Page 18 of The Lies Of Omission (Without Limits #3)

THEO

I sat across from my father in the same leather chair I’d sat in since I was ten—too small for the room back then, too big for it now.

The office hadn’t changed. Heavy books that were never read.

Portraits of men in oil paint who passed down their names like swords.

The weight of a dynasty pressed in from every corner.

No matter how much I grew, how well I learned to wear the Astor name like armor, I still felt like a child in this room. Because I wasn’t being raised—I was being sculpted. Into an heir. A symbol. A move on someone else’s board.

My father steepled his fingers and observed me like a man studying an asset that wasn’t performing. The fine lines on his face deepened as his eyes cut through me. No preamble. No hello. Just silence like a blade.

“I should’ve had you dragged in by your collar,” he said finally, his voice like ice over fire. “You ignored nine of my calls. Nine. ”

“I was busy,” I said, my tone calm, practiced. But my pulse was screaming.

“Oh, you were busy .” He leaned forward, each word clipped with fury. “Too busy to manage the single most delicate deal I’ve handed you in two years? Too busy to answer me while the fucking Ballantynes were walking away from the table?”

I said nothing.

He stood abruptly, slamming a fist onto the desk so hard I flinched. The scotch in his glass jumped.

“You had Elias Ballantyne removed from the country club, Theo. Dragged out like a goddamn criminal. You humiliated him.”

“He assaulted Si—” I cut myself off, trying to reorder the chaos inside my head. “He assaulted a staff member!”

“I don’t give a single fuck!” he exploded, voice a whipcrack through the silence. “You let your emotions burn down a merger that’s been two years in the making. Two years . Do you even begin to comprehend how that reflects on this family? On me ?”

His face went red, rage crawling up his throat like fire. The calm, polished mask he wore in boardrooms and banquets was gone, fractured and tossed to the floor.

“We’ve been over this already, father?—”

“And we’ll go through it again and again until it gets through your thick fucking skull!” he bellowed, his voice raw and venomous. “Because clearly, you don’t understand the scale of the disaster you’ve unleashed. You don’t grasp what you’ve cost us. What you’ve cost me. ”

My head dropped forward, chin pressing to my chest as I clenched my fists, forcing the tide of fury inside me to stay down. Inhale. Exhale. Don’t give him more ammunition.

His voice cut through me like a blade. “You think I built this empire on good intentions? On clean hands and fair play?” His laugh was harsh, bitter.

“Respect isn’t inherited like wealth. It’s bought.

Every goddamned day, with blood and leverage and ruthlessness.

” He moved closer. I felt the heat of him, towering, seething.

“You don’t win by being good, Theo. You win by being undeniable.

And right now, all you’ve proven is that you’re not ready to carry my name, let alone my legacy. ”

“You didn’t build anything,” I said calmly through clenched teeth but shaking inside. “You took what Grandpa gave you. You married Mom—” I froze. That flicker in his eyes was rage, not regret.

“I married your mother because she was a strategic alliance.” His voice sounded like granite. “And she understood her role. That’s why she stayed relevant.”

“You didn’t love her?” I asked more to myself than him. “You don’t love anyone.”

He laughed. Cold. Contemptuous. “Love? Love is for people who die broke. Love is a weakness dressed up as poetry. You want to build a kingdom, Theo? You sacrifice. You play your part.”

“And if I don’t?” The words were out before they even registered.

He came around the desk in two strides, stopping inches from me. I could feel the heat rolling off him.

“Then I tear it all away,” his voice dropped to a venomous whisper. “I’ll gut your trust fund. Cut you out of the estate. Out of the companies. The foundations. Your precious club. I make one call and the board will turn their backs on you like the bad investment you are.”

I stared at him. He wasn’t bluffing. The truth was etched into every line of his red face.

“I gave you everything,” he growled. “The name. The spotlight. The legacy. And you repay me by bedding the help and tanking our future over feelings ?”

My throat clenched.

“I know everything,” he added, cruelly. “You think people haven’t noticed? Think I haven’t heard the whispers from donors and partners who are suddenly concerned about your moral compass? About your ‘friendships’ with staff?”

He took another step, his voice like a knife pressed to my throat.

“You think this world will protect you without me? Without this name?” He leaned closer. “You are nothing without the Astor legacy. Just another spoiled rich boy playing rebel while daddy foots the bill.”

He let that hang in the air, poisonous and absolute.

“You want love?” he hissed. “Go home to your fucking cat. You want to survive? Then act like it .”

I said nothing. I Couldn’t. My nails dug into my palms to stop the shaking.

He spun back toward the window. “There are plans underway,” he continued, like he hadn’t rocked the foundations beneath me. “Quiet, for now. But the family expects a formal commitment within the year.”

“A what?”

His words flowed like he hadn’t heard me. “We’re finalizing the list of suitable options. Families with lineage. Assets. Clean reputations.”

“You’re serious.”

“I’m never anything else,” he said. “Marriage is a transaction. Business. Always has been. And yours will be no different.”

I stood, the burn rising in my chest. “So I’m just another move to consolidate power?”

He looked at me like I was being childish. “You’re the culmination of decades of positioning. Your life is already paid for in full. Your job is to protect the investment.”

“And if I don’t?”

He leaned forward, his tone sharpening to something lethal. “You think the world cares about your heartbreak? Your fuck toy in some hidden guesthouse?” His voice dropped to a whisper, razor-sharp. “You think you matter without me ?”

My breath caught in my throat.

That was when I stopped listening. The rest of his words blurred into white noise. I don’t remember what I said. What I meant to say. What I should have said.

His voice had barely faded when something inside me snapped like a violin string pulled too tight. The air turned brittle. My skin went cold. My ears roared with blood and shame and everything I didn’t know how to name.

I don’t remember walking out. Didn’t say goodbye. Just... the hallway blurring around me, fluorescent lights buzzing like insects, and the bone-deep certainty that if I stayed in that building a second longer—I’d vanish.

The SUV was cold as I leaned against it, chest heaving like I’d run miles. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking. I pressed my palms against the cold metal and tipped my head back to the stars, begging for silence. For peace.

My mind flashed back to earlier today when I’d pulled Sin into the cleaning closet. He tasted like freedom. Like danger. The only real thing I’d ever touched. And I’d just left him standing there. Spent. Waiting. Wanting.

All I could hear was his voice. “Still think this means nothing?” God help me, it meant everything.

Since the moment Sinclair blew into town like a match across dry kindling, I’d been unraveling. Everything I’d buried—years of hunger, rage, longing—had risen to the surface like a tidal wave I couldn’t outrun. I wasn’t sure I wanted to anymore.

My whole life had been spent in servitude to a legacy I never chose. The Astor name was a straightjacket with a silk lining—every move curated, every friendship strategic, every expression filtered through a lens of power and preservation.

I wasn’t a person. I was a product.

They taught me how to lead. How to dominate a room. How to crush a weakness before it festered.

But no one ever taught me how to want.

How to feel.

Unlike others from my world, I never even had friends—just competitors and future allies. Everyone I met measured me against what I could offer them. My mother gave me affection like a well-timed pill, just enough to dull the edge but never cure the ache. And my father... well, he made me a weapon.

The only warmth in my life came from Winston. And he couldn’t answer the question I’d been choking on for years:

Who am I, when I’m not theirs?

Then Sin happened. Cracked my armor with one smirk, one touch, one moan whispered into my neck like salvation.

He never asked for permission. Never bowed or played along.

He looked at me—really looked—and saw someone other than the heir to an empire.

And now his scent clung to my skin like smoke.

I could still taste him, still feel his pulse pounding through the heat of his release in my hand.

I could still hear the quiet devastation in his voice when I walked away.

I hated how much I wanted this. I’d said that. I’d meant it.

But the truth I couldn’t say?

I’ve never wanted anything more.

And I was going to lose him. In a few months, my engagement would be announced. A strategic union. A path to office. Another chain. I’d be forced back to suits and cameras and perfectly crafted speeches.

Sin would move on—maybe to someone who could love him out loud, someone who didn’t flinch from touch like it burned. But before that? I’d take every second I could. I’d steal his laugh, his heat, his mercy. I’d brand his name across my soul like a final act of rebellion.

Because when the cage door slammed shut, and the Astor name swallowed me whole… He’d be the one real thing I ever chose.

My secret sin.

My only freedom.

At least then I’d have the memories of a time when I thought dreams could come true.