POV: Xavier
He didn’t wait for a report. He knew. The moment David confirmed the meeting, Xavier felt the trap snap shut around them both. His father’s methods were never blunt; they were architectural. He didn’t fire cannons; he quietly removed keystones and let the structure collapse under its own weight.
Xavier spent the hours until 4 PM in a state of suspended fury. He couldn’t storm the meeting. To do so would be to prove his father’s point—that he was emotional, uncontrolled, and that his personal attachments overrode corporate protocol. He was forced to sit and wait in the very tower he was supposed to command while the fate of the woman he loved was debated in a legal conference room as if she were a liability to be managed.
He stood at his office window, watching the afternoon
