“She was concerned. As am I. As you should be.”
“About what, exactly?” I challenge, taking a step closer to him. “Be specific, Dad. What exactly has you so concerned that you need to bring your thugs to my home on a Sunday morning?”
His eyes slide to Vincent again, lingering on the marks on his neck. “You know perfectly well what concerns me, Sasha. This… infatuation. This phase. It stops now.”
Vincent remains silent behind me, but I can feel the tension radiating from him, a physical force at my back.
“It’s not a phase,” I say, my voice steadier than I expected. “And it’s not stopping.”
My father leans forward in the chair, resting his elbows on his knees. It’s a casual posture that somehow makes him moreintimidating, not less. “You have responsibilities, Alexander. To the family. To the business. To our legacy.”
“I’m aware of my responsibilities,” I reply. “They don’t include letting you dictate who I can and can’t be with.”
“Don’t they?” He spreads his hands in a gesture that encompasses the penthouse, the furniture, the view of the city below. “All of this. Your education. Your future. These things come with expectations.”
“Expectations like marrying Jess? Having the appropriate arm candy for business dinners? Producing the next generation of Orlovs on your timetable?”
“Yes,” he says simply. “That is exactly what I expect from my son and heir.”
My hands clench tighter, nails digging into my palms. “Then you’re going to be disappointed.”
My father’s eyes narrow. “You would throw away generations of family power for… this?” His gaze shifts to Vincent. “For him? Is he worth it, Sasha?”
The question hangs in the air between us, heavy with implication. My father isn’t just asking if Vincent is worth losing my inheritance. He’s asking if Vincent is worth losing everything—my family, my future, my safety.
I open my mouth to answer, but Vincent beats me to it.
“Mr. Orlov,” he says, his voice remarkably steady despite the slight tremor I feel in his shoulder against mine. “I never wanted to come between you and Alex. That was never my intention, then or now.”
My father’s attention snaps to Vincent fully for the first time, his eyes cold as winter. “You speak as if you have any say in this matter.”
“I do,” Vincent insists, stepping forward to stand besideme rather than behind me. “Because this involves me.”
“It involves you only because you inserted yourself where you don’t belong.”
“That’s not true,” Vincent counters. “It involves me because you threatened to kill me if I stayed.”
My head whips toward Vincent, shock rippling through me. “What?”
My father stands abruptly, his façade of calm cracking. “You were told to keep your distance. Which you apparently failed to do.”
“Dad, what the fuck?”
Blood rushes in my ears, drowning out everything except the hammering of my heart and the echo of Vincent’s words. My father threatened to kill him. To kill Vincent. Because of me.
“He was corrupting you,” my father says, his attention back on me now. “The way he looked at you. The way you were starting to look at him. I did what was necessary to protect you.”
“Protect me?” I repeat, the words tasting like ash. “By threatening to murder my stepbrother?”
“He was making you gay,” my father spits, the mask of civility slipping further. “He was turning you into something unnatural. Something that would destroy everything our family has built.”
I study my father’s face, really looking at the man who raised me. The man I’ve spent my entire life trying to please, to impress, to be worthy of. And I see him clearly now—small and frightened and hateful.
“He didn’t make me anything,” I say, my voice deadly calm even as rage burns through me like acid. “I’ve always been this way. I just didn’t have a name for it until Vincent. And you knewthat, didn’t you? You fucking saw it before I did.”
My father’s jaw tightens. “I saw him corrupting you.”
“You saw me falling in love with him,” I correct. “And it terrified you. Not because you were worried about the family legacy or the business, but because you couldn’t control it. Couldn’t control me.”
