FAULT LINES
Althea did not argue.
That alone unsettled the household more than a shouting match would have. Arguments were the language of the Vale family—voices raised in calculated fury, fists slammed on mahogany tables, threats delivered with surgical precision. But silence? Silence from Althea was unprecedented, unnatural even. When Roman announced the revised arrangement—transferring the marriage contract from the eldest daughter to the second—Althea simply nodded. It was a sharp, controlled gesture executed with the precision of a general acknowledging orders, as if the decision had been hers to begin with, as if she had orchestrated this outcome through some invisible manipulation.
Runa noticed it immediately. She had been braced for the cold wrath Althea wielded like a scalpel, for the icy fury that could freeze a room with a single glance. But there was no resentment flickering in those dark sapphire eyes, no jealousy twisting her elegant features. There was only a terrifyingly focused calculation. The gears were already turning behind that beautiful, merciless face. Althea was already three moves ahead in a game no one else knew they were playing.
By evening, the house had settled into an uneasy quiet—the kind that comes after violence, when everyone is still assessing the damage and waiting for the next storm. Jason had been carried out of Roman's study an hour prior, his face swollen and his pride shattered along with what were likely several ribs. The muffled sounds of his beating had echoed through the halls, a reminder that even blood didn't exempt you from consequences in the Vale household. Toni had retreated to her wing of the estate, seeking the comfort of familiar spaces. The immediate storm seemed to have passed—yet Althea's composure remained, and that composure was more frightening than any display of emotion could have been.
***
Alone in her third-floor office, Althea finally allowed the mask to slip. The door was locked, the curtains drawn. This was her sanctuary, the only place where she could be something other than the ice queen, the heir apparent, the primary weapon her father had forged.
She poured herself a glass of whiskey—twenty-five-year-old scotch from her father's private collection—and held it between her fingers without drinking. The liquid caught the lamplight, amber and gold, but she had no real intention of consuming it. The ritual mattered more than the result. The control.
She stood at the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the sprawling estate, watching the security lights blink on one by one as darkness settled over the manicured lawns and the stone walls that separated the Vale world from everything outside it.
Runa was never meant for her. Althea had known that from the beginning, from the moment Aurora suggested bringing the girl on as her assistant months ago. It had been a test, really—see how the daughter of a debtor handled proximity to power, to violence, to the reality of what the Vales truly were beneath the veneer of legitimacy. Aurora had seen something in Runa's, in her background check. "She's perfect for you," Aurora had said. "Intelligent enough to be useful, but not strong enough to challenge you."
But Aurora had been wrong about that last part.
Althea respected resolve, and Runa had proven she had plenty of it today. Standing before Roman Vale and demanding terms, redirecting her own fate with nothing but courage and desperation—that took spine. That took a kind of strength most people would never find in themselves.
But Runa still flinched at cruelty. Althea had seen it in her eyes during family dinners, when Jason made his crude jokes and Roman spoke casually of violence as if discussing the weather. Runa understood the words intellectually, processed them, but they still made her recoil on some fundamental level. She was learning to hide it, developing the mask necessary for survival, but the instinct was still there, would probably always be there.
Althea needed a partner who could wield a blade, not someone who cried when it drew blood. She needed someone who understood that power required sacrifice, that the family's position demanded constant vigilance and occasional brutality. She needed someone who could stand beside her in the dark and not beg for light, who could watch her make the hard choices and not judge her for them.
Runa would never be that person. And forcing her to become it would only create something broken and resentful, which served no one.
But Eli... Eli was different.
Althea's grip tightened on the glass, her knuckles whitening. She loved her siblings with the fierce, stifling protection of a martyr who had chosen her own cross to bear. She had spent her entire life absorbing Roman's weight, standing between him and them, deflecting his expectations and his brutality so they wouldn't have to carry the full burden of being a Vale.
She thought of Jason—a man who had rotted from the inside because he had never learned restraint, never understood that true power came from control rather than indulgence. Their father had given him too much too soon, territory and responsibility without the discipline to wield it properly. Jason took what he wanted and called it strength, never realizing that real strength came from knowing when not to take, when to hold back.
But Eli was the one who endured. She absorbed every beating meant for the others without complaint. Shes skilled at weapon so she took bullets during family wars and asked for nothing in return. She had been taught from childhood that her only value lay in her ability to suffer for others, and she had internalized that lesson so thoroughly she no longer seemed to expect anything different.
It's a test, Althea thought, her reflection ghosting in the dark window. Giving Eli the downtown club was Roman's way of seeing if she would sharpen under pressure or break. The downtown territory was volatile—Russian operations, remnants of smaller gangs the Vales hadn't yet absorbed, fragile alliances that could shatter with one wrong move. It required both a delicate touch and an iron fist. Either Eli would rise to meet it, or she would crumble, and if she crumbled, Runa would pay the price. Roman had made that abundantly clear.
Althea paused, the glass halfway to her lips. "No," she said quietly to the empty room. "She won't fail."
She couldn't explain the certainty, couldn't justify it with data or precedent. But somewhere deep in her chest, beneath the ice and the calculation, she believed it. Eli had been underestimated her entire life, treated as a tool rather than a person. Maybe that was about to change.
Althea took a sip of the whiskey, letting it burn down her throat. She thought of the bruises on Runa's wrist, the finger-shaped marks that told their own story. And for the first time in years, she allowed herself to think of Amy—Jason's wife, the Twin's childhood acquaintance, the woman who had tried to ask for help in the only way she knew how.
Amy had come to her three months into the marriage, her eyes downcast and her voice barely above a whisper. "He gets angry sometimes," she had said, the words tumbling out like a confession. "When things don't go his way. When I say the wrong thing or look at him the wrong way."
And Althea, in her infinite wisdom and loyalty to the family code, had dismissed it as weakness. As an inability to adapt to Vale life. Jason had always had a temper, but he wasn't Roman. He was manageable. Amy just needed to learn how to manage him, how to navigate his moods and anticipate his needs. That's what strength looked like in this family.
She had sent Amy away with platitudes and no real help. Two months later, Amy was dead. Electrical fire, the report said. Faulty wiring in their wing of the estate. Jason had been drunk at the funeral, making inappropriate jokes about finally being free to pursue other women.
The thought sat like acid in Althea's stomach, burning through the careful justifications she had built over the months since. She wondered if her loyalty to the family code had actually been complicity. If there was a difference between strength and enabling that she had failed to recognize. If she had blood on her hands that didn't come from business.
She set the glass down on her desk with a sharp click, the sound loud in the quiet office. There was work to do—there was always work to do. The northern expansion wouldn't manage itself, and if she was being relieved of the burden of managing Runa, she could redirect that energy toward more productive ends.
But as she opened her laptop and pulled up the latest reports, a small part of her—the part she usually kept hidden—hoped that Eli would succeed. That her sister would take this opportunity and forge something better.
Maybe Runa Winters would be good for her. Maybe being chosen for herself rather than her utility would give Eli something worth fighting for beyond duty and survival.
Maybe this wouldn't end in fire and blood.
Maybe.