Chapter 33 Madeline
Madeline
If dying from embarrassment were possible, I would have right there between the dynasty banners. My father’s voice carried that superior tone he saved for opponents he wanted to belittle, and unfortunately, my Dom had no patience for it.
The moment they faced off, Crow Dynasty against Thorne dynasty diplomacy, the nerves started to eat me alive.
Of course my father wouldn’t back down.
And of course Vincent Crow didn’t know how to.
I leaned slightly toward Atticus DuPont purely out of survival instinct.
He slid his datapad a centimeter closer, letting me see the numbers.
His hand drifted near mine just long enough for me to realize he was offering me his water.
I took it with a grateful nod, swallowing against nerves I didn’t want anyone to see.
My father and Vince continued the verbal sparring match. Vince didn’t raise his voice. He never needed to—stillness was his weapon and silence was the knife.
But whatever calmness he projected was undercut by the ruthless precision of every word he laid down like law. He wasn’t negotiating. He was removing options until only his answer remained. And my father hated being handled.
I probably shouldn’t have looked at Vince when the tension peaked. I did anyway.
His eyes were already on me. And I didn’t see the man who kissed my shoulder before bed or murmured my girl.
I couldn’t tell if it was jealousy under that stare or just the Crow in him assessing every angle. But there was something there, when he saw how close I sat to Atticus.
I looked away first.
I hated that he made me look away because in this room, he wasn’t mine. He wasn’t my Dom. He was the Crow heir in his element, and he terrified me like this.
Bastion and Rome didn’t help. They flanked him like wolves. Black suits, undone shirts, visible ink, nothing dynasty-civilized about them. They acted like syndicate and they intended to remind everyone of it.
Every offer from the Thornes was dismissed.
The DuPonts was sliced apart.
Any attempt to soften terms met cold Crow refusal.
Atticus typed gently on our linked datapad:
This could have been an email.
I had to hold back a laugh. I refreshed the document and wrote beneath it:
We should have skipped the meeting and gone straight to drinks.
A second later, his reply appeared:
Strong ones. To nurse bruised egos.
That was when Vince hit the table. I jumped, and Atticus’s attention flicked toward me in concern.
“Gentlemen,” the Thorne representative snapped, “this is meant to be civilised.”
Civilised.
With Crows in the room. Even I wanted to scoff.
I kept my expression composed the way dynasty daughters are trained to, soft, pleasant, untouchable. But inside, my pulse was climbing my throat.
In the end, the meeting ended exactly how any Crow negotiation ends. On their terms. No matter how long the room fought to slow them.
My father left muttered something under his breath about “barbaric syndicate boys.”
And Vince didn’t look away from me once the entire time people were shuffling out. His jaw tight, his eyes unreadable. He ignored me. I might as of been a pillar in the building.
Atticus hovered near my shoulder the entire walk out, close enough that anyone watching could assume he had been assigned as my shadow. He wasn’t subtle about it either, standing at just the right angle to intercept any wandering syndicate man who might attempt conversation.
“Are you… guarding me?” I murmured.
“What kind of heir would I be if I left you wandering the halls of a syndicate building alone?”
“The Crows are dynasty.”
He lifted one brow. “Elizabeth. You were in that room.”
I hated that he was right. I hated that one meeting had cracked every academy-taught notion of dynasty politics I’d been raised on. Every house was supposed to be united in structure, tone, decorum.
The foyer of the Crow Dynasty Hall was filled with tense heirs and irritated fathers pretending they weren’t shaken. Everything about this estate screamed power. Black marble, cascading light fixtures, crest banners that seemed to stare back.
Atticus and I stood slightly apart from them while our fathers continued some post-meeting analysis. I tried to tune them out. My mind was loud enough.
My gaze drifted, and that was when I saw him.
Vince stood across the foyer, beneath a sculpted iron archway. Shoulder braced against the wall. Hands in his pockets. Watching.
I looked down so fast it was pathetic.
My pulse jumped. It was ridiculous, he was my Dom, but right now, after that meeting, I was genuinely afraid to meet his eyes. Because the man in that room wasn’t the one who held me at night.
He was the heir of Villain.
Atticus shifted beside me. He never said a word, just stepped half an inch closer, that brotherly orbit he’d always kept around me.
“You want to ride with me? We’re all heading back to the estate anyway.” he asked.
“Which estate?”
“Elizabeth. Since when do you get caught on the details?”
I exhaled through my nose. “Don’t use my middle name like that.”
Atticus only grinned wider. “Madeline Elizabeth Thorne,” he recited in the same mocking-posh voice he’d used when we were eight. “And Atticus Archibald DuPont. Remember how we decided our names were pretentious?”
“We were eight-year-olds who knew the word pretentious. Which was pretentious.” I fought my nervous smile.
He was trying to distract me. I sighed. “Fine, Archer. But you better be ready to help me drink through whatever our fathers are planning to lecture us on. When they get onto legacies, I expect full emotional support.”
“Of course. And once they start their ‘real heirs negotiate with poise’ speech, I’ll even nod along.”
I bumped my shoulder against his. “Liar.”
“Constantly.” He lifted my coat and held it out. “Arms.”
I slipped into it. He adjusted the collar the way he always had, then took the umbrella from my bodyguard.
“Ready?” he asked.
I nodded.
We stepped out into the rain together, beneath the umbrella.
The same way we had hundreds of times leaving academy lectures or formal dinners or childhood playdates.
Except this time, he didn’t tease me for being pale.
Or question, how weak I was in that room.
A table I would normally own. Instead. I sat silently, taking notes. Not even correct ones.