16. CHAPTER 14
Orion
The east wing of the Kade estate had always been my father’s domain.
His private annex of power. It used to smell like cedar and cigar smoke, and carried a serenity that only existed because decisions were being made behind closed doors.
There used to be a certain aura that graced the room when you stepped into it, something tangible laced with intimidation and absolute authority.
The gravity of it alone, motivated me. Made me more ambitious.
Now it smelled like antiseptic, warmed linen, and money trying to masquerade as mercy. The glowing legacy of it all replaced by a hushed reverence. Almost like a feared moment of silence held for too long.
Over the course of the last two weeks, we’d taken a larger portion of the wing and rebuilt it into a high-end neuro-rehabilitation suite to serve my father’s medical needs post-coma.
Dr Gérard brought in a neurologist with a huge ego and impeccable credentials. We retained two of the private nurses and kept them on rotating shifts. A physical therapist and an occupational therapist, both of whom measured their words as carefully as they gave their progress reports.
Also a private chef whose entire existence revolved around neuro-nutrition, like a perfect ratio of omega-3s could coax a man back from the brink of death.
We hired all discreet staff. Discreet security. Everyone paid to keep their mouth shut and focus on my father’s health.
One month post-coma, and he seemed to be responding to some treatment. That was the line they kept offering me. Progress.
The way they sold it as a sure thing—if I was patient enough.
Who was I to define progress in this case anyway. All I wanted was a positive result, no matter the form.
When I stepped inside the suite, the machines were the first thing I heard—the rhythmic mechanical hum of the ventilator, the insistent beep of monitors, the steady click of a drip.
Then I looked at my father. Henrik Kade.
Once a man of towering presence, slumped beneath high-thread-count sheets.
His face had changed in ways that offended me.
Slight asymmetry at the mouth. A heaviness in one eyelid.
The features were still his, but rearranged by damage, like a portrait warped by heat.
He knew what he wanted to say; getting there was another matter. Aphasia, they suspected.
Sometimes it came out as word salad, fragments and misplaced syllables tumbling into nonsense. Sometimes it didn’t come out at all.
Recovery, I knew, was mostly false hope dressed up in clinical vocabulary. But optimism—real optimism—was the only thing that kept me from putting my fist through the wall. Maybe if I stayed positive enough and believed that things will turn around for good. Just maybe they will.
And it had nothing to do with luck. Henrik Kade never needed luck. All he needed, he already had: the best medical team in the world and all the comfort money can buy.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Kade,” one of the nurses greeted, stepping aside with an easy smile, unaware I was breaking apart internally, holding myself together in this room by discipline alone.
“He tracked the light for three minutes today,” the nurse said gleefully. The way she said it—like a prize, or some miracle—made my throat constrict. “And he managed a swallow reflex with the water.”
Three minutes. A swallow.
That was what our world had come to, celebrating the body remembering how to be alive.
After the nurse finished taking his vitals, I sat in the leather chair beside his bed. Someone had changed it's position, and moved it deliberately closer to his bed.
I’d come here weekly to give my father work updates since he woke from his coma. I decided I didn’t want him missing out on anything.
I wanted it to feel like old times when we talked about work and shared ideas. I couldn’t bear the thought of sickness taking that away from us.
Peculiar as it may seem, it was our way of bonding.
My tablet was already open. The screen glowed with charts, signatures, and legal documents. All proof that everything outside this room still moved because I forced it to.
I didn’t hold his hand. Sentimentality wasn't needed to do my job.
I angled the tablet so he could see it, because if his mind was still in there… if he was still behind the fog, then he’d understand.
“I signed the truce with the Fernándezes,” I said, my voice steady, and businesslike. “Terms for the alliance have been finalized. Their shipping routes will integrate with ours by Q2. It was straightforward and clean. No theatrics, just like you would have wanted it.”
My father's eyes were open, fixed on the ceiling now.
He didn't look at me or blink often, but I knew he was listening. I’d always been able to tell when he was paying attention.
His bearing changed subtly—a twitch here, a slower blink there, small movements most people would miss but that always told me he was listening.
I scrolled, showing him the documents. The signatures. The familiar names.
“King sent out the final documents to émile Moreaux to sign.” I continued. “He wasn’t present at the meeting.”
The Moreauxs might have left their legacy in the hands of Demola Fernández, but émile Moreaux—éliane’s older brother had as much shares as the Fernández sons at Equinox.
At the mention of Moreaux, his left eyelid pulsed, almost imperceptible. The reaction was minute, but unmistakeable.
I felt part vindication, part relief at his response.
“And Fernández,” I added, leaning back. “He wanted ceremonial nonsense. A public dinner. Photographs. Statements. Something to show the world we reached a truce.”
His eyes stayed on the ceiling, but the muscle near his mouth twitched a little, as if his face remembered how to sneer.
Fernández reached out a week ago for validation.
We had agreed to keep the wedding intimate, but he insisted on a public show of the alliance.
I agreed. If Fernández wanted to show his enemies he had the backing of the Kades, who was I to refuse the slimy bastard.
Afterall I was taking over his empire. The world would know eventually. Any later made no difference.
I glanced at my father and kept talking because silence was dangerous. Silence created fearful scenarios of his condition in my head.
“The Fernández girl…Léonie. She’s an interesting one.
Well, mostly boring,” I said, flipping to a note I’d made for myself, as if reporting on a candidate.
“Her preferences are all predictable, and she has very little appetite for chaos. But she has a fierceness to her… under the politeness. No doubt she’ll be a great addition to the family. ”
This time, his head moved. Slowly. Painfully. He turned his face toward me, inch by inch, until he found my gaze.
For a second, I saw something. It wasn’t the blank medicated stare, or the hollow absence of someone unreachable. It was the fierce judgemental look he'd give me when I said something unexpected. The face I was used to.
Last week, there had been a moment. A brief, almost cruel moment when the fog cleared, and my father had looked at me the way he used to.
The way a king looks at an heir and decides whether he’s worthy.
It lasted maybe a heartbeat before the fog returned and swallowed him whole again, but it had been enough to keep me alive. Sufficient enough to inspire hope.
Now, his mouth opened. A thin line of saliva gathered at the corner. A very low, strained sound escaped him.
“G… g… go…”
I closed in instantly, every part of me suddenly focused.
“Good?” I said, my gaze fixed on the tremor in his jaw. “Is that what you’re trying to say?”
His throat moved. Nothing coherent followed.
“It is good, Father,” I continued, refusing to let the moment slip away into nonsense. “Our family’s legacy is secure. I’m holding the line.”
I watched his eyes for a spark of recognition.
“You just need to focus on the physical therapy,” I said, my tone sharpening into a command. “The doctors say if you can manage the swallow reflex, we can move to soft foods by Monday.”
I reached out finally, and touched his shoulder. My grip was firm, possessive, as if I could anchor him to the world through the pressure alone.
“Don’t leave the chair empty for too long,” I told him, my voice dropping for his ears alone. “I’m finding that being the only adult in the room is… tedious.”
In my head, I heard his short and dry laugh. The easy one he always let out when sarcasm crept into my voice. The phantom sound felt so real I held on to it for as long as I could.
The ventilator hissed again, breaking the illusion.
I released his hand and stood. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”
The nurse stepped aside as I left, and the door sighed shut behind me.
The transition space between the suite and the hallway was all glass and brushed nickel, designed to look like a gallery instead of a corridor to a sickroom.
Dr. Gérard was waiting there, a slim tablet in his hand, dark circles carved under his eyes.
If he’d worked for me, I would have sent him home or fired him, depending on my mood.
“Report,” I said, my stride never slowing until I was inches from the glass, looking back in at my father’s bed.
“We had a regression last night,” Gérard started. His voice was calm, in the way trained doctors are. There was always a gentleness in his tone when he gave bad news. I could never get used to it.
“A small spike in blood pressure led to a series of focal seizures. We had to sedate him to protect the brain from further stress.”
My jaw clenched. I didn’t look at him. “A regression,” I repeated. “You mean a failure.”
“I mean a plateau,” he corrected me, still calm. “The brain isn’t a machine, Orion. It doesn’t run on a schedule. It fights back. He’s stable now, but the progress we made with his hand movement… it’s gone for the moment. We’re back to baseline.”
In the bed, my father lay utterly still. If I chose not to look too hard, I could almost convince myself he was just sleeping.