Chapter 10. Poison in Polished Glass
The morning sun was sharp, too bright, too clean, as if mocking the shadows Elara now carried within her.
She sat at the breakfast table, untouched toast on her plate, coffee gone cold. Across from her, Damien skimmed through the financial section of the paper, every movement precise and casual. Deliberate. Controlled.
As if the world wasn’t unraveling thread by thread.
"I need to ask you something," she said, voice low.
He didn’t look up. "Ask."
"Did your mother know about the collapse of Vance Corp?"
His hands paused on the edge of the paper. A flicker of tension.
Then: "She knows many things."
"That’s not an answer."
"She was on the board at the time. She saw the numbers. She made calls." He finally met her eyes. "What exactly do you want to know, Elara? That she helped orchestrate the fall of your family’s empire? That maybe your mother wasn’t the only one pulling strings behind your back?"
"I want the truth."