The Heir I Came To Destroy

“Maria.” The sound of my name cut through the low murmur of the boardroom. I blinked, forcing my focus back to the long glass table and the twelve pairs of eyes suddenly turned in my direction. “Yes?” My voice came out steady. Professional. The way it was supposed to. One of the senior directors cleared his throat and tapped his pen against a thick report. “Your thoughts on the quarterly projection for the eastern manufacturing line?” I opened the folder in front of me, though I already knew the numbers by heart. The paper felt cool under my fingertips. “The current forecast is optimistic by at least eight percent. If we adjust for the recent supply delays and the increased labor costs, the more realistic figure sits closer to six point two.” A few heads nodded. Someone to my left shifted in their chair, the leather creaking softly. I kept speaking, laying out the adjusted figures with the same calm tone I had practiced for years, but part of my mind had already slipped elsewhere. “Marry my son.” The words still sat strangely in my head, as if Adrian von Bergh had spoken them only a short while ago instead of two hours earlier. I had been standing in his office on the fifty second floor. The city stretched out behind him in a hard glitter of glass and steel. He had gestured for me to sit, then changed his mind and left me standing. For a moment neither of us spoke. He studied me the way he studied contracts, quiet and thorough. “Maria,” he said at last. “I have a proposal for you.” I waited. “It is a good deal,” he continued, “but I understand it may feel difficult. I do not exactly need you to marry him. That was the simplest way to put it. What I need is for you to get close to him. Malakai lacks the calm mindedness required to run this empire. I have worked too hard to watch him turn out worthless. I need someone who can sharpen his senses and his mind. Someone who can stop him from making the same reckless decisions he keeps repeating.” I felt my shoulders tighten. “Sir, I am not sure that is my place. Malakai is the heir. Handling him like that feels… beyond what I was hired for.” Adrian’s expression did not change. He reached for a thin folder on the corner of his desk and rested one hand on top of it. “Fifty thousand dollars.” The number hung in the air between us. “That should cover your father’s treatment and leave some remaining,” he said. “Do this, and you will have fifty thousand to take care of your father and, of course, send your brother to the school he needs. A boy in his condition can only go so far in the world without the right opportunities.” I bit the inside of my cheek and looked past him at the skyline. These rich people had some nerve. He was responsible for Stephen’s condition and he had the audacity to talk about it like that. Still fifty thousand. The amount was large enough to change Stephen’s life. Large enough to get him into St. John’s. Large enough to pull him out of the school where he came home quiet, pretending the bruises did not hurt. The silence stretched. Adrian did not rush it. He simply waited, as if he already knew the answer. I drew a slow breath. “I will do it.” He gave a single nod, then slid the folder across the desk toward me. “You start immediately. As far as anyone is concerned, including my son, you have simply been promoted to executive support on his team. Stay close. Be useful. That is how you will make your money.” I took the folder. The leather was cool against my palm. Now I sat in this glass walled boardroom three floors down, newly assigned, newly elevated, and already pretending none of it had happened. The meeting continued around me. Numbers. Projections. Risk assessments. I answered when spoken to, kept my expression neutral, and felt the weight of the folder still resting in my bag beneath the table. My coffee had gone cold. Condensation beaded on the outside of the glass. When the session finally ended, chairs scraped back and voices rose in polite dismissal. I gathered my things slowly, waiting until most of the room had emptied before I stood. I almost made it to the door. “New blood already?” The voice was low, dry, and edged with something that might have been amusement. I turned. Malakai von Bergh leaned against the doorway as if he had been there the entire time, watching. Tall, dark hair slightly disordered, sleeves rolled to the elbows like he had no patience for the formalities the rest of us observed. His eyes, the same grey as his father’s but sharper and less controlled, moved over me once. “Maria Lindner,” I said, because silence felt dangerous. “I have been assigned to your team.” One corner of his mouth lifted, though it was not quite a smile. “Assigned. Right.” He pushed off the doorframe. “Try not to slow us down.” Then he was gone, leaving only the faint scent of expensive cologne and the clear sense that he already disliked the arrangement. I exhaled and walked back to the small office that now had my name on a temporary plaque. I sat at the desk, opened my laptop, and stared at the blank screen without seeing it. Fifty thousand dollars.
Get close to him.
Sharpen his mind.
Stop him from making bad decisions. I pressed my fingertips against my temples and closed my eyes. For a moment the boardroom, the numbers, even Malakai’s dismissive glance all faded. In their place came an older memory, sharp and sudden. “Mother, please do not leave. Who will take care of Stephan?” The slap had cracked across my cheek before the sentence finished. “Let go of me, you filth. You want me to suffer with you people? I refuse. You’re all useless. I told Jerry not to work there, but he refused because of you worthless children. You will not kill me like you killed my husband.” The door had shut. And everything after that had led here.