A D R I A N 

I barely sleep. The city feed doesn’t stop buzzing all night, reporters clawing for comment, the board pretending to pray for damage control. Every headline uses our names like currency. Doctor and heir. Scandal and sex.

By dawn, my phone is a graveyard of missed calls. I ignore them all. I’m halfway through black coffee number three when Ethan steps in without knocking. He never knocks. His face says it before his mouth does.

“Something new.”

My stomach drops before the words even land. “What now?”

He sets the tablet on the table between us. No preamble, no warning. Just the screen, glowing too bright in the dim suite.

BUYOUT BID FILED:  VALCROSSE LUXE IN TALKS TO SELL ISLA SERAPHINE.

For a second, I think I misread it. Then the headline refreshes, and my own name jumps out in bold below the company seal. There’s a quote attributed to “a family source.”

My throat goes dry. “This isn’t real.”

Ethan doesn’t flinch. “It’s circulating through the investor feeds. Half the board’s already seen it.”

“Who leaked it?”

“Anonymous filing. Offshore. They’re calling it a rescue acquisition.”

Rescue. That word cuts. Seraphine doesn’t need saving. It needs truth, loyalty, people who actually give a damn about it. And right now, none of them are in this room except us.

I scroll, reading what passes for journalism these days. “Rumors suggest financial strain due to internal mismanagement.” “A trusted insider reveals plans to divest before the Lantern Tide collapse.”

Collapse. They’re writing my obituary before breakfast.

“I want names,” I say, too fast, too loud. “Every bank, every registrar.”

Ethan nods once. “Already tracing. But whoever did this knew where to hide. Shell filings. Private trust. It’s clean.”

My pulse pounds in my neck. “Nothing’s clean.”

The tablet shakes in my hand. My reflection on the glass looks like someone I don’t know, red eyes, jaw tight, hair a mess from not sleeping. The kind of man who ruins his own kingdom trying to save it.

“They’re coming for you,” Ethan says quietly. “Not just the island.”

I almost laughed. “They can have me. They touch her name again, I burn the world.”

He doesn’t argue. Just leaves the room, door clicking shut behind him.

The silence that follows is heavier than any boardroom full of enemies. I drag both hands through my hair, stare out at the ocean that’s supposed to be mine. It glitters like nothing happened. The horizon doesn’t care who owns it.

And I hate that. I hate that the world keeps turning when I’m breaking.

By the time I get to the command office, the PR screens are looping headlines like a funeral slideshow. Every rotation stabs a little deeper. I tell Marina to leave before I say something I can’t take back. She goes pale, gathers her tablet, and vanishes.

Ethan’s already in the security wing, hunched over the finance dashboard. His knuckles are white on the mouse. “I traced the filings,” he says. “You’re not going to like this.”

“Try me.”

He drags a feed onto the wall display. Rows of transactions blink up, small, regular, harmless-looking. Consultancy retainers, logistics invoices, equipment rentals. All legitimate on paper.

“Look at the payee name.”

I step closer. The logo’s nothing but a clean serif font, navy blue.
SERAPHINE HOLDINGS PROCUREMENT LTD.

The name hits like a gut punch. It sounds official enough to pass any audit. But I’ve never heard it once in ten years of running this island.

“Who approved these?”

“Auto-routed through the family trust accounts,” Ethan says. “They’re recent. Started four months ago, right before the Lantern Tide prep.”

Four months. Around the time Elara took over the clinic. When the press turned her name into a weapon, someone was already laying groundwork to bleed us dry.

I flip through the ledger. Each line item bleeds into the next, slow siphon, steady, quiet theft disguised as maintenance. Whoever did this wasn’t stealing money. They were building leverage.

“How much?”

“Enough to matter,” Ethan says. “Not catastrophic, but it paints the picture they want. Financial mismanagement, internal rot. Perfect timing for a buyout narrative.”

I press my fingers against my temples, trying to think past the pounding. “Who’s behind the company?”

He hesitates. “Still tracing. But it’s incorporated through three layers of shell entities. One’s based in Manila, one in Geneva, one..”

“Geneva,” I repeat. The word tastes metallic. My mother keeps half her legacy holdings there. “Of course it is.”

Ethan looks up. “You think it’s her?”

“I think it’s convenient.”

The walls feel closer suddenly. I remember her last call, calm voice, careful phrasing: You can’t run a kingdom on sentiment, Adrian. You need allies who understand optics.

I thought she was talking about PR. Maybe she was warning me she’d already made her move.

I grab the tablet back, scroll faster, deeper, past invoices and trust seals until the signatures load. One line catches my eye. A digital approval code, mine. Forged.

I stare at it so long my vision blurs.

Someone used my name. My credentials.

“Ethan,” I say, voice breaking on the edge. “They didn’t just steal my company. They stole my face to do it.”

The air in my office feels too thin. I open the balcony doors for air I can’t breathe.

The ocean spreads out below like a sheet of light, beautiful, cruel, pretending none of this matters. I used to believe I was part of it, the man who could bend the tides if he worked hard enough. Now I can’t even stop my own bloodline from selling the ground under me.

My mother calls exactly when I know she will. The phone buzzes once, twice. I stare at her name until the screen goes dark.

Then it lights again.

I answer before I can stop myself. “How long?”

She exhales, a sound too measured to be guilt. “You’ve seen the reports.”

“Don’t insult me.” My voice sounds like someone else’s, hoarse, scraped raw. “Did you know about Seraphine Holdings’ procurement?”

A pause. Long enough to be an answer.

“Adrian,” she says softly. “This isn’t what you think.”

“It’s exactly what I think. You’re bleeding the company to buy me out before the board forces your hand.”

“You’re emotional.”

“I’m awake.”

Her sigh is the same one she used when I was ten and caught lying about broken glass. “The rumors of impropriety, Elara Quinn, the photo, the board unrest, these are distractions. The buyout ensures Seraphine survives when the headlines don’t.”

“When the headlines don’t?” My laugh is sharp, bitter. “You mean when I don’t.”

“Don’t make this personal,” she says, clipped. “It’s strategic. Containment. Damage control.”

“You forged my authorization.”

“Legal authorized under emergency clause. You were unreachable.”

“Unreachable,” I echo. “I was cleaning up your legacy.”

Something breaks in me then, quiet, invisible, deep. The part that still believed my mother wanted love more than order.

“You taught me this empire was built on trust,” I say. “Turns out it’s just signatures and blood.”

Her tone hardens. “Be careful, Adrian. You’re angry enough to say something you can’t unsay.”

“I already did,” I whisper. “I called you my mother.”

I hang up before she can answer. The silence afterward is a wound that won’t clot.

Ethan watches from the doorway, saying nothing. Maybe he knows there’s nothing left to say.

Rafael’s jet lands within the hour. My phone lights up with alerts from the tower logs. Of course he’s here, the family’s favorite golden son, sent to patch the optics and remind the staff what Valcrosse loyalty looks like.

He’ll smile, shake hands, offer investors his version of reassurance while the knife goes in quietly.

I almost admire the symmetry.

The wind off the ocean cuts through the room, sharp with salt. I should close the doors, but I let the chill stay. It feels honest.

By nightfall the suite is empty except for me and the hum of the city feed. My phone won’t stop lighting with messages, Marina, the board, my siblings, journalists clawing for comment. I ignore all of them.

What I want is to hear her voice. Just once. To know she’s breathing through this storm I dragged her into.

My thumb hovers over her name. The last message between us still glows at the top: You don’t have to fight alone.

I close the window before I can answer it.

If the press catches even one word between us, they’ll twist it until it screams. They’ll use it to prove their story, she seduced the heir to steal the crown.

I won’t give them the satisfaction.

But God, I want to.

I pour another drink and stare out at the bay. The lights from the boardwalk blur against the water like lanterns drowned too early. I remember her under those same lights, hair damp, eyes stubborn, that steady voice when she said Serenity doesn’t restart a heart.

Every part of me wants to go to her. Not to fix it, not even to explain. Just to see her in one piece.

Instead I tighten my grip on the glass until my knuckles ache. The whiskey burns down my throat, sharp enough to pass for courage.

Somewhere below, the surf beats against the pilings in perfect rhythm, like a heartbeat I can’t reach.

I wonder if she’s looking at the same horizon, wondering what I’m doing to her name tonight.

If she knew, she’d hate me for staying silent. But if I break that silence, I could destroy her.

So I sit in the dark, the sea humming like static, the phone screen still glowing with her name, and tell myself restraint is its own kind of mercy.

I don’t believe it.

The call comes just past midnight. Ethan’s voice is low, urgent.
“Found it.”

I’m already moving. “Who’s behind the shell?”

“Not who. What.” A pause. “The company’s acquisition target isn’t Seraphine’s resort division.”

My pulse hammers. “Then what the hell are they buying?”

“The clinic,” he says. “They’re acquiring the clinic under emergency restructuring rights. If the paperwork goes through, they’ll own it by morning.”

For a second, everything in me stops. Then heat floods back, fast, and vicious.

“They’re not just buying me out,” I whisper. “They’re buying her.”

Outside, the sea keeps breathing, calm, patient and endless. Inside, I start the war.