resignation. "My apologies, Elsie. I assure you, this was not part of the agenda." He paused, a beat of dramatic silence. "Esme is, in fact, my daughter."

Before the words fully registered, Ivy let out a disbelieving gasp. "Your what?"

Kaelen clapped his hands together, a loud, single clap that echoed in the stunned room. "Oh, come on, people! Did you really think Thane only had two children? We're the Stormveins, not the Goldilocks family. Where did you think the third one disappeared to all these years?" He looked around, genuinely perplexed by their lack of deduction.

Thane continued, ignoring Kaelen's theatrical interjection. "Truthfully, we had no idea she was even working here at Velgrave Industries in the first place. This is as much a surprise to us as it is to you." Vera, standing wide-eyed by the door, looked like she might faint, clearly as shocked as anyone by this revelation.

Kaelen leaned towards Zina and Thane, a smug grin on his face. "I told you so," he murmured, loud enough for them both to hear. "I told you she'd find out and blow everything up."

Esme, meanwhile, slowly re-entered the conversation, her initial shock receding, replaced by a cold, investigative fury. She turned to her family, her eyes sharp. "Was this put to a vote?" she demanded, her voice cutting through the stunned silence that followed Thane's admission. She gestured at the screen, at the words "Marital Alliance." "And if it was, why was I not included in that vote? You can't call it valid without my consent." Her gaze then sharpened on the slide. "What is the meaning of this 'Marital Alliance' and 'Merger'?"

Thane met her gaze, his expression firm. "It's a merger, Esme. Velgrave-Stormvein. And yes, it involves a marriage."

"An arranged marriage?" Esme pressed, her voice flat, disbelieving. She couldn't fathom it. Zina? In an arranged marriage?

It was Kaelen who answered, leaning forward, a strange mix of amusement and genuine concern in his eyes as he looked at Esme.

"No, it's not arranged. Not in the way you're thinking. This was all Zina's idea. She... fancies herself in love with Riven."

Esme's jaw dropped. She looked at Zina, then at Riven, then back at Zina, her mind struggling to reconcile the statement with the reality in front of her. Love? Zina and Riven? The awkwardness she'd just witnessed between them, the stiff formality, the sheer absurdity of it. "What the f**k?" she muttered again, not caring that everyone could hear. "Zina... you're in love with him?" Her voice softened, laced with unexpected hurt. "Why did no one tell me? About you two dating? About... love?"

Zina's cool mask had shattered completely. Her lips thinned, a flash of defensiveness in her eyes. "Esme, you barely come home to visit. You rarely even reply to our text messages. How were we supposed to tell you anything?" Her voice held a note of genuine frustration.

Esme flinched, conceding the point with a slight dip of her chin. "Okay, fine. My bad on the communication. But even so, why does the merger have to happen though? Why the marriage?" Her gaze swept over the Velgraves, then back to the screen. "You know, it's really ironic. Just last Friday, Dad forced us to watch that god-awful historical documentary. You know, the one about King Sable, the Velgrave patriarch, and Queen Zina and Princess Adora, the Stormvein sisters? The royal families, the backstabbing, the arranged marriages that ended in scandal and betrayal? And here we are, all of us, their descendants, doing the exact same thing. It's like you people didn't even try to learn from history."

Tareth snickered, leaning forward, his eyes alight with malicious glee. "Oh, so Esme, you think this is going to end with you having an affair with Riven and getting pregnant as a result, where Zina ends up dying a tragic death, and then you, Esme, end up dying as well, and Riven, unable to bear life after your death, kills himself after running the company into the ground?" He finished with a flourish, clearly relishing the dramatic pronouncement.

Esme's eyes widened, a flicker of something unreadable in their depths. She stared at Tareth, then at Riven, then back at Tareth. "Wow," she said slowly, her voice flat, but with a chilling undertone. "That's... surprisingly specific. And actually," she continued, her gaze sweeping over the stunned faces in the room, "who knows? Maybe that's exactly what will happen. The future is uncertain, after all. Especially when you're repeating history."