Chapter 3 Fire and fury

Aiden

The door slammed so hard behind us, the noise was more satisfying than annoying. It rattled the antique glass in the cabinet, but I didn't flinch. Lena was predictable; this was her favorite scene, her big dramatic performance.

“I cannot believe you, Aiden!” she shrieked, throwing her purse, a small, overpriced thing, onto the king-size bed. “I cannot believe you’d humiliate me for that… that dirty maid!”

I walked slowly across the thick carpet to my bar, grabbed a tumbler, and poured myself two fingers of whiskey. I ignored the sting of the knife wound Lena had given me earlier, leaning my weight subtly away from it. Pain was just noise.

“Don’t use that tone, Lena,” I stated, my voice low and completely flat. I swirled the amber liquid, not looking at her. “And don't use that word.”

“What word? Maid? That’s what she is! That disgusting little slum rat you were pawing at on the kitchen floor!” Her face was flushed crimson, her eyes wide with rage.

I finally turned to face her. I took a slow sip of the whiskey. It tasted like control.

“The word I meant was humiliate,” I corrected, meeting her gaze. “You are doing that to yourself. You walked in on something you knew was happening, just like you always do. And you know why I was doing it.”

She knew. This was her protest against the life she signed up for. She loved the name, the access, and the cash, but she always threw a fit when I reminded her that none of it came with promises.

“It was different before! Flirting on campus, having girls stay over, that’s just being Aiden Lancaster!” she cried, running her hands through her blonde hair in frustration. “But that girl? Elsie? She’s nothing! She’s beneath us! You bring her into our space, into the kitchen, right in front of my face—”

“You don't own the space, and you certainly don't own my time,” I cut in, my voice sharp now. I set the glass down with a precise, deliberate clink that silenced her.

“You want the truth? She annoys me. That little spark of defiance in her eyes, the way she thinks she’s better than her job, better than us—it’s grating. When she looks at me, all I see is her judgment. So I was doing what I do: I was breaking her spirit. I was reminding her who controls the air she breathes.”

I didn't tell Lena the truth: that when I kissed Elsie, it felt like touching something wild and dangerous. It felt like a risk, a true, potent challenge, not the bored, predictable game I played with the other girls.

Lena’s eyes narrowed, shifting from rage to something calculated. “You always use these excuses. This isn't about spirit, it's about control. You can't stand that Caleb is the favorite, the one Dad trusts, the one who gets the company, so you act out. You bring Jacob with you, and you both just burn everything down.”

The air in the room went cold.

“Don't bring Caleb into this,” I warned her, stepping closer.

She had hit the nerve. Caleb, the golden boy. He’s two years older than Jacob and me, but he acts like he's fifty. He’s the one who cares about the quarterly reports and the investments, the one who is currently in D.C. with Malcolm—our father—playing the dutiful heir.

Jacob and I? We're the wasteful ones, the distractions, the ones who drain the family accounts and cause scandals. The ones who are adored by the public but despised by our father.

Lena’s words hit me like a physical blow, snapping me back to the memory I always tried to bury—the courtroom, the shame, and my father's face.

I remembered the cold, disgusted look on Malcolm's face as he shook the judge's hand. He had to pull every single plug he owned and manipulate the jury just to get me out of that murder case.

It was the single biggest piece of trouble I had ever caused him. In his eyes, I wasn't just wasteful; I was a liability, a source of constant, dirty shame. That shame was a part of me I hated, and it was why I had to control everything else.

“Why not?” Lena challenged, pressing her advantage. “He’s the only one of you who doesn’t treat women like trash! He’s the only one who might actually—“

She stopped when I was right in front of her. My presence alone was meant to be suffocating. I towered over her, the scent of whiskey and my sheer size filling her personal space.

“Malcolm needs Caleb for the business. I need Jacob for the fun,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. “But I don't need anyone telling me how to behave, where to look, or who to kiss. You can have me, Lena, but you can’t have the cage. I told you that from day one.”

Her eyes flashed, and she reached for the nearest thing she could find—a heavy, expensive glass sculpture on my dresser. She lifted it high.

“I am done with you thinking you can disrespect me!” she screamed.

In one fluid, fast motion, I crossed the distance. Before she could swing the sculpture, my hand shot out and clamped around her wrist. I squeezed—hard enough to make her gasp, but not hard enough to break anything. The sculpture clattered uselessly onto the thick carpet.

I didn't release her wrist. I used it to pull her body flush against mine, twisting her arm behind her back. She struggled, fighting against the sudden, absolute physical dominance.

“Stop it,” I commanded, my breath hot against her ear. “You’re making noise, and I hate noise.”

She gasped, then tried to yell again, words tumbling out in a furious, messy string of insults.

I didn't want to hear another word about Caleb, or the maid, or my father. I was done with the drama.

I shifted my grip, cupped her jaw with my free hand, and crushed my mouth down on hers. It wasn't gentle. It was aggressive, possessive, meant only to shut her up. I tasted the rage on her tongue, the desperation in her sharp breaths. I poured all my frustration into the kiss—frustration at Lena, at my father, at the maid who refused to break.

She was stiff at first, still trying to fight, her body tense and resistant. But the fight was quickly replaced by a familiar, desperate need.

I felt her hand unclench from her own struggle and reach for the back of my neck, pulling me closer. Her lips softened and parted, yielding completely. She returned the kiss with a sudden, eager heat that always followed her anger. Control achieved.

She was mine again. She was predictable. She was safe.

But even as she melted against me, kissing me fiercely with the passion of a woman who had just realized she almost lost everything, my mind was already pulling away.

The image that flashed behind my eyelids wasn't the relief of her surrender. It was the moment I was with the maid: Elsie’s eyes wide with genuine fear, her lips tasting of soap and fire, her small body stiff with defiance, not submission.

That was the challenge. That was the feeling I wanted.

But even as she melted against me, kissing me fiercely, her hands clawing at my shirt, she pulled back just enough to whisper, her eyes dark with a mix of hunger and spite, “I want you to send for her, Aiden. Call that stupid maid up here and make her watch us. Now. I want to put her in her place.”

I froze, the kiss dying on my lips. The image that flashed behind my eyes wasn't the relief of Lena's surrender, but the sudden, terrifyingly real idea of Elsie standing in my room, forced to watch. It wasn't the humiliation of Lena that held my attention—it was the thought of watching Elsie's face shatter.