HIS TO COMMAND

Chapter5

Chapter 5:

A Death and a Door Slammed

The house fell silent the morning the call came.

No footsteps. No birdsong through the open windows. No staff bustling about. Just silence the kind that wraps around your chest and squeezes until you forget how to breathe.

Roman sat motionless in his father’s study, the phone still in his hand, his knuckles white from how tightly he gripped it. His back was rigid. Jaw clenched. Eyes unmoving.

“Time of death: 6:27 a.m.,” the doctor had said. His voice was calm. Too clean. Too clinical for something so deeply final.

The words floated in the air like ash, burning their way through him.

It didn’t register at first. But when Damien entered, his eyes red, silent, barely holding it together, Roman didn’t say a word. He didn’t even look at him. He simply stood, walked out of the room, and shut the door behind him.

No tears. No breakdown. Just a door quietly closing on the last piece of the man who raised him.

Emerald was in the laundry room when the whispers began.

She heard the change in the air before the words reached her. The driver spoke in hushed tones to the head maid. Someone gasped. Another mentioned a burial. A third said something about the study being locked.

Her fingers trembled slightly as she folded a towel for the third time.

The moment she stepped out into the corridor, she saw Damien leaning against the wall, head down.

“He’s gone,” he said simply, eyes glassy. “My dad.”

Emerald's breath caught in her chest. Despite everything—the mess, the resentment, the chaos—she remembered the older Thorne. Twice, she had met him in her teens. A kind man. Quiet. A steady gaze and warm hands that shook hers gently.

And she also knew exactly what his death would do to Roman.

If he had been ruled by grief before, now that grief would become a weapon.

---

She wasn’t wrong.

For two whole days, Roman didn’t speak to her.

Then, on the third day, they crossed paths in the hallway. He stopped. His eyes looked sunken, cold and unreadable. His voice, when it came, sliced through her like frost.

“Why are you still breathing so freely?”

Emerald flinched. “I—I’m sorry about your father.”

Roman stepped closer. Too close.

“Your father is the reason mine spent his final years alone, drowning in debt and pain. And you think ‘sorry’ changes anything?”

She opened her mouth to say something—anything—but he turned and walked away before she could form a sentence.

That night, behind closed doors, she heard his voice rise for the first time since the funeral. He was shouting.

“I don’t want any Davis walking through that door again.”

But someone did.

Two days after the burial, Charles Davis arrived.

His steps were slower than before. Shoulders bent. Eyes are dull and tired. He looked like a man who had lost nearly everything—and still somehow kept walking.

Emerald wasn’t there when he arrived. But the staff talked. And every retelling made it more painful.

Roman met him at the door.

Didn’t invite him in. Didn’t offer condolences. Didn’t even acknowledge the look of mourning on the older man’s face.

“Go home, Charles,” Roman said, arms folded. “If you still have one.”

“I just came to say—”

Roman let out a cold, bitter laugh. “You came to look noble. To pretend you have a heart. But you’re still the same coward who ran when things got hard.”

“Roman... I didn’t know it would end like that.”

“You knew enough.” Roman’s tone didn’t waver. “You knew how sick he was." You knew about the debt. And you still walked away. You left him with nothing but bills and regrets.”

There were staff in the hallway. Watching. Listening. None dared interfere.

Charles’s hands trembled slightly. “Please... if not for me, for my daughters. Don’t take it out on them.”

Roman said nothing. He just reached forward and slammed the door in his face.

Miles away, Alora Davis was packing for a trip she thought would change her life.

At 24, she had made more waves in her firm than analysts ten years older. She was sharp, curious, and bold everything Emerald used to be before her life fell apart. When she was assigned a presentation for Thorne Enterprises, her excitement bubbled.

It was home. Her father and sister lived in that town. She would surprise them after months of working nonstop.

Only, she had no idea what she was walking into.

When she arrived at the Thorne offices, no one welcomed her. No one even let her on the first floor.

She waited. For two hours. Then the secretary handed her a thin envelope.

“We are no longer interested in collaborating with your company. All negotiations are considered closed.”

Just like that.

No explanation. No questions. Just dismissal.

Alora stood frozen, her chest hollowing out. She didn’t know what she had done wrong. She didn’t even know her sister was connected to this mess.

Later that evening, Emerald found the letter crumpled in the trash outside the kitchen.

She picked it up slowly, already sensing something was off. Then she saw the name.

Alora Davis.

Her heart stopped. Her baby sister.

She sank to the floor, the paper clutched in her trembling hands. A soft, broken sob escaped her lips before she could swallow it.

She had tried so hard to protect Alora. Kept her away from the noise. Paid off debt collectors quietly. Lied about how bad things were.

And now… Roman had struck her too.

That night, Emerald waited.

She stood at the edge of the stairs, wrapped in her robe, eyes trained on the hallway like a soldier waiting for war.

When Roman finally appeared, descending the stairs, buttoning the sleeve of his dark shirt, she stepped out.

“I need to speak with you,” she said, her voice barely steady.

He didn’t stop. “You’ve already said enough.”

“She didn’t deserve that,” Emerald pushed, stepping in front of him.

Roman’s gaze narrowed. “You mean your sister? Or your father?”

“Alora doesn’t even know what happened,” she whispered. She’s never been involved in this mess. She’s worked hard for everything she has. Please… don’t punish her for something she had no part in.”

“She chose her last name.”

“It wasn’t a choice,” Emerald snapped. None of this was. Roman, please—”

He turned to face her fully then, and for a brief moment, his anger flickered into something else.

Exhaustion. Grief. Something he was too proud to name.

“I buried my father this week,” he said, his voice hoarse. “And I had to do it knowing he died with the name Davis on his lips.”

He took one step closer.

“If your sister loses a job title, consider that mercy.”

Then he walked away, leaving her shaking.

Emerald collapsed on the cold tile floor, her knees hitting the ground, fists clenched at her side.

A sob rose in her chest, loud and raw—but she bit her lip until it bled.

Because even in pain, she wouldn't let him hear her br

eak.

Not yet.

But something inside her shifted that night.

The girl who walked into this house as a sacrifice...

She was starting to feel like a storm waiting to strike.