Unseen

Chapter Four

“I understand what you are trying to sell me, Richter, but let us not pretend I am new to this,” Simon said. His tone was granite cold, level, without the slightest tremor of patience. “I am a businessman. I do not waste time. And after looking at what you have placed before me, it is obvious you already have everything necessary to hand me Madanunan on a silver platter.”

He tapped the folder once, the motion quiet yet edged with irritation.

Across the table, Christoph held his stare with the immovable calm of a man carved out of ice. “Naturally. The documents are in perfect order. The leverage is sound. But I have watched situations like this collapse because men bigger than you thought speed was a substitute for strategy.” His voice carried no judgment. Only observation. “Money can move mountains, Simon, but if you throw it carelessly, the landslide may bury you. If there is a tamer route, it is foolish not to consider it.”

Simon huffed out a scoff. “Do not tell me you have gone soft? Since when did Ardent Lex start suggesting the gentle path?”

Christoph’s smile was small, razor thin. “Being bloody does not make us strong. Being precise does. Softness is what the weak call strategy when they do not understand the game.” His eyes sharpened. “We have not softened. We have perfected.”

Their gazes collided, and for a moment the air between them seemed to grow colder. Two men who understood violence not as chaos but as mathematics. Two men who measured ruin the way others measured rainfall.

Simon broke the silence. “I do not think you are the right counsel for this project. Where is Paul? Or Alex? I prefer lawyers who do not hesitate.”

Christoph’s smirk shifted into something amused. “This was Paul’s idea.”

Simon’s brows pulled together sharply. “Paul?” The name came out almost as a rebuke. The firm’s top predator. The man who negotiated mergers like silent warfare, who treated hesitation as a mortal sin. The thought of Paul choosing infiltration over brute legal dominance felt almost insulting.

Christoph read the disbelief as though it were printed text. “Ask him yourself. I was entirely prepared to bulldoze the Salvadors into political extinction until I reviewed the full file. Paul saw the same information and chose the quieter method.”

Simon snorted. “Your roster is softening. This is what happens when you let women rule your lives.”

Christoph’s expression did not shift. But he did not deny it either. Ardent Lex was no longer the feral quartet it once was. Alexander Almeda was preparing for marriage. Paul Razon had found a woman who matched him blow for blow. William Davies had slipped into silence. Only Christoph remained untouched by domesticity, but even he was not immune to the slow evolution of his partners.

“Regardless,” Christoph said, tapping the folder, “Paul is correct. Why choose a battlefield soaked in unnecessary blood when there is a cleaner path? If you walk into their family, you come out untouched. And once you have drained them of what you require, you may leave without so much as a bruise.”

Simon stared at the photograph of the youngest Salvador. A quiet face. Soft eyes. A life shaped by indifference and silence. He lifted the picture, studying the curve of her expression as though searching for logic in it.

“So,” he said finally, voice low, “if I choose this path, how soon can you arrange it?”

Christoph watched him with clinical interest. “Fortunately for you, Helena Salvador is essentially selling her daughter to the highest bidder.” He flipped the folder open again and pulled out the eldest daughter’s photograph, placing it beside Olivia’s. “However, do not be mistaken. Helena intends to marry off her biological daughter, not the younger one. She only seeks elevation for the children she claims as hers.”

He pointed to Clarisse’s photograph. “This is the daughter they intend to offer your family.”

Simon let out a dry laugh, sharp and humorless. “So Helena wants her loose daughter, the one who has probably f****d half of the middle and upper class of Ilocos to stay relevant, to join my family.”

Christoph did not blink. He simply nodded.

Simon leaned back, exhaling with disbelief. “Helena wants to play in the big leagues. I respect her ambition. But if she believes she can maneuver me with that kind of bait, she is mistaken.”

Christoph gave a slow nod. “This may be your only chance to turn their greed against them.”

Simon smirked, cold and certain. “Then let us humor them. I do not waste time. I will take care of this personally. Stay on standby. The Madanunan project moves within two weeks.”

A slow smile crossed Christoph’s face. A knowing smile. A dangerous one.

“Of course it will,” he murmured. “You were never one to step away from a challenge.”

And in the quiet that followed, the first thread of fate tightened between a ruthless builder of empires and a girl who had no idea her world was already shifting beneath her feet.