Shackled To The Enemy King

Catherine didn’t stop her. She simply sat there, her silence saying more than resistance ever could.

Sammy’s expression changed as she read. The casual edge slipped first, then the faint irritation, until there was nothing left but stillness. Her grip tightened slightly around the phone, her eyes moving faster now, as if hoping to find something in the words that would undo what she had already understood.

But there was no undoing it.

Her lashes trembled.

And then her eyes filled.

"Aunt Cathy..." her voice broke, small and fragile in a way Catherine had never heard before. "What is this?"

Catherine swallowed, forcing her voice to steady even as something heavy settled in her chest. "Your dad is worried," she said quietly. "Now that Caleb is getting married... and I have a boyfriend..." She paused, choosing her words carefully, though none of them felt right. "He’s worried about you, Sammy."

Sammy looked at her, something sharp and searching in her tear-filled gaze. "Did you read this?"

Catherine shook her head slightly. "Not fully."

There was a brief pause before Sammy handed the phone back, her movements slower now, as if the act itself took effort.

Catherine took the phone back, her fingers steady even as something inside her had already begun to shift. This time, she didn’t skim. She read it properly—every word, every detail, every carefully documented truth that had been hidden until now. And with each line, the weight of it pressed deeper, settling into something dense and suffocating.

By the time she reached the end, the silence in the room had changed. It was no longer just quiet—it was heavy, laden with everything that had just come to light, everything that should have been said long ago and wasn’t.

Derek.

Even the name felt different now.

The man Samantha had loved, defended, believed in—he had never existed the way she thought he did. The life he had painted was nothing more than a carefully constructed illusion. He wasn’t thirty. He wasn’t British. He wasn’t self-made or charmingly ambitious or tragically misunderstood.

He was thirty-eight.

He had grown up in the foster system. He had married twice before. Both women were wealthy. Both women died under circumstances that had been labeled "mysterious" until someone had finally looked closely enough to question it.

And each time... He had walked away with their money.

Samantha was not special.

She was next.

Catherine’s grip on the phone tightened slightly, her jaw setting as she read that line again. Third mark. As though it were nothing more than a sequence. A pattern. A plan.

Apparently, it was Alexander who first saw through him. The brothers had confronted Derek during the hunting trip, in an isolated and controlled place where there would be no audience, no escape.

And Derek had folded, not out of remorse or guilt, but out of fear.

In exchange for his life, he had confessed to everything. And despite Bobby’s objections, because of course Bobby would have wanted to end him, they had handed him over to the police.

Two families had finally received the truth. Two families had closure.

And Derek had been sentenced to two life terms six months ago.

Catherine’s eyes lingered on that detail, something sharp flickering beneath her composure. Two years that Samantha had lived in confusion. In heartbreak. In unanswered questions and misplaced grief for a man who had never deserved it.

Her gaze lifted slowly, drifting toward Sammy, who was still crumbling quietly beside her, unaware that the depth of her betrayal ran far deeper than she had ever imagined.

They hadn’t told her.

Not while the case was ongoing. Not after. Not even when it was over.

Because they hadn’t trusted her.

Didn’t trust her to stay away from him. Didn’t trust her to see through him. Didn’t trust her to choose herself over whatever hold he had managed to carve into her heart.

Catherine exhaled softly, her expression tightening just slightly, with something that sat uncomfortably between understanding and disagreement.

She knew why they had done it.

She knew the fear behind it. The caution. The instinct to protect.

But still...

She couldn’t help thinking that Samantha would have understood.

That if they had told her the truth, fully and honestly, she would have listened. That she would have walked away with her dignity intact, with clarity instead of confusion.

Instead, they had left her to grieve a lie.

And now, that lie had shattered all at once.

Catherine reached out, her hand gently smoothing over Sammy’s hair, her touch quiet, grounding, as if trying to anchor her to something real in the middle of everything that had just unraveled.

Some truths protected.

And some... Arrived far too late.

She looked at Sammy.

"Are you okay?" she asked softly.

It was a futile question. They both knew it.

Sammy didn’t answer with words. Instead, she leaned into Catherine, her head falling against her shoulder as the first sob broke free—raw, unrestrained, and painfully real.

"I loved him so much, Aunt Cathy..." she cried, her voice shaking with the force of it. "I don’t think I could ever love anyone like that again..."

Catherine closed her eyes briefly, her hand coming up to gently pat Sammy’s back, slow and grounding, even as her own heart tightened at the sound of that kind of grief.

"I’m sorry, Sammy..." she murmured.

Sammy let out a broken breath, pulling back just enough to look at her, her expression crumpling. "Why are you apologizing for what he did?"

Catherine didn’t have an answer for that.

Maybe because someone should.

Maybe because apologies had been withheld where they were owed.

"I don’t know why your father kept this from you for so long," she said instead, her voice gentler now, threaded with quiet frustration. "You deserved to know."

Sammy didn’t respond.

She simply broke again, the sobs returning, heavier this time, as though the truth, now that it had finally surfaced, had taken everything in her with it.

As Catherine sat with Sammy, letting her cry, letting her speak in broken fragments that barely held together, her hand moved in slow, soothing circles along her back. She murmured when needed, stayed silent when words would only intrude, and offered the kind of presence that didn’t try to fix grief, only to hold it.

But even as she anchored Sammy through the storm unraveling inside her, Catherine’s own thoughts had begun to drift elsewhere.

Maximilian.

And Joanne.

A quiet tension settled beneath her calm exterior, tightening with every passing second. She knew enough to understand that what Joanne was planning... if it reached its end unchecked, it wouldn’t just wound Maximilian, it would dismantle him, piece by piece, until there was nothing left of the man he had built himself to be.

Catherine’s fingers stilled briefly against Sammy’s shoulder.

She needed to act.

Soon.

Because if she waited too long, there would be nothing left to protect.

—

Outside, on the patio, the atmosphere was no less tense.

Caleb sat back in his chair, his posture stiff with irritation, his expression still carrying that stubborn edge of defiance that refused to soften even now. Jonathan stood across from him, his patience thinning, though he still attempted restraint.

"He couldn’t do his job properly, and now he’s blaming Catherine for it," William cut in, his voice sharper, less forgiving.

Jonathan had heard enough by then. He exhaled slowly, running a hand through his hair before fixing Caleb with a steady, disappointed gaze. "Do you even understand how serious this is?" he asked, his tone no longer questioning, but firm.

Caleb, however, remained unmoved.

"He’s not even educated enough to think about suing us," he said dismissively, as though the matter were nothing more than a trivial inconvenience. "I’m trying to save the compensation money."

The moment the words left his mouth, the air shifted.

Jonathan’s restraint snapped first. William followed, his temper far less contained, his frustration no longer disguised behind composure. They didn’t raise their voices unnecessarily, but the weight of their disapproval was unmistakable.

Maximilian watched it all unfold in silence.

What struck him wasn’t just the anger—it was the intention behind it.

Jonathan spoke to Caleb as though he were his own son, out of something that resembled responsibility. William’s frustration wasn’t just about the mistake—it was about what Caleb was becoming if left unchecked.

It was... unfamiliar.

Maximilian had grown up in a family where uncles criticized freely, where judgment came easily—but care rarely followed. Correction had never felt like guidance. It had felt like dismissal.

But here... Even in conflict, there was something else beneath it.

And yet, Caleb refused to listen.

He argued. Deflected. Justified. Spoke of plans for the ranch as though ambition could overwrite accountability, as though intention mattered more than consequence.

It didn’t.

And William made that clear.

"You’re not the safety officer anymore," he said finally, his tone final, leaving no room for negotiation. "Tomorrow, I’ll assign you elsewhere."

That was the end of it.

At least, it should have been.

But Caleb didn’t take it quietly.

His jaw tightened, his eyes flicking toward Maximilian, irritation sharpening into something more personal now—resentment at being reprimanded in front of an outsider, humiliation he didn’t know how to process without turning it into anger.

Jonathan and William didn’t seem to care.

And perhaps that stung more than anything else.

With a sharp exhale, Caleb pushed his chair back and stood abruptly, turning to leave without another word.

"Stop."

The single word cut through the space with quiet authority.

Caleb halted, his shoulders stiffening as he turned back, clearly already bracing for another confrontation.

Maximilian stepped forward, unhurried, deliberate. There was no raised voice, no outward aggression, but something in the way he carried himself shifted the air just enough to make the moment feel heavier.

"Next time you think of raising your voice at my lady," he said calmly, though his hands had already curled into fists, the subtle roll of his sleeves betraying the tension beneath that composure, "make sure you have the best oral surgeon on call."

The threat was quiet.

Precise.

And unmistakably real.

For a moment, Caleb said nothing. His expression darkened, a retort clearly forming—but then his gaze flicked past Maximilian, landing on Jonathan and William.

And whatever he saw there... made him swallow it.

With a low, frustrated grumble, he turned and stormed off, the sound of his footsteps echoing sharper than before.

The patio fell into silence.