Chapter 228: Delusions
Christian Velloran stood in the center of his study, the once-pristine room now thick with the stench of his rage. His pheromones, sharp as iron and heavy as smoke, rolled across the marble floor in waves, curling into the velvet drapes and suffocating even the guards outside the door. One of the maids had fainted. A steward had vomited. Still, no one dared interrupt.
His hands were braced against the edge of his desk, head bowed, dark hair a mess over his brow, silver eyes blazing with something far too violent to name. The air shimmered around him.
The documents scattered across the desk weren’t just bad, they were insulting.
Two foreign firms had pulled out of multi-year investments. A shipping line, once loyal to House Velloran, had switched allegiance to the Fitzgeralts overnight. Even a minor energy contract, nothing more than a signature and a nod, had been revoked with a single letter from Trevor’s office.
Not his name. Not a threat.
Just his seal.
Christian’s lips curled in a silent snarl. He could almost see Trevor’s face. That smug bastard hadn’t even lifted a sword.
He was bleeding Christian out with paper cuts.
"Do you know," he said aloud, though no one had spoken, "how many years it took to build those connections?"
The aide closest to him, a beta barely out of his twenties, didn’t answer. Couldn’t. He was shaking too hard to speak, one hand pressed to the wall to stay upright under the weight of the alpha’s aura.
Christian didn’t care. His gaze dropped to the open folder before him. Photographs. Transcripts. The latest courier had been thorough.
Lucas.