Chapter 4
1565 Words
June pressed her palm harder against her cheek, but it didn’t stop the sting. The broken wine glass glittered on the floor between her feet, and the red on the tile was already spreading.
Alvin hadn’t moved from the couch. He swirled the whiskey in his glass, watching her with a straight face.
"Clean it," he said finally. "All of it."
June didn’t answer. She dropped to her knees, grabbed the dustpan with one hand, and kept the other pressed against her face. Glass clinked as she swept it up, her own blood dripping into the bin with it.
Silence. Just the hum of the AC and his breathing.
"Look at me when i’m talking to you." Alvin frowned.
June’s hands froze. Slowly, she lifted her head. Tears threatened to fall, but she wouldn’t let them. Not here, not for him.
Alvin leaned forward, elbows on his knees, still shirtless. The light caught the scar across his ribs.
"You think you can come into my office late, break my things, and bleed on my floor, and i won’t do anything about it?."
"I’m sorry, sir." June whispered.
"Sorry doesn’t fix it."
He set his glass down and stood.
He walked towards her barefoot and stopped right in front of the dustpan. He crouched until they were eye level. He smelled like whiskey and cologne.
He reached out, took her wrist, the one covering her cheek and pulled it away.
June hissed. The cut was small but deep, right beneath the bruise her stepfather had left. Two injuries stacked on top of each other.
Alvin studied it. Then he dragged his thumb across it.
June jerked back.
"Sir…"
"Shh."
His voice was soft now.
That was worse.
"You need to learn consequences, cleaner. My father thinks he can sell me. My staff thinks they can be late. You think you can lie to me."
"I wasn’t lying. I fell."
"You fell twice in one night?"
He smiled, but it was cold.
"You’re either lying or you’re weak. I hate both."
He let go of her wrist, stood up, and walked to his desk. He opened the bottom drawer and pulled out a small first-aid kit stamped with ‘Hawson Air.’
He tossed it at her feet. It landed in a little of her blood.
"Patch yourself up. Then mop. Then you can go home."
He picked up his glass.
"And, June?."
She was already tearing open the wipes with shaky hands.
"If you ever tell anyone what happened here tonight, i’ll make sure your stepfather isn’t the only person who puts his hands on you."
He took a drink.
"Got it?"
June froze.
Stepfather?
Her breath caught.
How did he…?
She’d never said his name out loud. Never listed him on any form here. She used her stepmother’s number for emergencies because she couldn’t stand seeing her stepfather’s name on paperwork.
Panic crawled up her throat.
If he knew about her stepfather, what else did he know?
About the rent being late? About her being locked up for years? About the spider drawing in her bag?
She nodded once because she couldn’t speak.
"Good girl."
He turned off the lamp. The office went dark except for the city lights outside the windows.
"Finish in twenty minutes. Security has my orders. If you’re not out by 12:20, they’re dragging you out."
He picked up his shirt and put it on. Then he grabbed his phone and slipped it into his pocket.
The door to his office closed.
June sat on the floor alone in the dark, with blood on her hands and the first-aid kit in her lap.
Outside, buses were still honking.
~ ~ ~
Later that night.
The house was dark. Her stepfather’s snoring rattled through the thin walls.
June locked the door, slid to the floor, and finally allowed herself to breathe.
She peeled the bandage off her cheek. The cut was clean but still very painful. Beneath it, the old bruise was purple-black.
She didn’t cry. She simply pulled her notebook from her bag.
The spider drawing was still there, crumpled, and she smoothed it out.
The stone in the center was a black diamond, surrounded by eight legs and sharp angles.
She just liked how it looked. Spiders were the only things that didn’t scare her.
She traced the lines with her finger. It was the best thing she’d drawn in months.
She sat there for a long time, staring at the drawing in her hand and her blood-stained clothes.
Two things she had made.
One she was proud of.
One she was ashamed of.
~ ~ ~
IVY’S APARTMENT, 2:23 A.M.
The TV was muted. Rumors about Alvin and Bianca being betrothed flooded her t****k FYP, and it made her blood boil.
Ivy sat on the edge of the bed in a silk robe, not hers. It was from the Hawson hotel suite, the only thing Alvin had left with her.
On the nightstand sat a sonogram from a clinic in town, showing eleven weeks, along with her phone.
The last message from Alvin was from the night he threw her out of his office.
"Get rid of it. We slept twice, and that’s it. Don’t contact me again if you still want to remain alive."
She had read it, but she didn’t reply.
He was right.
It wasn’t his. It belonged to a random guy she had met at a party.
But her plan was to pin it on Alvin.
She had to marry Alvin and become Ivy Hawson.
"Money doesn’t fall from the sky," her mom used to say. "You pick it up, or someone else does."
Ivy opened her Notes app, her face blank as she read through her plans.
She picked up the sonogram and ran her thumb over it.
Alvin thought two nights meant nothing.
But she didn’t want love.
She wanted the name, the money, and the power.
She texted her cousin in Hawson PR.
"Urgent. I need ten minutes with Mr. Hawson’s assistant in the morning. It’s a personal matter."
She hit send.
Then she stared at herself in the mirror and practiced looking hurt.
Not obsessed.
Just wronged enough to go viral.
~ ~ ~
HAWSON MANSION, The Next Day.
Richard hadn’t slept all night.
On his laptop were two tabs.
Board Memo — Draft Motion to Remove Alvin Hawson as COO, Effective Immediately.
Cause: instability, reckless spending, and jeopardizing the company.
Seven board signatures were already on it. It only needed Richard’s.
The second tab was a bank statement.
Hawson Air Revolving Credit: C$2.1B
Frozen pending "leadership review."
Without it, the HA-9 fighter jet line would stop on Monday.
He hit send on a message to Alvin.
RICHARD: "Board votes at 1 p.m. to strip you. Banks freeze the C$2.1B at 11. HA-9 production halts. Air Force pulls the contract. You’ll be Alvin Hawson, unemployed, while i sell the company piece by piece. Unless you’re at Whitmore Mansion by 10 with cameras. Apologize. Ask her to dinner. Sign the merger prenup. You can bleed on whoever you want in private, son. But you don’t get to defy me. Do as you’re told, or i’ll take the company from you. Your choice."
He poured himself a cup of coffee and smiled.
He knew his son didn’t care about a scandal.
But Alvin would rather choke than watch his father scrap the planes with the Hawson name on them.
~ ~ ~
ALVIN’S OFFICE, 7:21 A.M.
It was empty, as it should have been.
Alvin shut the door and sat behind the desk that had carried his name since he was twenty.
He opened the board memo again.
Seven signatures.
He opened his dad’s text again.
Then he picked up the phone and dialed PR.
"Whitmore Mansion. 10 a.m. And three cameras."
He paused.
"The statement should be an apology and an invitation to dinner."
Another pause.
"And draft the merger prenup. I’ll sign it tonight."
He hung up and loosened his tie.
He wasn’t angry.
He was empty.
He had to choose: do as his father said or lose the company.
~ ~ ~
Alvin stood at the door in a black suit, no tie. His jaw was tight, his eyes dead.
Behind him, a livestream sign glowed.
The door opened, and Bianca walked out wearing a black dress. She wasn’t smiling.
"Morning," Alvin said dryly, loud enough for the microphones to pick up.
"I came to apologize publicly for my behavior yesterday."
He held out a small box.
Not a ring.
A key.
"And to ask Bianca Whitmore to dinner. Just us. No parents."
He paused.
"To discuss the future of both our companies and our marriage, like the adults we are."
Bianca stared at the key, then at the cameras, and finally at his face.
This wasn’t romance.
This was a man signing a merger agreement on camera because his father had threatened to pull the plug.
The shutters clicked.
The livestream light turned red.
Comments were already rolling in.
~ ~ ~
Richard watched the livestream on his second monitor.
He took a sip of the third cup of coffee he had drunk that morning.
"Good boy," he murmured to the screen.
Then he opened a new email.
Subject: Board Vote Postponed Pending Merger Announcement
He wasn’t done.
But for now, he had his son exactly where he wanted him.
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