BOTH WORLDS
1566 Words
The city looked small from the thirty-eighth floor.
Controlled.
Manageable.
Predictable.
Unlike people.
I leaned back in my chair, letting it rotate slowly, once… twice… the quiet hum of the office wrapping around me. Floor-to-ceiling glass. Steel lines. Minimalist design. No clutter. No softness. Everything placed with intention.
Everything under control.
Except my thoughts.
They drifted back to the school gates.
To her.
Seraphim.
Her name had settled somewhere inconvenient.
She hadn’t tried to impress me. Hadn’t tried to shrink either. She’d flushed — yes — but she recovered too quickly for it to mean innocence. That composure after Elsa’s outburst hadn’t been accidental. It was trained. Professional.
But her eyes.
She observed.
Not casually.
Not curiously.
Clinically.
Measured.
As if she were cataloging me the way she might catalog symptoms.
I exhaled slowly and let the chair spin again.
She noticed the pause when she asked about stress.
Most people don’t notice pauses.
Most people don’t look long enough.
She did.
And I had noticed her noticing.
That was the problem.
My jaw tightened slightly.
I hadn’t wanted to acknowledge them at first. The woman. The child. The normalcy of it. I don’t do public softness. I don’t entertain strangers.
Yet I stood there.
Allowed introductions.
Accepted her hand.
And for a second — a fraction of one — I had considered holding it longer.
Ridiculous.
Elsa’s voice echoed faintly in memory.
“Your dad is really handsome! No wonder you’re also cute!”
Children express what adults bury.
I felt nothing in that moment.
Or so I told myself.
But later, in the silence of my car, I had replayed it.
The casual way Seraphim flushed. The way she quickly composed herself. The way she stepped forward without hesitation.
She didn’t shrink.
She didn’t flirt.
She simply… met me.
And that unsettled me more than admiration ever could.
A knock interrupted my thoughts.
“Come in.”
Matthias stepped inside without wasting time. As always — efficient, sharp, irritatingly observant.
“You look like you’re solving a war,” he said lightly.
“I am,” I replied flatly. “Just not one you’re cleared for.”
He smirked faintly but didn’t push. He closed the door behind him.
“Your father wants to see you.”
I stopped the chair mid-rotation.
“I thought you cancelled that meeting.”
“We did.”
“Then why am I hearing about it again?”
Matthias folded his hands behind his back. “He insisted. Said if you wouldn’t come to him formally, he would come here informally.”
A muscle ticked in my jaw.
“He wouldn’t.”
“He would,” Matthias corrected calmly. “And we both know that.”
Silence.
Then I stood.
“Car.”
The family house sat behind iron gates older than most governments.
I have always hated coming here.
The driveway curved through manicured lawns that looked untouched by reality. Marble pillars. Stone façade. Legacy carved into architecture.
This place held too many secrets.
Too many negotiations disguised as family dinners.
Too many personal vendettas wrapped in silk civility.
I stepped inside without waiting to be announced.
The scent hadn’t changed. Aged wood. Expensive cigars. Power.
He was in the study.
Of course.
My father stood near the fireplace, hands clasped behind his back. Tall. Imposing. Silver threading through dark hair. His presence was heavier than mine — not sharper, but broader. Where I cut, he crushed.
He didn’t turn when I entered.
“You’re late.”
“You’re uninvited.”
Now he turned.
His eyes — the same steel-gray as mine — assessed me with quiet irritation.
“When are you going to fully take over the family business?” he asked, bypassing greetings entirely.
“I thought I was doing that already.”
He scoffed softly. “You are slightly involved legally and still operating in the dark. That is not leadership. That is indulgence.”
I walked further into the room, slow, controlled.
“You built an empire in the dark,” I said evenly. “Don’t pretend morality suddenly matters.”
His gaze hardened.
“We don’t do that here anymore.”
“That’s convenient.”
“You either choose one,” he continued, voice lowering, “or you walk away from one. This half-measure ends now.”
I studied him carefully.
He wanted compliance.
He always had.
“I do both,” I said calmly. “My way.”
His jaw tightened. “Your way is reckless.”
“My way is efficient.”
“You’re keeping that grudge alive,” he snapped quietly. “And it’s not going to change anything.”
There it was.
The word.
Grudge.
My eyes cooled, something sharp and glacial settling behind them.
“I think,” I said softly, “you should let me be the judge of that.”
Silence filled the room like smoke.
He stepped closer, lowering his voice. “You blame me for decisions that kept you alive.”
“I blame you for decisions that required keeping me alive.”
His expression flickered — just once — before it hardened again.
“You were too young to understand.”
“I understood enough.”
Another stretch of silence.
The fire crackled between us.
“You want control,” he said finally. “But control requires sacrifice.”
“I’ve sacrificed more than you know.”
His gaze sharpened. “Then prove it. Step fully into the legitimate side. Leave the shadows behind. If you are going to inherit this empire, you inherit it clean.”
Clean.
I almost laughed.
“You want clean?” I murmured. “Then perhaps you shouldn’t have raised me in blood.”
The temperature in the room shifted.
“You will not speak to me that way.”
“Then don’t speak to me about loyalty.”
For a moment, we simply stood there — two versions of the same ambition separated by ideology.
“You think I don’t see what you’re doing?” he asked. “Balancing both worlds. Playing king in one and ghost in the other.”
“And succeeding,” I added calmly.
“For now.”
I stepped closer, matching his proximity without raising my voice.
“You taught me to anticipate collapse,” I said. “You taught me leverage. You taught me that weakness invites extinction.”
His eyes searched mine.
“So don’t ask me to choose softness now.”
Something unreadable passed across his face.
“This isn’t about softness,” he said. “It’s about legacy.”
“Legacy,” I repeated quietly. “Is just another word for control after death.”
His expression darkened.
“You will take over fully within the year.”
“That’s not your decision.”
“It is if you want my support.”
I tilted my head slightly.
“I don’t need it.”
The air between us tightened.
“Careful,” he warned.
“No,” I corrected. “I am always careful.”
A beat.
“You’re becoming isolated,” he said more quietly now. “Even Matthias sees it.”
“Matthias sees what I allow.”
“And what about your son?”
That made me still.
“He is not part of this discussion.”
“He is the only part that matters.”
The words hung there.
For the first time tonight, something heavier than irritation moved through me.
Tristan.
Reserved. Observant. Watching everything.
Like me.
“You think raising him in division will protect him?” my father pressed. “It will only make him colder.”
“He needs to be strong.”
“He needs to be whole.”
The crackle of the fire filled the pause.
Whole.
An inconvenient word.
I thought briefly — unwillingly — of the school gate.
Of Elsa’s laughter.
Of Seraphim’s steady gaze.
Of normalcy.
Dangerous thought.
“I’ll decide what he needs,” I said finally.
My father studied me for a long moment.
“You’re more like me than you admit.”
“I’m nothing like you.”
“That,” he said quietly, “is exactly what I used to say.”
Silence settled again, thicker now.
I straightened my cuffs.
“We’re done here.”
“You can’t outrun legacy,” he said behind me.
I paused at the doorway.
“Watch me.”
The night air outside the estate felt colder than when I arrived.
I stood there for a moment before getting into the car.
Matthias glanced at me through the rearview mirror but didn’t ask questions.
Smart.
As the city lights blurred past, my mind drifted again — annoyingly — to the morning.
To Seraphim’s calm professionalism.
To the way she said, “Let’s go to my office.”
No hesitation.
No intimidation.
No fear.
Most people react to power.
She reacted to responsibility.
And that… intrigued me.
I looked out at the skyline.
Control.
Legacy.
Grudges.
Inheritance.
And somewhere in the middle of it all — a doctor with observant eyes who noticed pauses most people miss.
Dangerous.
Because she didn’t see the empire.
She saw the fracture.
And fractures, if studied long enough, reveal fault lines.
I leaned back into the seat.
For now, I would let her observe.
But if she kept looking too closely—
She might not like what she finds.
- Writer
