Jadon stood in the center of his penthouse office, a fortress of glass and silence.
Ari Cohen had vanished, leaving his boss alone to deal with the fallout. The order was given. A contract was terminated. A problem was handled.
But the "Asher" phone, his tool of corporate power, was not the issue.
The issue was the other phone.
The "Barak" phone, an encrypted custom device, was on his desk. It vibrated, a heavy and demanding thrum against the cold stone. It was a summons, an alarm.
He didn't move. He just watched it, his face a mask of sculpted ice.
The screen lit up. Mother.
He let it ring, the vibration a jarring intrusion into his sterile world. It stopped.
Immediately, it started again. Elias, his eldest brother. The heir. The dutiful one.
Jadon's thumb twitched violently. He silenced the call.
The phone lay quiet for a half-second before a new call came in. Grandmother.
Jadon squeezed his eyes shut. Abigail Barak. The Matriarch. The only person in the world he truly feared, or at least respected. She had fled Damascus with nothing and built the foundations of their dynasty. She had granted him his "privacy."
He silenced her, too.
This, in the Barak family, was like declaring war.
He was furious. No, "furious" was too hot. This was something colder, a surgical, clear anger.
Chloe had just betrayed him. Matthias had just betrayed him.
But the calls and the buzzing revealed a deeper truth.
They knew.
He could hear their voices in his head, the reasonable, patronizing tones of his family when they "handled" him, the rogue, private son.
"Jadon, darling, we saw it from the very beginning. She wasn't one of us."
"We knew you weren't compatible. She craved the spotlight, Jadon. You despise it. It was never going to work."
"Honestly, son, we weren't surprised. She saw an opportunity with Matthias, and she took it. That's who she is. It's better you found out now."
He walked to the window, his back to the buzzing phone. They had watched.
They had all watched as he brought this woman into their homes, into his heart. They had seen him break his own sacred rules. They had watched him plan a future. They had sipped his mother's mint tea, smiled at her Sabbath dinners, and said nothing.
They hadn't warned him. They hadn't given him a single discreet heads-up.
They had simply waited for the inevitable explosion, and now they were calling. Not to comfort him. Not to share his grief.
They were calling to manage the fallout. To protect the Barak name from the gossip columns.
The phone, which he had silenced, buzzed with a text message. He saw the preview that lit up the dark screen.
Mother: Jadon, answer me. I know you're hurt, but you must listen. We kept quiet because you needed to see it for yourself. You never would have believed us. She is not the one for you.
Jadon's vision went red.
He picked up the heavy device. His thumb hovered over the "reply" button. He could have typed a thousand words filled with rage and accusation.
Instead, he held the power button. He watched the screen go from bright, intrusive white to absolute, indifferent black.
He had disconnected himself from the Barak dynasty.
He turned back to the window. He was completely alone. He was the CEO of an empire, a phantom in the culinary world, and he had just fired a woman for being late—a woman who would never know he was the reason she failed.
He had just committed a cruel act against someone.
And the worst part, the thing that made his blood run cold, was that he felt nothing at all. He had become the monster his family had always wanted him to be.