Chapter 6 - Nathan
The boardroom of Chen Textiles smells like fear and expensive cologne.
I sit at the head of the table—not my table, but I've made it mine through sheer force of presence. Bryan Chen sweats through his tailored shirt despite the aggressive air conditioning. His CFO won't meet my eyes. Good.
"Mr. Hale," Chen begins, his voice steady but his hands betraying him with a slight tremor. "I appreciate your interest in our company, but I'm not sure—"
"Let me save us both time, Mr. Chen." I open the folder in front of me with deliberate slowness.
"You're drowning. Three major clients pulled their contracts in the last quarter.
Your production facility in Indonesia is operating at sixty percent capacity.
Your line of credit comes due in forty-seven days, and you don't have the cash reserves to cover it. "
His face goes white. "How did you—"
"I make it my business to know things." I slide a document across the polished mahogany.
"This is my offer. I acquire sixty percent of your company at the current market value—which, let's be honest, is generous given your situation.
You remain as CEO with full operational control. Your employees keep their jobs."
"Sixty percent?" His CFO finally speaks up. "That's—"
"Non-negotiable." I let the silence stretch, watching them squirm.
This is the part I've learned to savor—not the victory itself, but the moment before.
The instant when they realize they have no choice.
"You have forty-eight hours to decide. After that, I withdraw the offer and let nature take its course. "
"And what happens then?" Chen asks quietly.
I meet his eyes with perfect calm. "Then your creditors call in their loans.
Your remaining clients—the ones I haven't already contacted—find other suppliers.
Your facility closes. Two hundred and thirty-seven people lose their jobs right before the holidays.
" I pause. "But that's not really my concern, is it? It's yours."
The CFO looks like he might be sick. Chen's hands are fisted on the table, knuckles white.
"You're a bastard," Chen says.
"Yes." I stand, buttoning my suit jacket. "But I'm a bastard offering you a lifeline. Take it or don't. I have three other textile suppliers I can acquire if you'd prefer to be stubborn."
The lie comes easily. There are no other suppliers—not that meet my needs. But Chen doesn't need to know that. He needs to believe he's replaceable, that his pride costs more than his survival.
I'm at the door when he speaks.
"Why?" His voice is hollow. "Why my company specifically?"
I turn back, and for a moment, I consider telling him the truth. That I need his company because Eve Sinclair uses his fabrics. That I'm going to have him cancel her largest order, creating a crisis that will drive her toward me.
That he's not a business opportunity. He's a chess piece in a much larger game.
But I don't. I never reveal more than necessary.
"Because I can," I say simply, and leave him sitting there with his defeat.
***
Bjorn is waiting by the car, his face impassive as always.
"How did it go?" he asks as I slide into the back seat.
"He'll accept." I loosen my tie, feeling the familiar hollowness that follows these meetings. "They always do."
"You didn't enjoy that."
It's not a question. Bjorn has been with me long enough to read the micro-expressions I don't show anyone else.
"No," I admit. "But it's necessary."
"For Miss Sinclair."
"For Eve."
He doesn't comment on my use of her first name. Doesn't point out that I've never called her that before, not out loud. Just nods and gives the driver the address for my private gym.
I need to hit something.
***
The gym is empty—I pay extra to ensure it is when I'm here. My trainer, Bryan, is already waiting, wrapping his hands with practiced efficiency.
"Mr. Hale." He's ex-military, built like a tank, and one of the few people I trust to actually hit me back. "The usual?"
"No." I strip off my jacket and tie, my movements sharp. "I want to spar. Full contact."
His eyebrows raise slightly. "Sir, you seem—"
"Full contact, Bryan. Don't hold back."
Something flickers in his eyes—concern, maybe, or recognition that I'm not in the right headspace for this. But he nods and moves to the ring.
I should stretch. Should warm up properly. But the restless energy coiling through my muscles demands release now.
The first round starts, and I'm too aggressive. I know it immediately. My punches are wild, fueled by something darker than strategy. Bryan blocks easily, counters with a jab that catches my ribs.
Good. I want it to hurt.
"Focus, Mr. Hale," he says calmly.
I ignore him and press forward. Another combination, sloppy. He slips past my guard and lands a solid hit to my jaw. My head snaps back, and I taste blood.
Better.
We circle each other, and I see the calculation in his eyes. He's wondering if he should ease up, if I'm actually trying to get hurt.
Maybe I am.
I think of Chen's face. The fear. The resignation. The way I crushed him without remorse because he was in the way of what I wanted.
I think of Eve, sleeping peacefully in her apartment, unaware that I've just set in motion the destruction of one of her key business relationships.
I think of the note she left me. "You have my attention."
And I wonder—when she finally knows the full extent of what I've done, will she still look at me with anything but horror?
The distraction costs me. Bryan's fist connects with my cheekbone, hard enough to make my vision blur. I stumble back, catching myself on the ropes.
"Mr. Hale—"
I charge at him, abandoning all technique. Just raw aggression, the need to feel something other than this gnawing emptiness. He blocks, counters, and suddenly I'm on my back on the mat, his knee on my chest, his forearm across my throat.
Not enough pressure to choke. Just enough to restrain.
We both breathe hard for a moment.
"You want to tell me what that was about?" he asks quietly.
"No."
"You're going to hurt yourself if you keep this up."
"Maybe I should."
He releases me and stands, offering a hand. I take it, letting him pull me to my feet. My face is throbbing. My ribs ache. It's not enough.
"Hit me again," I say.
"Mr. Hale—"
"That's an order, Bryan. Hit me."
He studies me for a long moment. Then, carefully: "No, sir."
The refusal shocks me more than any punch could. "Excuse me?"
"I'm not going to beat up a client who's clearly punishing himself for something." He starts unwrapping his hands. "Whatever you did, whatever you're planning—hurting yourself won't fix it."
"You don't know what I'm planning."
"No," he agrees. He collects his gear and heads for the door, pausing at the threshold. "But I know what guilt looks like. And I know the difference between a man training and a man trying to bleed out his demons."
Then he's gone, leaving me alone in the empty gym, bleeding and breathless and no closer to absolution.
I shower in the gym's private facilities, watching blood swirl down the drain. My face is already swelling—there'll be a bruise by tomorrow. Good. Maybe external pain will distract from the internal kind.
Bjorn is waiting when I emerge, his expression carefully neutral, even though I know he sees the damage.
"Home?" he asks.
"Yes."
The drive back is silent. I close my eyes and see Chen's face. See the two hundred and thirty-seven employees who'll lose their jobs if he doesn't accept my offer. See the ripple effects of my actions spreading outward like cracks in ice.
This is what I am. This is what I've become.
A man who destroys lives to build his empire. Who manipulates and controls and justifies it all with pretty words about protection.
Eve deserves better than this.
But I can't stop. Won't stop. She's mine, and I will have her, regardless of the cost.
Even if the cost is my own humanity.
***
The penthouse is dark when I return. I don't turn on the lights. Just pour myself a whiskey I won't drink and move to the observation room.
The monitors glow softly in the darkness, twelve screens showing different angles of her life. I sink into my chair and pull up the bedroom feed.
She's already asleep, curled on her side, one hand tucked under her pillow. The sight of her—peaceful, safe, unaware of the monster watching from the shadows—makes my chest tight.
I zoom in carefully, watching the gentle rise and fall of her chest. The moonlight catches the curve of her shoulder, the soft fullness of her breast visible above the sheet. Her usual braid dark across the white pillowcase.
My knuckles are split and swelling from the fight. I flex my fingers, feeling the sting. The pain grounds me, reminds me I'm real, that this is real.
That I'm choosing this.
Every day, I choose this. Choose the obsession over sanity. Choose possession over freedom—hers and mine. Choose to be the monster rather than walk away.
On the screen, Eve shifts in her sleep, her lips parting slightly. She's dreaming. I wonder what she dreams about. If I appear in those dreams as a shadow at the edge, a presence she can't quite name.
Soon, I think. Soon I won't be a shadow anymore.
Soon, she'll know exactly who I am. What I am. What I've done.
And she'll have to choose—the man who destroyed her life, or the freedom I've systematically taken from her.
I already know which one she'll choose. I've made sure of it.
The guilt that always follows these thoughts settles over me like a familiar coat. I've worn it so long I barely notice the weight anymore.
I watch her sleep for another hour, my split knuckles throbbing, my face aching, my chest hollow with the certainty of my own damnation.
Then I force myself to turn away and pull up different files. Financial records. Business plans. The intricate web of control I've been weaving around her life for five years.
But tonight, the satisfaction is missing. Tonight, I just feel tired.
I don't know what makes me open the old photos. Maybe it's the pain. Maybe it's the guilt. Maybe it's the desperate need to remember a time when I was someone else.
Someone better.
The files are buried deep in my system, password-protected, rarely accessed. Photos from before the accident. Alex and me at seventeen, grinning at a football game. The Sinclair family at their kitchen table, Alex's parents smiling, Eve laughing at something her brother said.
My eyes linger on my face staring back at me from the picture.
I looked so different then. I wore my hair long, was dressed in baggy skater clothes, skinny to the bone.
My hair is short now, my clothes are top-end designer suits, my body muscular.
I've even changed my name, because I refused to have my father's.
In short, I'm unrecognizable.
I flip through the pictures. I was happy then. Genuinely, carelessly happy, in a way I haven't been since.
There's one of me and Alex in his garage, working on his dad's old Mustang. We're both covered in grease, laughing at something. Alex has his arm slung around my shoulders, and the look on my face is pure contentment.
I had a family then. Not by blood, but by choice. The Sinclairs took me in without question, fed me dinner three nights a week, and let me sleep on their couch when my father's rages got too bad.
They saved me. And I destroyed them.
Another photo: Alex's kitchen. Mrs. Sinclair at the stove, Mr. Sinclair reading the paper. Alex stealing a cookie. And there, at the table, Eve with paint on her fingers and a sketchbook in front of her.
She's looking up at the camera—at me, I realize. I must have been the one taking the picture. Her expression is open, curious, without the walls she has now.
I did this. I'm the reason those walls exist.
The weight in my chest becomes unbearable. I close the file and sit in the darkness, surrounded by screens showing the woman I've claimed and photographs of the boy I used to be.
I pull up the live feed again. Eve is still sleeping, peaceful and beautiful and utterly unaware of the monster in her life.
"I'm sorry," I whisper to the empty room.
But I'm not sorry enough to stop.
I never am.