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CHAPTER 136
Ethan walked into the Clarke family's private dining room the way a man walks into a room he already knows wants him dead. Calmly. Without apology. Without hurry.Victoria looked up the moment he appeared in the doorway, and the relief on her face lasted exactly one second before exhaustion replaced it. Her eyes were glassy and her posture had the stiff, hollowed out quality of someone who had been absorbing punishment for an hour without being allowed to hit back. Robert sat beside her with his jaw clenched and his gaze fixed on the tablecloth, radiating the silent humiliation of a man whose branch had been publicly carved apart while he smiled and swallowed every cut.Miles spotted Ethan from across the table and his face split into a grin so wide it could have swallowed a dinner plate. He nudged Brooke with his elbow and whispered something that made her snort into her wine glass."Well, look who finally graced us with his presence." Catherine set down her fork and turned her full
CHAPTER 135
Warren coughed into his napkin. Grant choked on his drink.Sophia leaned toward Ethan with a warm, familiar smile that caught the entire table off guard. "Dr. Morrison, please, sit beside me. I've heard wonderful things about your work, and I'd love to hear more."She patted the seat next to her as if they were old friends reconnecting at a reunion. Lawrence's eyebrows lifted. Blake's skepticism deepened. Warren made a note of it in his mind the way accountants note irregularities on a balance sheet."Sophia playing the 'first meeting' card smooth as butter," the Spirit observed. "I like her. She lies with grace. Very few people manage that without looking constipated."Blake was not finished. He uncrossed his arms and pointed one thick finger at Ethan. "Alright, miracle boy. Lawrence says you're the real deal. Prove it. Read my fortune. Tell me something about my life that you couldn't have Googled on the way here."The table went quiet. This was a test, and everyone knew it.Ethan l
CHAPTER 134
The room hummed with approval. Heads nodded. Eyebrows lifted. Catherine turned to Victoria with the slow, deliberate precision of a woman loading a weapon."You see, Victoria? This is what a proper son in law looks like. A man with a career. A man with connections. A man who can stand in a room full of important people without making everyone wonder if the silverware is going to disappear." She tilted her head with mock sympathy."Instead of, well, whatever it is you dragged into this family. What does your son in law do again? Breathe? Take up space? Collect women at auctions like a flea market vendor collecting broken watches?"The table erupted. Gerald slapped his knee. Miles pointed at Victoria and howled. Brooke covered her mouth with her napkin and shook with laughter she wasn't even trying to hide."At least a broken watch is right twice a day." Trevor adjusted his cufflinks with a smirk that pulled at his faded bruises. "That man hasn't been right once since the day he was bor
CHAPTER 133
Harrison Clarke did not believe in small talk. He had built the Clarke Group with the same philosophy he applied to every conversation: get to the point, crush the opposition, and leave the room before anyone recovers enough to argue.He sat at the head of the table with a glass of red wine he had not touched, his silver hair combed back in rigid lines, and his eyes moving across the room with the slow, patient focus of a man deciding which limbs to cut from a tree he had planted sixty years ago.The appetizers had not arrived yet when he opened his mouth and ended the evening for the second branch."Robert." Harrison's voice was not loud. It did not need to be. Every person at the table stopped breathing the moment he spoke. "I want your daughter to divorce that coreless husband of hers. I have tolerated this embarrassment long enough."Robert nearly knocked over his wine glass in his rush to nod. "Absolutely, Father. I've been saying the same thing for months. The boy is a stain on
CHAPTER 132
Miles put on a face of complete bewilderment, the kind of expression that takes years of practice to make convincing. "Ethan? I looked everywhere for him, Aunt Victoria. I turned around and he was just gone. I think he wandered off on his own. You know how he gets."Catherine Clarke, Robert's sister and the eldest branch's most vocal critic of Serena's marriage, leaned forward with the speed of a vulture spotting a carcass."Wandered off? In a hotel like this?" She pressed one manicured hand to her chest in mock concern. "Oh dear. Someone should check the silverware. That boy looks like he'd pocket a soup spoon if nobody was watching."Laughter rippled down Catherine's side of the table."Maybe he's in the parking garage looking for unlocked cars." Trevor Park grinned from three seats down, his faded bruises glowing under the chandelier light. "Old habits, right?""Don't be ridiculous, Trevor." Brooke stirred her wine with one finger. "He probably saw the menu prices and ran. Cockroac
Chapter 131
The Grand Crestwood Hotel rose from the city center like a monument to the kind of money that never needs to announce itself. Glass and marble and gold leaf trimming on every surface, the kind of place where the doormen wore better suits than most of the guests and the lobby chandelier cost more than a house in the suburbs.The two black sedans pulled up to the front entrance and the Clarke family stepped out in order of perceived importance. Robert first. Victoria behind him. Serena after that. Ethan last, the way luggage comes off a conveyor belt after everyone has already walked away.A young man was waiting at the entrance with a smile so wide it looked like it had been stapled on. Cousin Miles Clarke, mid twenties, with a tailored blazer that was one size too tight and the kind of eager, hungry energy that belongs to people who survive by licking the right boots at the right time. He was one of the eldest branch's reliable foot soldiers, the type who could smell which direction p
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