A D R I A N

The boardroom smells like victory and bleach.
Fresh orchids in crystal vases. Screens looping last night’s “safety-response” footage in polished silence. Marina made sure of it, every second curated to look like control.

She stands at the head of the table now, tablet glowing between manicured fingers, voice smooth as sugar water.
“Engagement’s up thirty-two percent since the incident. Hashtags are stabilizing #SeraphineSafe, #ValcrosseStrong. Guest retention projections unchanged.”
Click. Another slide. “And the narrative pivot landed exactly where we wanted. Heroism, teamwork, leadership.”

My jaw flexes. “Whose leadership?”

She doesn’t flinch. “Yours, of course.”

The words slide across the table like oil. The video behind her shows me in profile, rain-soaked, commanding barricades. Elara flashes beside me only long enough to humanize the heir. Edited, balanced, harmless.
My stomach turns.

“Remove the dramatization,” I say.

Marina tilts her head, copper hair glinting. “It isn’t dramatization, Adrian. It’s reassurance. People need to see you calm in chaos. They need to believe their island is in capable hands.”

“And the doctor?”

“She complicates the brand.” Her smile is precise, almost kind. “Our guests want gods, not martyrs. Too much truth feels… unsafe.”

The lie lands soft, practiced. I hear my mother’s old warning in the back of my skull, a kingdom that hides its flaws will drown in them.

I glance down at the table. Procurement, marketing and operations all nodding like synchronized clocks. The only empty chair is the one that matters: Isabella’s. Her nameplate gleams untouched. Even absent, she dictates air pressure.

“Proceed,” I say finally. The word tastes like iron.

Marina exhales victory. Slides bloom with color again, filled with charts, polls, and projections of serenity.

I let her talk. Let them all talk. It’s easier to measure loyalty in the noise.

Outside, the ocean throws light against the glass, indifferent. My reflection looks carved from it, controlled, polished and void. Beneath the table, my hands curl tight enough to ache.

When the presentation ends, polite applause ripples. Marina beams, certain she’s won.
I glance once more at my mother’s chair and feel the shift in the room’s gravity that is
not yet visible, but coming.

Because Isabella Valcrosse never misses a performance.
And when she walks in, every illusion in this room will burn.

The doors open without warning.

Every conversation dies mid-syllable.

Isabella Valcrosse glides in like a verdict, pearls at her throat, silver hair pinned with surgical precision. She doesn’t look at anyone, she never needs to. Her silence does the looking for her.

Marina straightens first, smile locked in place. “Mrs. Valcrosse, we were just reviewing incident response and brand..”

“Sit,” my mother says.

One word. Soft. Final.

Chairs scrape. Screens freeze. Even the air stops pretending to move.

She doesn’t take the head seat; she takes mine. Slides her folder onto the glass with a sound that could be a heartbeat or a warning. “Continue.”

Marina’s throat bobs. “Of course.” She taps her tablet again, hands shaking almost imperceptibly. “As you can see, the sentiment trajectory..”

Isabella folds her hands. Waits.

That’s worse than shouting. My mother’s silence is a scalpel: it is measured, sterile and made for dissection. She listens until Marina’s voice starts to tremble under its own gloss.

“Positive coverage peaked overnight,” Marina rushes on. “We reframed the doctor’s role as supporting the heir’s directive. Guests respond better to unified leadership.”

My mother blinks once. “Reframed.” The word lands weightless, but Marina flinches anyway.

“She meant optimized,” I say, voice even.

Isabella’s eyes find mine. Calm blue, ancient and merciless. “Did she?”

No one answers. The pause lengthens until it becomes a verdict of its own.

She turns a page, skims, says nothing. That’s how she kills, without movement, without volume, only the awareness that she’s deciding whether you still belong at her table.

Marina tries again, softer. “Our goal, of course, is to protect the brand..”

“The brand,” Isabella repeats, closing the folder. “Tell me, Ms. Navarro, what happens when a brand forgets the truth it was built on?”

Marina blinks, lost. “I..”

“Collapse,” Isabella answers for her. Then she stands. No raised voice, no threat. Just the faint click of pearls as she leaves the folder behind. 

Every head turns toward me, searching for cues, for translation. I keep my face unreadable.

But I know what that silence meant.

It wasn’t approval. It was a warning.

And the last time my mother listened that quietly, a division head vanished from payroll before dawn.

The boardroom empties fast after she leaves, but the silence she planted lingers like smoke.
No one wants to be the last to stand in the echo of her presence. Not when the matriarch has decided to think.

Marina gathers her tablet with shaking fingers. “She just needs time,” she murmurs, voice pitched high, brittle. “She trusts you, Adrian. Of course she does.”

I don’t answer. She’s talking to fill the space, not to convince me.

The elevator doors close behind her with a polished chime.

The lagoon glitters through the glass wall, calm again. Guests stroll below, oblivious to the knives being sharpened above them. I loosen my collar, roll my sleeves. The air smells faintly of disinfectant and fear.

The intercom clicks. “Sir, Mrs. Valcrosse requests you in her office.”

Of course she does.

I take the long route, past portraits of the founding years, Isabella in her thirties, Damian with his easy grin, me as a boy with salt still in my hair. We look like a dynasty that knows how to smile. The lie has aged well.

Her office door is open. Always open.
That’s the trick, she never needs to lock anything. People know better than to enter uninvited.

She’s by the window when I step in, hands clasped behind her back, gaze fixed on the horizon where sea meets sky. The morning light turns the pearls at her throat into small moons.

“Mother.”

“Adrian.” She doesn’t turn. “Did you enjoy the performance?”

“Which one?”

“The one where your PR director rewrote history while you let her.”

“I wanted to see what she’d do.”

“You already knew what she’d do.” Her voice is gentle, but each syllable lands with surgical accuracy. “And you let her anyway.”

I inhale slowly. “Optics had to be contained before the board panicked.”

“Containment isn’t leadership.” She faces me finally, the same calm blade that silenced Marina. “You’ve begun to mistake reaction for command.”

“I issued the audit. The protocols. The drills..”

“After the doctor did.”

Her words hit like a slap made of silk.

“She embarrassed you,” Isabella says quietly. “And you respected her for it. That’s good. Respect sharpens men. But do not confuse admiration with abdication.”

My jaw locks. “Is that what you think this is?”

“I think you’ve forgotten how this family keeps its crown.” She walks past me, every step measured. “And since reminders are apparently required…”

She picks up the phone on her desk, presses a single button, and waits.
“Send for Rafael.”

The name lands like a tide surge. “Rafael?”

My mother nods. “Your cousin has been managing the Mediterranean portfolio. He’ll be here within the week.”

“For what?”

“To assist. Observe. Advice.”

“Spy.”

She smiles faintly. “Perspective.”

My chest tightens. Rafael Valcrosse, brilliant, charming and ruthless. The golden cousin who never forgot to smile for the cameras. The one the investors love because he looks like mercy and thinks like war.

“You don’t trust me,” I say.

“I trust you to be my son,” she answers. “And I trust blood to sharpen blood.” She moves closer, fingertip brushing a nonexistent speck from my lapel. “Remember, Adrian, inheritance isn’t guaranteed. It’s earned every morning.”

The soft click of her heels follows her out. The door closes.

The office feels smaller with her gone, like the walls are waiting to see what I’ll do. I sink into the chair she vacated and stare at the sea until the horizon blurs.

Rafael.
The name hums under my skin, low and dangerous.

He’ll come smiling. He’ll call it collaboration. But I know what my mother’s really done, she’s split the crown before it could settle.

A notification pings on my phone:

Incoming Flight Itinerary for R. Valcrosse, destination Isla Seraphine.

Departure: Tomorrow.

Fast. Too fast. She must have called him before the meeting even ended.

Outside, the ocean gleams like nothing’s changed. Inside, everything has.

I rise, pocket the phone, and straighten my cuffs.
If she wants a family war, I’ll give her one dressed in diplomacy.

Because Rafael Valcrosse doesn’t come to assist.
He comes to inherit what he can take.

No one, not my mother, not my cousin, and not that doctor will take Seraphine from me.