<h4>Chapter 79: Shadows of the Past</h4>


    Rafael’s fingers curled hard around the armrests, the leather groaning under the pressure, but his face never wavered. He woreposure like armor—cold, unyielding, almost inhuman. The office, once a cocoon of quiet refuge, now throbbed with tension. Even the air seemed hostile, clotted with the stench of Victor’s cologne—cheap, pungent, and choking.


    From behind the blinds, Eliana froze. Her chest rose shallowly, lungs refusing a full breath. Her heart hammered so violently she was certain the sound would give her away. That man—her uncle by blood but never had she known she even had one—sat just feet away, dripping arrogance like poison. He was a living reminder of everything she’d been forced to survive: neglect, abandonment, the scars no one ever asked her about.


    "Family business," Rafael echoed, each word dipped in sarcasm sharp enough to draw blood. He leaned back in his chair, deliberate and slow, tilting his head toward a fixed point beyond Victor’s shoulder. The performance of blindness was wless, his sightless stare piercing all the same. "How quaint. I don’t recall you or your sister ever dropping by for tea. So tell me—what’s the y this time? Another attempt to drain the Vexley coffers dry?"


    Victor’sugh cracked through the room like a whip—short, humorless, cruel. He shifted, fingers steepling as though he held a sermon over the weak. "Always so theatrical, Rafael. As if I need your scraps. No—this is bigger." His voice dropped, heavy with false importance. "Your father’s been sniffing around the pharmaceutical division. Irregrities, he called them. Whispers of insider trading, maybe? Or those experimental trials you’ve been running in the dark. He sits on the board, remember. And family—" his lips twitched into a grin that never reached his eyes, "looks out for family."


    Eliana’s stomach twisted, not just from the nausea that had be her unweepanion, but from the venom in his words. Irregrities? The word gnawed at her. Rafael’s empire was brilliance forged in steel, but there were shadows in every corner, secrets tangled with Mirabel’s reach. She shifted on the daybed, the silk of her dress sighing faintly, and then went still again. Victor’s eyes swept the room, cold and calcting, the same hollow chill she remembered from old photos of her mother. He paused at the untouched snack tray, his mouth curling. "Entertaining guests, Rafael? Or is that for the nurses these days?"


    A muscle jumped along Rafael’s jaw, betraying the strike, but his voice remained razor-thin, a sardonic smileced into every syble. "Jealousy isn’t a good look on you, Victor. If my father has doubts about how I run this empire, let him face me directly. But you?" His smile sharpened into something crueler. "You’re nothing but his errand boy. So spare me the theatrics and spit it out—what do you really want?"


    From where she sat, Eliana caught it—the twitch in Victor’s jaw, the fleeting crack in his polished arrogance. For a heartbeat, the mask slipped, and desperation leaked through like water from a fractured dam.


    He leaned in, too close, his voice dropping to a hiss meant only for Rafael. "Money, of course. A loan—call it an investment, if that makes it easier to swallow." His lips curved, but the smile never reached his eyes. "I’m not Mirabel or Charles, wing at your empire for scraps of control. No, I need something simpler. Capital. Enough to quiet certain... personal debts."


    Victor’s gaze hardened, sharp as a knife. "You owe me, Rafael. Don’t forget that. Your father married my sister, only to dump an invalid child in herp and rxed, leaving her to clean up your mess. If I hadn’t allowed that marriage, if I hadn’t sacrificed my own pride, you would have grown up motherless." His words dripped with venom, each one sharpened to wound. "So, yes, you should be grateful. Very grateful."


    The instant those words left Victor’s mouth, Rafael’sposure faltered. Not in an explosion of rage, but in a slow, suffocating unraveling, like silk tearing under strain. His fingers, which had been drumming a calm, measured rhythm against the polished desk, froze. A vein throbbed at his temple. His jaw locked, sculpting his face into something lean and dangerous, almost predatory.


    He leaned forward, only slightly, but the shift changed everything. The room contracted, the air itself thickening as his voice slipped out—low, contained, yet vibrating with a fury so potent it felt alive.


    "Grateful?" The word was acid on his tongue, bitter and burning. He let it stretch into silence, the pause as sharp as any ss. "You have the audacity to sit in my office and demand gratitude? After everything you did, after all these years—you still think you can waltz in here and bend history until it tters your greed?"


    Victor tilted his head, the smirk curling his mouth smug and practiced. But for the briefest heartbeat, his eyes betrayed him—a flicker, a fracture. Then it was gone, buried under his mask of nonchnce. He reclined, one leg crossing over the other, his voice dripping disdain as he leaned back into the chair like he owned it.


    "Oh,e now, Rafael. Don’t y the victim card." His words oozed condescension, each syble meant to sting. "You were a pathetic little invalid then, just as you are now—blind, pitiful, discarded by your own blood. If not for my sister marrying your father, you’d have rotted in some institution, forgotten like yesterday’s trash. She gave you family. She gave you stability." He pressed a hand against his chest, feigning martyrdom. "And me? I endured it. I sacrificed my pride for that union. Do you have any idea what it’s like to have people whisper about my blind step-nephew? The humiliation? The degradation?"


    His smirk deepened, poisonous. "You owe us, Rafael. Every breath you take in this empire of yours—you owe."


    From her hidden corner, Eliana Bety motionless on the daybed, her slender frame curled beneath the throw Rafael had tucked over her earlier. Through the sliver of space between the blinds, her eyes—wide with shock—captured every detail: the hatred carved into Rafael’s face, the twitch of his brow, the fists clenched so tightly beneath the desk his knuckles whitened. He was a storm contained, dark and gathering strength, while Victor lounged in oblivious arrogance, sipping leisurely from the ss of water meant for Rafael, as if this were nothing more than a casual chat.


    When Rafael spoke again, his voice dropped lower, deliberate, each syble precise. But beneath the control, fury swirled like a tempest threatening to break.


    "Tolerated me? Is that the story you’ve convinced yourself of, Victor? When I was a child, broken and grieving, you didn’t lift me up—you mocked me. You whispered poison into my father’s ear. You treated me like a curse, a weight to be carried. I endured it because I had no choice. But those days are gone. I expanded myte grandfather’s empire out of the ashes you and your kind tried to bury me in. And you dare speak of Mirabel as though she were some saintly mother figure?"


    Victor’sughter exploded, harsh and barking, ricocheting off the walls. It carried no warmth, only cruelty. He pped his knee with mock amusement, shaking his head as though Rafael were still that boy he once tormented.


    "Hate her all you want, boy. It changes nothing. She’s my sister—your stepmother. That makes me your step-uncle, whether you like it or not. Blood ties bind tighter than any empire. You can’t touch me. What will you do? Throw one of your famous tantrums? Call in your guards like the spoiled little heir you’ve always been?" He leaned in, his voice dropping to a venomous hiss. "Mark my words, Rafael—the empire you cling to will slip from your grasp sooner than you think."


    Eliana’s pulse thundered in her chest, her breaths shallow and ragged. She pressed trembling fingers against her lips to muffle the sound, fear and disbelief tangling inside her. And Rafael—oh, how he changed before her eyes. The cold calction softened for the briefest heartbeat, revealing the scarred boy buried beneath the empire’s steel. But then, just as quickly, the vulnerability vanished. His lips curved into a slow, dangerous smirk, dark as the storm tightening around him.


    Without a word, his hand slid beneath the desk. His fingers pressed the hidden button. The faint click echoed like a gunshot in the silence, and Eliana’s spine prickled with dread.


    The office doors swung open. James entered first, his presence calm and deliberate, followed by two hulking men in ck suits, their faces unreadable stone. The atmosphere shifted instantly—this was no longer an office. It was a cage.


    Victor’s grin dissolved. His eyes widened, his body jerking upright from his chair. "What the hell is this, Rafael? Some kind of joke?"


    Eliana’s own shock mirrored his. Her body went rigid, her thoughts scrambled. This wasn’t the man who held her gently minutes ago, who whispered tenderness into her scars. This was someone else entirely—the recluse, the puppet master, the man who pulled invisible strings and bent them to his will.


    Rafael didn’t stutter, didn’t hesitate. His voice was ice-cold,manding, as he addressed the men without breaking his feigned blind gaze from Victor.


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    "Make him disappear. For a long time. And make sure nothing—nothing—traces back to me. I want it clean."


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