ADRIEN'S POV
Rain hammers the Laurent estate like the sky has a grudge. Thunder shakes the trees lining the long symmetrical driveway, each flash of lightning turning the fountains and manicured hedges into something ghostly and sharp.
I stand in the center of my father's study. Dark wood walls. Bookshelves containing documents with the power to collapse governments. Two candles flicker behind me. Two more burn on the mahogany desk. The room smells like old leather and the particular weight of conversations that decide fates.
Dad stands across from me at the window, sipping amber liquor, his icy blue eyes carrying a coldness I've never had directed at me. Not once. Not in thirty-four years.
Until tonight.
Ludwig Dominik Laurent is a tyrant to the outside world who cares about exactly two things: family and power. Everything else is irrelevant.
And tonight he's looking at me like I've threatened the only thing he holds sacred.
"You left your sister crying. Deployed both primary security squads — the ones specifically trained to protect this family." He lets those words settle. Then: "All for a nobody."
My eyes darken. I meet his gaze without flinching.
"She's not a nobody."
Dad's jaw twitches. He swirls the whiskey in his glass with the controlled patience of a man deciding how much of his anger to show.
"Adrien. Are you telling me that someone outside this family deserves the kind of response that puts you standing across from me? Against me?"
I clench my fists at my sides. I understand exactly what he means. Standing against my father means challenging his authority, threatening the structure that holds seven children and a dynasty together. None of which is acceptable. None of which has ever been tested.
I've lived thirty-four years carrying the weight of being the eldest Laurent. The heir. The shield. The successor.
Yet standing across from my father now, I feel neither shame nor fear.
"You don't regret it?"
"No."
Dad sips his whiskey. Studying me the way he studies opponents before dismantling them.
"Don't tell me you love that girl."
Something clenches behind my ribs. Love. A word I've never trusted. An emotion I've always treated as a vine that holds men back — irrational, irresponsible, the one weakness that turns even the most powerful person into something breakable.
Do I love Beatrice?
It's a question I've never asked myself. Why would I love her? There's no logical answer. And yet nothing I've done since she entered my life has been even remotely logical.
I say nothing. Let the silence fill the room like smoke.
Dad inhales sharply. His voice drops to a growl. "Adrien Aurélien Laurent. Yes or no?"
"Does it matter? I care about her. That's all you need to know."
He sets the glass down. The thud cracks through the study like a gunshot.
"You little shit." His eyes blaze. "Do you think I sent you to the finest schools, trained you to be worthy of this name, risked my life protecting and defending you — for THIS?"
For the first time in my life, my father raises his voice at me. His hands tremble with anger. I feel a sharp guilt for putting that expression on his face — but the guilt doesn't make me doubt what I did.
"Dad. I've protected this family since I was fifteen. I joined your meetings, learned your deals, carried your expectations without complaint. Even today — I stood in front of loaded weapons to bring Rosie home."
"You SHOT Mikhael Ivanov, you little shit." He hurls a crumpled paper ball at me.
It sails past my left ear. By three inches.
Dad never misses. He missed on purpose.
I close my eyes. Inhale slowly. And then I do something I haven't done since I was twelve years old.
I relax my brow. Widen my eyes — deliberately, consciously — until they're round and soft. Press my lips together in something close to a pout.
Ridiculous. Absolutely disgraceful behavior for a thirty-four-year-old Vice Chairman.
But my eyes are half his icy blue and half my mother's hazel green, and when I look at him like this, I look exactly like Jennifer.
Dad's hand freezes mid-reach for another paper ball. His expression cracks. "Y-you can't just —"
He stammers. Ludwig Dominik Laurent, the King of Wall Street, stammers.
I feel a tiny flicker of guilt for weaponizing his love. But he needs to understand something. I am his son. And he has no right to blame me for being reckless over a woman I need — not when he would burn continents if someone touched my mother.
"You little shit," he mutters weakly. Sets the paper ball down.
"Papa —"
"Stop."
"Papa, are you angry with me?"
My voice softens. As if we weren't glaring at each other thirty seconds ago like two men deciding which one should leave the room permanently.
He parts his lips. Clenches his eyes shut. Opens them. Defeated.
"You care about this girl?"
"A lot."
He drags his fingers through his hair, pulling slightly. For a moment, my father looks less like the King of Wall Street and more like Uncle Robert the day twenty-four-year-old Killian announced he was in love with a woman he'd seen once on a trip to Malaysia and had been single ever since, waiting to find her again.
Dad jabs his finger at me. "I'm letting you off the hook this ONE time. But next time —"
I hold his gaze with the full force of the puppy eyes.
His voice drops. "Next time I will absolutely discipline you."
"Yes, Papa."
"Don't 'Papa' me."
"Yes, Father."
"Ugh. Call me Papa." He turns away, muttering. "I hate that you look so much like your mother."
"You used to love it. Mom would be sad if she heard you say that."
"Don't bring her into this." He pauses. Struggling visibly. "Where is the girl now?"
My expression hardens. Every trace of softness vanishes. "Theodore has her."
Dad stills. His brow creases. "Theodore?"
"I'll handle it. And I'll be redeploying Alpha 21."
"I NEVER AUTHORIZED THAT."
"Killian's commando unit will cover Alpha 21's responsibilities in the interim."
The shift in Ludwig's expression is instantaneous. Killian's thirty-five-man tactical squad has a reputation that even Ludwig respects. He considers it for exactly two seconds.
"Take Beta X2-7 as well."
I nod and turn for the door.
Rosie is waiting at the bottom of the stairs. Her eyes are still red-rimmed. She looks up as I descend.
"Brother."
She's two years younger than me. Second-born. The one who runs the charity foundation with Mom. The one I took a bullet's worth of risk to save tonight.
"Yeah."
"Is it true you rejected Olivia?"
I click my tongue against the inside of my cheek. Olivia and Rosie attended the same schools, the same university. They're close. Olivia must have told her about the night I went to her penthouse and made it unambiguously clear that nothing would happen between us.
"Yes."
"For your advisor."
"Beatrice." I correct her. Cold. Automatic.
Rosie's eyes widen slightly. Her throat works. "You're going to reject my best friend for someone who's been in your life for a week."
I look down at her. Rosie holds her chin high, challenging. Normally I encourage that. Not tonight. Not about this.
"Rosie. I don't need your permission — or anyone's — to decide who I reject, who I accept, who I care about, or who I protect." My voice carries no warmth. "If I care about Beatrice — and I do — then you should know I won't tolerate a single word of disrespect toward her. From anyone."
Her eyes well up. I don't soften.
I turn and walk toward the back of the estate. My phone is already dialing the Alpha 21 commander.
The helicopter sits on the rear lawn, blades already turning, rain slashing sideways through the floodlights. Angel waits beside it in full tactical gear — body armor, comm unit, sidearm strapped to her thigh. The woman who holds my schedule and counts the seconds I'm late is gone. In her place stands the Special Forces operative I hired three years ago for exactly this kind of night.
I climb in. She follows.
"Status?"
"Alpha 21 confirmed contact. They'll neutralize Schweitzer's perimeter security within the hour." Angel pulls on her headset. Her voice is crisp, clinical — the voice of someone who processes violence as logistics. "The diversionary strike on the Schweitzer headquarters in Zurich has been executed. Theodore received the alert fourteen minutes ago and left the Manhattan mansion."
My jaw locks. He left. Which means Beatrice is inside with reduced security and Theodore's right-hand man.
"Who's guarding her?"
"Lucas Lincoln. Former military lineage. Schweitzer's most trusted operative." Angel pauses. "He won't surrender her willingly."
"He won't need to surrender. He'll need to survive."
Angel looks at me. Something shifts behind her professional mask — not fear, but the particular alertness of someone recalibrating how far their commanding officer is willing to go tonight.
The helicopter lifts. Manhattan sprawls beneath us — a grid of lights and ambition and money, all of it meaningless noise compared to the signal pulsing through my chest like a homing beacon.
Beatrice is in that city. In his house. Wearing his coat. Trusting his protection.
Every one of those facts is a wound I intend to correct.
The decade-old feud between Laurent and Schweitzer has been simmering through proxies, through deals, through silent maneuvering across boardrooms and banking halls. Two families. Two men. A broken friendship and a betrayal neither will name.
Tonight, it stops simmering.
Theodore Schweitzer took the one thing I wasn't prepared to lose. And he smiled at the camera while doing it.
The helicopter cuts through the rain toward the Upper East Side.
Beatrice... I am coming... Sorry for being late little terrorist.