Nathan
The silence in my office is the most expensive thing I own. It’s a quiet so deep it’s almost violent, purchased with the fear of men like Marco, who is currently sweating through his thousand-dollar suit across my mahogany desk.
“It’s a simple question, Marco,” I say, my voice low. I keep it low. A shout is a loss of control. “The shipment was light. Where are the missing crates?”
“We think the Falcones hit the truck outside of Worcester. A clean job. The driver doesn’t remember a thing.”
I steeple my fingers, resting my chin on them. I stare at him. I don’t blink. I learned that from my father. A man’s eyes will tell you everything he’s trying to hide.
“You think,” I repeat. The words are ice. “I don’t pay you to think, Marco. I pay you to know. I pay you to prevent.”
“Boss, there was nothing on the chatter. It was a ghost crew. We’re shaking down our contacts now.”
“The Falcones are getting bold,” a gravelly voice says from the doorway.
My father, Silas Harland, walks into the room. He moves slowly, leaning on a cane with a silver wolf’s head, but his presence still sucks the air out of the room. He looks at Marco with pure dismissal.
“Get out,” Silas says. It’s not a request.
Marco practically bolts from the chair, mumbling a “Yes, Don Harland,” and escapes. The door clicks shut, and the expensive silence returns.
“He’s weak,” my father says, settling into the chair Marco just vacated. “You surround yourself with weak men.”
“He’s loyal,” I counter, pouring two glasses of scotch from the crystal decanter on my credenza. I place one in his hand. His fingers are thin, knotted with arthritis, but his grip is still firm.
“Loyalty without competence is a liability. The old ways are dying, Nathan. This new war isn’t fought with guns in the street. It’s fought with whispers in the dark. With ones and zeroes.” He gestures vaguely at the city lights twinkling outside the floor-to-ceiling windows. “They hit our servers last month. An embarrassment. Now they’re hitting our trucks. They’re testing you.”
“And I am letting them,” I say. “Let them think we’re bleeding. Let them get overconfident. A patient hunter gets the fattest wolf.”
“Patience can look like weakness.” He takes a slow sip of his scotch. “The family needs to see strength. A united front. When are you setting a date with the Croft girl?”
I drain half my glass. “Tiffany is busy with her charity galas. Her father is busy ensuring our port expansion gets approved without issue. The arrangement is working.”
“It’s a business deal, not a marriage,” he grunts. “You need an heir, Nathan. You need a queen, not a placeholder.”
The door opens without a knock. Tiffany Croft glides in, a vision in white silk that probably costs more than Marco’s car. Her perfume, a cloying cloud of gardenia, invades my office, choking out the smell of leather and scotch.
“Silas, darling,” she coos, air-kissing his cheek. “Still brooding over your empire?”
“Someone has to,” he says, his tone softening almost imperceptibly. He always had a soft spot for her. She plays the part well.
“Nate,” she says, turning to me. Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes. It never does. “Don’t forget we have the fundraiser at the museum tonight. The press will be there. Wear the navy suit I had laid out.”
“I’ll be there,” I say. It’s an assurance, not a promise. With Tiffany, everything is transactional. Her father delivers the politicians; I deliver the social standing and power that keeps her on the society pages.
“Good.” She runs a perfectly manicured finger along the lapel of my jacket. The touch is cold, a claim of ownership for the cameras. “Try to look happy. It reflects better on me.”
She turns and leaves as quickly as she arrived, the scent of her ambition lingering behind her.
My father watches me, his old eyes sharp and calculating. “She has the spine for this world. She understands the currency of power.”
“She understands the currency of appearance,” I correct him.
“In our world, they are one and the same.” He finishes his drink and pushes himself to his feet with a slight groan. “You have everything a man could want. This city at your feet. A beautiful woman on your arm. Don’t be a fool and let it all slip away because you’re chasing a ghost.”
He leaves, and I’m alone again. Chasing a ghost. He has no idea how right he is.
Five years. Five years of this. Of meetings and threats and cold transactions. Of waking up next to a woman who shares my bed but not my thoughts. I walk to the window and look down at the city I supposedly own.
Every day is the same. The ruthless Underboss. The feared heir. I play the part so well I barely remember who I was before. Almost.
But then the quiet comes. And in the quiet, she’s always there.
Naomi.
The name is a phantom limb, an ache for something that was amputated. I remember the night before graduation. The scent of her hair, like lavender and old books. The way she fit against me, so perfectly it felt like coming home. The trust in her eyes.
I destroyed that trust the next morning. On my father’s unspoken orders. *Prove you can be ruthless. Prove nothing is more important than the family. Prove you can take what you want and feel nothing.*
I chose her because she was the only thing I felt anything for. It was the cruelest test. And I passed. I broke the best thing in my life to prove I was worthy of this gilded cage.
I thought pushing her away would keep her safe. Clean. Away from all this. But her leaving… it wasn't the gentle retreat I expected. It was an amputation. She vanished. One cryptic, cold note left with a confused Trevor. *Sincerely, Naomi.* It was a corporate sign-off. A dismissal.
I became the monster my father wanted. Feared. Respected. Untouchable. And completely, utterly empty.
I’ve had other women. Beautiful women. Ambitious women. But none of them look at me like I’m the only man in the world. None of them feel like… her.
It was supposed to be a warm-up. A lie I told my men, a lie I told myself. But the main event never came. My life since she left has been one long, cold winter.
I pick up my glass and hurl it against the bulletproof window. It shatters, scotch and shards of crystal sliding down the unblemished surface. The sound does nothing to fill the silence. It only makes it louder.
I have an empire. A beautiful fiancée. Unimaginable power.
I am the king of nothing at all.
