3. Theo
THEO
The penthouse is dark. I prefer it this way.
Two fingers of twenty-five-year-old whiskey, neat, on the coffee table. I haven’t touched it.
The television is off.
My phone is face down on the Italian marble, because if I look at it one more time, I am going to throw it through the window. And I refuse to give Bianca Donovan that much of my energy.
Bianca Donovan.
A caterer. And she has singlehandedly made me the most mocked man on the internet in the past twenty-four hours.
I lift the whiskey, hesitate, then throw it back harder than intended.
The clip has been viewed thirty million times. Thirty million people have now watched me lose control over a tray of desserts from a woman half my size.
I drink.
The whiskey burns exactly the way it should.
Peat, caramel, the long amber tail of a scotch that has been sitting in a barrel since before I had a driver’s license.
It does nothing for the burn behind my sternum, which has been there since last night, when I heard my own amplified voice bouncing off the ballroom ceiling.
Bianca saw a version of me I don’t want to admit exists. This whole fucking experience proves that I’m not the nice guy who gave the speech.
I’m a person who screams at service workers over a stained jacket.
I was barely holding it together after my father told me I was failing two hours before that speech.
I remained composed through every smile, every handshake, and through the speech that made my family look like saints.
And she caught me right at the moment where I couldn’t remain in control of my emotions for one more fucking minute.
Twenty minutes about kindness, about lifting people up. Standing ovation, sweetie.
And she said it out loud. To the room. To the world.
I finish the glass.
And the worst part was that she wasn’t wrong. Still, I can’t let her get away with it.
That shows weakness. And if my father taught me anything, it’s that weakness is something other people use against you.
My intercom chimes. David, my building concierge, informs me that my brothers are in the elevator.
I didn’t invite them. I didn’t need to.
The Sawyer radar has been operational our whole lives. When one of us bleeds, the other two arrive. It’s instinct. It’s also, tonight, deeply inconvenient.
I pour another glass. Then two more for my brothers.
Ander comes through the door first.
“Holy shit.” He drops his jacket on my sofa and grabs the nearest glass. “Have you been sitting in the dark? Like a Bond villain? Because that’s the energy right now, Theo.”
He’s wearing a Henley with the sleeves shoved up and a grin so wide it borders on feral. Ander handles crises the way he handles everything: loudly, physically, and with an enthusiasm that makes me want to pinch the bridge of my nose until the headache subsides.
Gideon is three steps behind him with no commentary. He takes the glass I poured, sits in the chair across from me, and waits.
This is the difference between my brothers. Ander walks into a fire and starts swinging. Gideon walks into a fire, maps the exit routes, and decides whether the building is worth saving.
“Thirty million people watched that video,” I say.
“Thirty-five,” Gideon corrects. He has his phone out. “But that’s just the original video. There are so many versions now. They’re being reposted faster than the original is spreading. Late-night hosts are running segments. There are memes.”
“Memes. Fucking great.” I set my glass down carefully. Carefully, because if I do not do everything carefully right now, I will do something reckless, and I have done enough reckless for one lifetime.
“The one with you photoshopped onto the Titanic is pretty solid,” Ander offers from the couch, where he’s already sprawled full-length. Thankfully, he had enough sense to take his boots off. “And there’s an auto-tuned version of her little speech going around that has no business being that good.”
Gideon eyes him warningly. “Ander.”
“Right. Reading the room. Got it.” He takes a long drink and watches me over the rim. His grin hasn’t dimmed. If anything, it’s sharper. “So. What’s the plan?”
I look at him, then at Gideon.
“Sugar Bloom Bakery.” I pick up my glass again. “I want to know everything. Lease terms, suppliers, vendor contracts, licensing, health permits, insurance, code compliance. Every regulatory body she answers to. Every financial vulnerability. Every pressure point.”
Gideon’s thumb pauses on his phone.
“You want to go after her bakery,” he says. Not a question.
“I want to make Bianca Donovan understand what it costs to cross this family.” The words sound so much like my father, I almost cringe. But this is what needs to be done. “She humiliated us publicly. That has consequences.”
Ander swings upright, both boots on the floor. His grin has changed. Broader. Hungrier.
“So, we’re going to war,” he says. “With a baker.”
I correct him. “We are going to apply appropriate pressure to a business that has created a liability for Sawyer Holdings.”
“War.” Ander cracks his knuckles against his palm, one-two-three, like he’s been handed a gift. “I’m always up for a little adventure. What’s the end goal?”
“It’s not really about her,” I tell him. “It’s the precedent. If a nobody crosses us and walks away unscathed, the rest stop being afraid. Other people will come after us.”
Gideon hasn’t moved. He’s still holding his phone, his drink untouched, his eyes on me, already somewhere else in his head, already three moves ahead.
“The bakery is small,” he says. “Local. One location, minimal staff. We’ll apply pressure through the right channels. Supplier contracts. Code enforcement. She’ll fold within a quarter. Two at most.”
That’s why I love Gideon. His mind works fast. He has a plan before I even have time to think about a plan.
“Good,” I respond.
“She inherited the bakery from her mother, who died two years ago,” Gideon says. “The community attachment is significant. We’ll need to account for the sympathy angle.”
Ander stops smiling.
If I let myself think about this too hard, I will lose my nerve, so I don’t. If she walks away from this, every person who’s ever wanted to take a shot at this family will know the door is open.
“I don’t care about her emotional attachment.” I finish my second glass. “I care about her lease, her permits, and her supply chain. People must know they can’t cross us. We’re going to make an example out of her.”
Gideon reaches for his whiskey and takes his first sip. “I’ll have a full analysis by morning.”
Ander is on his feet before the last word is out. Sitting has never been his strength. “Inspectors, permits, the on-the-ground stuff. Give me the boring legal angles, and I’ll make them entertaining.”
“This isn’t entertainment,” I say. “This is defending our family name.”
“Sure, sure.” He drains his glass and sets it on the counter with a decisive click. “Defending our family name. Very corporate. Very you.” He points at me with the hand that was holding the glass. “But between us, brother? You’re not mad she embarrassed you. You’re mad she was right.”
He’s out the door before I can respond, because Ander has always had impeccable timing for the last word and no interest in staying for the fallout.
Gideon stands. Buttons his jacket with one hand, the movement automatic and precise.
“He’s not wrong,” Gideon says.
“He’s frequently not wrong. It’s his most inconvenient quality.”
Amusement crosses Gideon’s face and vanishes before it settles.
“I’ll send you the file by morning. Read it before you talk to anyone else.” He pauses at the door, not looking back. “We can start with the health inspector. That’s the cleanest angle.” He takes a deep breath. “And Theo, don’t call Father about this.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Good.”
He leaves. The door clicks shut behind him.
I’m in bed at midnight. Not sleeping as I lie in the dark.
The phone lights up: CHARLES SAWYER.
No saved nickname, no “Dad” or “Father” in my contacts.
I pick up on the second ring. One ring is eager. Three is defiant.
It’s fucked up that I even consider shit like that when dealing with him.
“Theodore.”
I take a deep breath. “Sir.”
A pause. Ice clinking against crystal. He’s in his study, the leather chair, the window overlooking the grounds. I can gauge his evenings by sound alone.
“I have spent the entire day on the phone.” His delivery is unhurried. “Explaining. Reassuring. Because you couldn’t hold it together for five goddamn minutes.”
I say nothing.
I’ve learned how this works. My father talks, and then he waits. Waiting is the worst part.
“A caterer.” Another clink of ice. “A little girl with a bakery. And this family’s reputation is now in her hands instead of yours, because you gave it to her.
” Another dramatic pause. “And at the annual event for the foundation. That foundation your mother started for impoverished children before she died.”
My mother. He always knows when to bring her into a conversation. When it hurts the most.
“I’m handling it,” I bite out.
“Are you? And how, precisely, does one handle becoming a global embarrassment, Theodore? Because from where I’m sitting, you’ve done nothing.”
And as much as I hate him, I answer anyway. “I’ve spoken to Gideon and Ander. We have a strategy.”
“You have a strategy.” Ice clinking, again. The tap of his signet ring against the arm of his chair—the sound all three of us have been flinching from since we were children. “This Donovan girl is a nobody. What happens when someone with more power sees how easy it is to humiliate a Sawyer?”
I close my eyes.
“She needs to be taught a lesson. To be put back in her place.” His voice drops half a register. “You can’t fuck with Sawyers.”
The transition from charm to threat is so seamless that most people don’t catch it.
“I understand, sir.”
“Do you?”
The line goes quiet. I count three breaths before he speaks again.
“What you allowed that girl to do last night didn’t only embarrass you. It embarrassed your mother’s legacy.” The ring taps again. “And that is something I will not tolerate twice.”
“It won’t happen again.”
The line goes dead.
I drop the phone onto the mattress beside me and stare at the ceiling until my eyes burn.
My father is going to be watching my every move, waiting for me to fail.
I should be thinking about my strategy to destroy her.
Instead, I’m thinking about her. A woman with hazel eyes, who showed the world what’s underneath my mask.
The way she didn’t shake. The way she planted her feet, lifted her chin, and addressed me not as a billionaire, not as a Sawyer, but as a man who had just contradicted his own speech.
My mother would have liked her.
I stop the thought before it finishes.
Bianca Donovan is a liability. She’s a problem to be solved, a fire to be contained, and a variable to be eliminated before it can cause any further damage to this family.
That’s all she is.
I will win this.
And if Bianca Donovan’s bakery has to burn for it—figuratively, legally, and financially—then she should have thought about that before she embarrassed me.
I close my eyes. I still can’t sleep.
Somewhere across the city, the woman who defied me is probably sleeping fine.
I hate that.