Page 8 of Goldrage (The Chrysophilist Trilogy #3)

CHAPTER SIX

JULIAN

T he oak paneling of Father’s old office presses in from all sides, the dark wood absorbing what little natural light filters through the heavy curtains.

This office doesn’t have the same memories as the one at the penthouse, but it’s similar with its imposing desk and collection of Persian rugs.

There are too many wood surfaces. Flashes of gold leaves here and there.

The main differences are the animal heads hung in corners—trophies from my father’s hunts, their glass eyes watching me with accusation.

As I sit behind the mahogany desk, I stare into the beady eyes of a dead gray wolf.

Lucian did always believe that all living things eventually submit to superior power.

Gives me the fucking creeps.

But whether I’m getting creeped out here or at the penthouse, business still has to be taken care of.

My temples pound with each decision demanded of me.

Sign this. Approve that. Choose who lives and who disappears into the Puget Sound.

The weight of it all crushes down on me until I can barely breathe.

I thought all the years pounding faces at The Den would keep my shoulders strong, but they’re fucking weak under the weight of all this.

I push back from the desk and all the goddamn paperwork.

My gaze shifts to the security monitors mounted in the corner.

There are two dozen feeds showing different angles of the estate, different rooms and hallways.

One screen shows Adrian’s room. My brother is lying as still as death on that hospital bed, wrists bound by chains the doctor insisted we remove.

For his recovery , the man had pleaded. As if I give a fuck about medical opinions when it comes to keeping my brother exactly where I need him.

If I remove those chains right now, my brother will run. I can’t have that. His closeness, the gentle rise and fall of his chest that shows he’s alive, is the only thing keeping me from putting a bullet in my skull.

Still… relief mingles with resentment until they’re one combined ache, two sides of the same poisoned coin. He’s alive. He chose her over me. He’s here. He lied to me. The thoughts chase each other like rabid dogs.

I abandon the desk and my responsibilities completely and move to the window, drawn by the afternoon light spilling across Mother’s rose garden.

Across the stone terrace, I can see dozens of roses in full bloom, arranged in patterns that Mother once tended to obsessively.

The blooms are the complete definition of deception: beauty that hides thorns sharp enough to draw blood, just like this estate.

Beautiful on the surface but designed for suffering beneath .

Something’s been gnawing at me. A few days ago, when I wheeled Adrian to the terrace, I watched Mother embrace him.

Though it’s clear some things have changed about my brother, he’s always been receptive to our mom.

He’s always hugged her back, softened into her.

Even if it was only briefly before Lucian noticed.

But on that terrace, I saw something different.

A flinch.

It was so subtle anyone else would’ve missed it.

A mere tightening of his shoulders, a slight pulling away from her touch before he caught himself.

But I know my brothers tells better than my own reflection.

Adrian has always been good at holding in emotion and horrible at faking it.

We’re opposites in that way. It was always easier for Adrian to remain detached and neutral than to try to fake something he didn’t feel.

That’s why the flinch is bothering me.

Why did he flinch? What real emotion broke through in that second?

Why isn’t he grateful to be reunited with the only parent who ever showed us kindness?

Maybe he’s worried about how he hurt Mother; he did let himself get manipulated by a whore and then faked his own death.

Then he let Aurelia try to pin it on Mom.

I still don’t understand how Aurelia got into his head so deeply, but our mother is forgiving and just happy to have her sons reunited. Adrian doesn’t need to fear any wrath.

I return to the monitors. Adrian has shifted on the bed, his face now turned toward the wall. At first, I think he’s still asleep, until I notice the slight shake in his shoulders. I reach for the volume control.

The sound that fills the office is more disturbing than anything else that’s been happening.

Sobs. Deep, body-shaking sobs that tear from my brother’s chest like something clawing its way free.

The chains rattle with each shudder, and he sounds like a pathetic child whimpering in the dark.

This isn’t Adrian. This can’t be Adrian.

My brother doesn’t break—he endures. He strategizes.

He maintains that fucking perfect composure even when the world burns around him.

But there he is, coming apart at the seams over?—

My hand finds the whiskey decanter before I realize I’ve moved.

I don’t bother with a glass; I drink it straight from the container.

It burns but it can’t wash away the wrongness of what I’m seeing.

I’ve watched Adrian take beatings that would’ve killed lesser men.

Seen him stitch his own wounds with steady hands while blood pooled at his feet.

Not once—not fucking once —has he ever cried like this.

She’s not worth your tears, brother.

I try to summon the hatred that’s kept me upright these past weeks.

Aurelia was a manipulator who destroyed everything, a liar who played us both for fools.

But the image of her that surfaces is like an ambush.

I remember Aurelia at sixteen, the sunlight caught in those wild curls as she laughed at something I’d said.

Then her nose crinkled when her smile grew too wide.

She’d looked at me like I hung the fucking moon, like I was more than just Lucian Harrow’s spare son .

My chest constricts as grief threatens to force its way up my throat. For one treacherous moment, I feel her absence like I lost a limb, and I worry I might cry like a fucking child, just like my brother.

No.

I slam the decanter down hard enough to make liquid slosh out the top. Rage is easier than grief, safer than admitting I might have—that maybe I didn’t need to?—

No! Fucking whore.

She deserved what she got. The thought feels like a lie, but I cling to it.

She conspired with Adrian behind my back.

Manipulated him. She would’ve put a bullet in Mother’s head given half a chance.

She lied with every breath, every touch, every whispered promise in the dark. She betrayed everything we?—

She looked at me like I was worth something.

Fuck this. I can’t breathe. I can’t think past the confusion that tangles everything into knots.

She was a woman who killed in cold blood.

And she held me when the pain of being Lucian’s son leaked out.

She was the enemy who threatened my family.

And the only person who ever saw past the Harrow name to find something human underneath.

I return to the desk and smash my finger on the intercom button. “Send my mother to the office.”

I pound my chest, forcing all emotions down. These emotions are lies.

While I wait, I guzzle more whiskey until my hands stop shaking.

The monitor draws my gaze like a magnet.

Adrian’s grief plays out in high definition, every shudder and broken breath captured by the camera, documenting his destruction.

His pain reverberates through me, resonating with spots of weakness I’m desperately trying to drown.

I’ll never see her again.

I hate myself for the way my chest caves in from the truth of it. No more fire in those green eyes. No more defiant lift of her chin when the world tried to break her. No more?—

“You wanted to see me, dear?”

My back is to the door, so I quickly wipe away a fucking tear before turning around.

Mother glides into the office like she owns the air, her black silk dress somehow killing more light than this creepy office.

The rugs silence her footsteps as she approaches, and my gaze snags on the emerald necklace circling her throat.

The stones throw green sparks on the floor that remind me of?—

Fuck. That’s Aurelia’s necklace. I don’t know where Aurelia got it, but I remember her wearing it the day I attacked Lorenzo’s estate.

My heart clenches so violently I have to look away. Shit, why am I so weak? I’m Julian fucking Harrow. I don’t mourn traitors. I don’t grieve for women who chose my brother over me.

I clear my throat and straighten my spine until it’s as rigid as steel. “How did you do it?” The question comes out flat, stripped of everything I’m feeling. “How did you kill her?”

Mother smiles. “Does it matter? She’s gone, just as you wanted. ”

“I want to know.”

She sighs like I’m a child asking tedious questions.

“I had our men take her to the warehouse. A bullet to the head. It was quick and clean.” She moves to the bar, pouring herself some wine with movements that are too casual for discussing murder.

“I considered something more elaborate, but efficiency seemed prudent.”

The whiskey turns to acid in my stomach. Quick. Clean. As if Aurelia could ever be reduced to something so simple.

“Where’s the body?” I watch her carefully, paying attention to every micro-expression. “I want to see it.”

“Whatever for?”

I can’t tell her about the hollow ache spreading through my chest like a virus. And I’ll never admit I need to see Aurelia one last time, need to look at her face and convince myself this was right, that I made the only choice that mattered. That I chose family over—over whatever the fuck we were.

“Just answer the question.”

Her eyes narrow to slits, and for a moment I glimpse something cold behind the mother who’s always taken care of me. “It’s been disposed of. These matters require discretion, Julian. You know that.”

“Disposed of how?”

“We burned it.” The words crack like a whip, her composure finally breaking. Her tone has bite. “Really, Julian, this obsession with that girl needs to stop. She’s dead. Focus on what matters. Your brother is back, and we’re a family again. Now, is there anything else?”

I sigh. “No. You can go.” I turn back to the monitors before she’s even reached the door. Her heels click down the hallway, fading like Aurelia will. Eventually.

She fucking burned the woman I once loved?

Reduced to ash and smoke. Nothing left to bury, nothing left to mourn.

Why does that hurt more?

I slap my cheek. Then again.

Grow some fucking balls.

Adrian has stopped crying, but what remains might be worse.

He’s staring at the ceiling now with eyes so empty they could be glass, reflecting nothing, feeling nothing.

I recognize that look—it’s the same one that greets me in every mirror.

That void inside me… I think it’s eaten whatever used to make me human.

But that’s what the Consortium needs, isn’t it? Lucian took what had been given to him as a young man and grew it into a living thing that thrived beyond anyone’s hopes. And, in his own fucked-up way, he showed me exactly how to maintain it.

I’ve fed it my soul; that’s the only way.

The whiskey calls again, and I answer, pouring until the crystal threatens to overflow. But no amount of alcohol can touch the real pain; it doesn’t even come close to numbing what shouldn’t exist in the first place.

Aurelia is gone. I’ll never see those curls catch fire in the sunlight again. Never feel her body arch against mine as I push into her wetness. Never hear her laugh—that sound that could make me forget my own name, forget everything except the need to hear it again.

But… these feelings are only remnants of my old self as it continues to wither. They don’t have to weigh me down. They can just sit there, ignored.

My fingers move across the security console, switching to wider views of the estate.

There are guards at every entrance and enough firepower to fuel a small Army outpost. This fortress, hidden behind a forest and protected by walls that have witnessed unspeakable acts, is what matters now—keeping Adrian safe.

Soon, I’ll make him understand that this is home, that we belong together in this house where our father taught us both what power truly means.

My vision for the future is simple: Adrian and me, standing side by side at the head of the Consortium.

His strategic brilliance balanced by my willingness to do what needs to be done.

Brothers united, fucking unstoppable. No more lies, no more divided loyalties.

Just us against a world that would devour us separately but can never touch us together.

He’ll understand eventually. We’re family. We’re all that matters now.

I finish my drink and ignore the voice that whispers from some deep, disobedient place inside me. It wants to know if I’ve made the worst mistake of my life. Has more than just her body been burned? Have I incinerated the last part of me that knew how to feel anything beyond this void?

The whiskey has no answer. Neither does Adrian.

Neither do I.