Page 45

Ares

Ten missed calls glare from my screen like accusations. Each one from the same number—my father—each a silent command disguised as family concern.

Theodore Saint's name flashes again, the eleventh call in three hours. My finger hovers over the screen, pulse quickening despite my resolve.

I've been dodging their calls since the gallery canceled Isabella's exhibition, since they systematically tried to dismantle everything she's worked for.

Classic Saint family warfare—calculated, ruthless, designed to wound without leaving fingerprints.

But Theodore Saint isn't a man who tolerates being ignored.

Each missed call is a warning shot across my bow, each clipped voicemail a reminder that the Saint legacy is a collar I can't simply slip.

The phone vibrates in my palm, his name illuminating the screen again.

The familiar dread coils in my stomach, cold and heavy, but this time something else rises to meet it—a steely determination that straightens my spine.

The longer I avoid this confrontation, the more ammunition I hand him.

The more it confirms what he's always believed: that beneath my rebellion, I'm still afraid of him.

I'm done being afraid.

"Theodore." I answer with deliberate neutrality, my voice a carefully controlled mask. Just as he taught me.

"Is that any way to address your father?" His tone carries that precise note of disappointment—the one that once made me desperate for his approval, that made me work twice as hard for half the recognition. Not anymore.

"What do you want?"

"I'm in Boston." The words drop between us like stones breaking still water. "The Saint Holdings penthouse. Be here at noon."

Not a request. Never a request with Theodore Saint—only commands wrapped in the thinnest veneer of paternal authority.

"And if I'm busy?" I challenge, knowing the answer before he speaks it.

A pause. Heavy. Calculated for maximum effect. "Then make yourself un-busy, son. We need to discuss your recent actions and... public spectacle."

The line goes dead before I can respond. Typical power move—controlling even the end of conversations.

"That sounded pleasant." Ethan's voice comes from my office doorway, his expression already knowing the answer. He moves into the room with casual grace that belies his concern, dropping into the chair across from me. "Let me guess—the Saint patriarch himself?"

"My father's in Boston." The words taste bitter on my tongue.

"What?" Ethan straightens, alarm flashing across his features. "He’s actually here?"

"Yeah. Summoning me to the penthouse like I'm still sixteen and answerable to his every command."

"You don't have to go," Ethan says, but the resignation in his eyes tells me he already knows my decision.

But I do have to go. Because Theodore Saint doesn't cross the country on a whim. His presence in Boston means the game has changed—the stakes raised. It means he's done playing from a distance.

Last night's memory flashes through my mind—Isabella curled against me in the pre-dawn light, her fingers tracing the lines of my tattoos as she whispered about her next collection.

The quiet steel in her voice when she'd said, "I'm not afraid of them anymore, Sainty.

Let them come." Her eyes had held mine, fierce and certain in the darkness.

"We're stronger together than they could ever imagine. "

"I need to handle this," I tell Ethan, already reaching for my jacket, already armoring myself for battle. For her. For us. For the future we're fighting to build from the ashes of what my family destroyed.

The Saint Holdings penthouse looms above Boston, a glass and steel monument to power.

Floor-to-ceiling windows offer panoramic views of the city, but all I see is my reflection in the polished elevator doors—suit perfectly pressed, tie Windsor-knotted, every inch the heir my father sculpted.

My fingers itch to loosen the tie, to mess up the perfect image, but fifteen years of conditioning win out.

The doors open silently. My heart pounds against my ribs, an old familiar rhythm of anxiety and anticipation. How many times had I made this walk as a child, summoned to face judgment in this steel and glass fortress?

Theodore Saint stands at the window, crystal tumbler of scotch catching the morning light.

His silhouette cuts a perfect shadow against the Boston skyline—immovable, immutable, a man who's spent decades crafting himself into a living monument to power.

Even now, my stomach knots at the sight, muscle memory from years of seeking approval.

"Right on time." He doesn't turn, voice carrying that precise mix of mild approval and perpetual disappointment. "Some habits remain, I see."

My jaw clenches. Once, that tone would have warmed me for days. Now it just tastes like ash. "Let's skip the small talk. Why are you here?"

He turns, and something in my chest constricts.

Age has carved deeper lines around his eyes, hardened the set of his mouth.

But those eyes—calculating, arctic cold—haven't changed since I was a boy desperately seeking his approval.

They sweep over me now, cataloging every detail, searching for weakness like a predator scenting blood.

"Can't a father visit his son?" His smile doesn't reach his eyes as he gestures to the bar. "Drink?"

I shake my head, watching him pour another finger of scotch. The scent hits me—aged oak and peat smoke, the smell of every major negotiation, every disappointment, every carefully orchestrated lesson in power he ever taught me.

"Especially," he continues, swirling the amber liquid like he's contemplating its secrets, "when that son seems determined to systematically dismantle everything we've spent generations building."

"Everything you've built," I correct him, moving closer to the windows. The city sprawls below, a kingdom he's rules through manipulation and carefully crafted destruction. Through whatever really happened to Jacob Wells. "Through whatever means necessary, wasn't that the lesson?"

The slight tightening around his mouth, the microscopic pause in his swirling glass—tiny tells that would be invisible to anyone who hadn't spent a lifetime studying them.

His reflection watches me in the glass, a ghost of authority that's haunted every decision I've ever made.

"Careful, Ares. You're venturing into dangerous territory. "

"Am I?" The anger that's been simmering since I saw his name on my phone burns hotter, feeding on years of suppressed rage. "Tell me something, Father. Why frame an innocent girl and her grandmother for theft? What were you really protecting?"

"They were thieves." His perfect control slips for just a moment, voice sharp as broken glass. "And that incident was handled with more mercy than they deserved. The evidence—"

"Was manufactured." The words taste like freedom and fear all at once. "Just like everything else in this family."

He moves then, closing the distance between us with measured steps. His cologne—the same scent he's worn my entire life—hits me like a time machine. My hands curl into fists, fighting the urge to step back, to submit to that carefully cultivated authority.

"You think you understand how this world works?

" He moves closer, looming over me like he did when I was a child.

His voice drops lower, each word precise as a surgeon's blade.

"One word from me, and your precious artist's career vanishes like smoke.

No more commissions, no more exhibitions, no more glowing reviews.

She'll be blacklisted from every respectable institution on the East Coast."

I clench my jaw, refusing to flinch from the threat. "You'd destroy an innocent woman's livelihood? Overwhat—my refusal to play puppet to your ambitions?"

"Innocent?" His laugh is silk over steel.

"That girl has been orchestrating this since the moment we cast her out.

Waiting, watching, plotting her revenge through art and false innocence.

And you—" his voice drops to a dangerous whisper, "my own son, the heir I sculpted with my own hands—you're throwing away an empire for her pretty paintings and manufactured victimhood. "

The casual cruelty in his voice makes my blood freeze. This is the man who molded me, who taught me about power and legacy through calculated lessons in control. Who shaped me into his perfect heir while systematically destroying anyone who threatened his carefully constructed world.

"Mother ordered Isabella to fetch those necklaces." The memory burns fresh—Isabella's face when she told me, pain etched into every line, raw even after fifteen years. "She set her up deliberately, created the perfect trap—"

"And you believe her?" His smile is all teeth, a predator's warning.

"Your mother doesn't allow housekeepers' granddaughters to handle family heirlooms worth more than they'd earn in a lifetime.

" He sets his glass down with precise control, each movement calibrated for maximum impact.

"Really, Ares, has this girl's influence made you forget everything about who we are?

What the Saint name represents? The responsibilities it carries? "

"Oh, I remember exactly who we are." I step closer, close enough to see the cold calculation in his eyes, the absolute certainty of a man who's never questioned his right to power.

"We're the family that destroys lives to protect our image.

That buys loyalty with threats and bribes.

That teaches children love comes with conditions, that approval must be earned through perfect obedience. "

Something flickers in his eyes—not guilt, Theodore Saint doesn't experience guilt—but a glimmer of something almost human. Grief, perhaps, over the son he's losing. Or fear that the empire he's spent a lifetime building on secrets and manipulation might finally crumble beneath the weight of truth.