ROMAN
“What are you doing here, Mumzy?”
Riggs’ voice cuts through the room, and the pain in it hits me.
I press my hand against my chest like I can stop it from splitting open.
It doesn’t do a thing. I turn to take Riggs in, and he glances back at me.
His eyes look bloodshot, like he’s a second away from crying, and I grit my teeth to control my own emotions.
I break eye contact quickly, forcing my focus back to the woman who raised us.
It hits in a way I wasn’t ready for, deeper than my dad’s betrayal ever did.
Maybe it’s because I always knew what he was, but this…
this feels different. Every instinct in me is screaming to get up, to demand an answer, to drag her out of that seat and take her home, but I don’t move. I can’t.
She made her choice and I have to make mine.
Fae’s hand moves softly against my thigh, tracing slow circles, but it barely touches the storm tearing through me.
The room falls into a heavy silence, broken only by the quiet shift of fabric as Mum lifts a dossier and flips through it.
The coldness in her eyes knocks the air from my lungs as she skims over her husband’s sins like they’re just paperwork, and when she finally looks up, it’s not at us.
It’s at all of them.
“My husband is absent,” she says, her voice carrying without effort. “Which, as I’m sure you’re all aware, activates clause seventeen of the bylaws.”
My eyebrows draw in.
What fucking clause? Why didn’t we know about this?
There’s a shift across the table and I zone in as Lawson opens his mouth before snapping it shut.
Snider leans forward, frowning, and Parson’s eyes narrow.
Buckley shifts in his seat, shooting his son a sympathetic gaze and my stomach revolts again.
On the outside I’m calm. On the inside I’m one more second away from exploding.
“She is correct,” Harding’s gaze flicks toward her with something that almost looks like respect. “In the event of a founder’s absence, their spouse may assume proxy voting rights until the matter is resolved.”
At this point I’d take the month and wait for the council. It’s not like I haven’t been chasing this for weeks. Waiting has practically become part of it. I swallow down a growl as Mum inclines her head slightly.
“Thank you,” she says in a smooth, almost polite tone before her gaze sweeps back across the table. “So, unless anyone would like to formally challenge the bylaws themselves, I suggest we continue.”
Silence settles over the room again.
I don’t move, don’t give them anything, but inside it feels like everything is shifting too fast to keep hold of.
This is calculated. And I hate myself for not seeing it sooner.
My mind twists, trying to place the moment it changed, when my dad got to her, or if she was ever ours at all.
Whether she was sent to save Fae… or to get close enough to take all of us down instead.
Between the eight of us, we were never exactly raised by healthy parents.
Mine felt like the last one standing. It’s insane how quickly that can fall apart.
Beside me, Fae’s grip tightens around my hand, but I don’t look at her.
My eyes stay locked on my mum as she leans fully back into the chair, settling into it like it’s hers.
“Shall we take the vote again,” Mum says, “or shall I just cast mine?”
They stare at her like they’re trying to work out whether she’s bluffing or if she really has just walked in here and taken control of something none of them were ready to give up.
“I’m not changing my aye,” Parson says finally in a cool, detached tone.
“Neither am I,” Snider adds sharply, his gaze hardening as it lands on her. “You and your husband should be ashamed of yourselves.”
“Enough,” Strickland snaps, straightening in his seat. “You will not influence her vote with guilt.”
Mum doesn’t react to any of it. Not the accusation, not the tension, not the way the room is starting to fracture around her. She simply squares her shoulders, composed as ever, before letting her gaze move across each of them in turn.
“Are any of you changing your vote?” she asks calmly.
A chorus of no’s follows, some immediate, some reluctant, but none of them shifting. I swallow hard and, for the first time since she walked in, she looks at me properly.
“Roman,” she says, and there’s something in her tone that feels familiar, “as your mother, it has always been my duty to protect you, even if that meant protecting you from yourself. I have watched you grow from a baby into the man sitting in front of me now, but that does not influence my decision here.”
I try to read her, to understand where this is going.
“My decision is based on what is best for The Company. What secures its future,” she continues in an unwavering tone. “Some might say being placed between your husband and your son is an impossible position to be in. I don’t agree.”
Her eyes flick briefly to Fae.
“It’s the easiest decision I’ve ever had to make.”
The room stills. It’s not quiet in a natural way.
It’s heavy, like the air has been sucked out and no one quite knows how to breathe again.
My grip tightens against the edge of the table.
No one moves. No one speaks. Every eye is locked on her, waiting, bracing, like the entire room is balanced on whatever word comes next.
“My vote, in proxy of my husband, to remove him from his position…”
She pauses and I hold my breath as I see a twinkle in her eyes. “…is aye.”
The word hits like a crack through the room.
A broken sound tears from my throat before my head snaps toward the others as relief ripples through them.
Atlas exhales hard, Riggs drags a hand over his face, Victor’s shoulders drop like he’s just been released from something.
Felix drags Robyn closer to his body as Fae shakes next to me.
“What?” Harding barks, shooting to his feet. “You can’t do that—”
“I think you’ll find I can,” she replies smoothly, a faint smirk pulling at her lips as her eyes flick back to me, followed by a subtle wink.
The whiplash of it leaves my hands unsteady as everything I thought just seconds ago shifts violently in the other direction.
“How could you choose him over your own husband?” Harding spits, his face turning red.
“How could you choose a rapist over him?” she fires back.
“He’s a child!” Harding splutters, his voice climbing as he points across the table.
“He’s a leader,” my mum snaps back. Her lips curl as a venomous anger flashes in her eyes whilst she leans forward. “You’re protesting this far too much, Harding. Is there something you’d like to share with the rest of us?”
“Y-you—” he stammers, the words catching between anger and panic.
Mum rolls her eyes, already done with him, turning her back to him as if he’s not worth finishing the conversation for.
“You tricked us!”
“Harding,” she sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose, “I did no such thing. The bylaws exist for a reason. If you chose to read something into me that wasn’t there, that’s on you. Not me.”
Riggs barks out a laugh that cuts straight through the tension, loud and completely out of place after everything that’s just happened.
“Go on, Mumzy!” he cheers, pushing back in his chair.
The sound of it pulls a few of the others with him, relief breaking across their faces in different ways, but my attention doesn’t follow them. It stays locked across the table.
Strickland is watching her, and for the first time since we walked in, there’s something close to a smile on his face.
Not smug or forced. It looks… genuine, like this is the outcome he wanted, even though he was the one who tipped it the other way moments ago.
A frown pulls at my brows as I replay it, the way he’d stood, the hesitation when he said nay.
He hadn’t looked convinced. He’d looked… boxed in.
Still, a smile pulls across my face as my eyes bounce back to Mum and the pieces click together.
If she’d walked in here and declared her position straight away, the nays would have pushed and found a way to block it before it reached a vote.
She needed them comfortable and locked into their decisions before she took it from them.
It wasn’t betrayal.
It was strategy and it is exactly what I would have done.
Maybe I’m not like my dad after all. Maybe the person I’ve been learning from all this time isn’t him…
maybe it’s her. The barefoot, cake-loving woman who just outplayed a room full of men.
Relief lifts from my shoulders as Fae leans in and her lips brush softly against my cheek.
I turn into her, chasing her mouth and pulling her onto my lap.
Her hand slides to the back of my neck as our lips meet, and this time it deepens as our tongues slide together.
“I’m so proud of you,” she murmurs against my lips. I rest my forehead against hers, closing my eyes.
“I love you, Tink,” I breathe, and she smiles, pressing a soft kiss to the tip of my nose.
For the first time in weeks, I feel like I can actually breathe. I’ve got her in my arms, the founders behind me, and something close to control back in my hands. Harding shoves his chair back and it scrapes across the floor as he stands, his face flushed with anger.
“This won’t be the last of this,” he spits as his gaze flickers between me and my mum like he’s trying to decide which of us he hates more.
“Oh, but it will be,” Parson replies smoothly, not even bothering to stand, which seems to rile Harding up further.
“The law is the law, Harding,” Lawson adds with a low chuckle, leaning back in his chair as he enjoys every second of it. “You know that.”