The candle flutters in the drafty chamber as Eva swallows the liquid Lethe, the essence of forgetfulness stinging her throat.
Across from her, Michael stands with a subtle, rigid shift in his posture, a soldier caught between two masters.
“I don’t like you eva, but what can i do? I feel bad to betray the king and I don’t want the prince to group without the mothers love…….what should I do?” He asked himself.
Just then, a voice brought hi back from his thoughts.
“Why do you lie?” Eva asks, her gaze locking onto his.
“Tell me what happened today at the mansion?”
Michael remains a statue.
Saving Eva was a humanitarian impulse, a crack in his conditioning, but betraying the Vampire King is a death sentence he isn’t ready to sign, and his loyalty to the king is beyond questionable.
“Nothing, my lady,” he says, his voice like grinding stone.
“I am simply unaccustomed to your service. I beg to take my leave.”
He turns on his heel, his shadow stretching long against the floor as he disappears out of the room.
Silence didn’t last.
Moments later, the door splinter against the wall.
Alphab storms in, his face like a whirlwind of predatory fury.
“How dare you!” he growls, the sound vibrating in his chest.
“How dare you turn my own against me?”
Eva doesn’t flinch.
She watches him with the detached coldness of someone who has already tasted the end, and had nothing to lose.
Her silence cut Alphab deeper than any insult.
“I am talking to you!” he screams, his hand blurring through the air, stopping inches from her face.
The air in the chamber turned brittle as Alphab’s hand hovered, trembling with the restraint of a killer, yet Eva didn’t blink
“You even dared to use that unborn child for your selfish satisfaction? How wicked can you be?”Alphab’s voice was a low growl.
Eva rolled her eyes and hissed, her words barely a whisper.
“Selfish reasons?
Hmp!!
Is it not you who wants to use my child for your own benefit?, evil Man….
“What the hell did you just say?” he roared, slamming his fist onto the near by table.
“Get this straight in your stupid head you woman ! That thing you carry is my flesh and blood, and don’t you dare use it to your advantage!”
Eva didn’t flinch.
She used false evidence and the pregnancy to make Michael—and by extension, Alphab—obey her.
It was the only way out.
It was the only way to make her enemies pay for everything they had done to her.
Right now, the Hudsons were swimming in an ocean of bankruptcy.
No other company would dare give them a contract.
Corporate giants across the country had already been warned not to work with Hudson Corporation.
And who would dare go against the A&D Group of Companies?
Eva smiled, then raised her gaze, meeting Alphab’s cold, predatory glare.
“You want the child,” she said, her voice like steel.
“But I want revenge.
So you help me and nothing will happen to the child, otherwise…..”
“Otherwise what?(?”
Alphab narrowed his eyes, clearly unused to being spoken to in such a manner.
He was a man accustomed to commanding and dictating terms.
But Eva held all the cards now.
” The child you will have,” she continued, “but under my conditions.
From today onwards, you have no rule over me.
I own A&D, including some of your companies, and I will continue to run them until I give birth.
Only then will I return the ownership back to you.”
“You’re playing a dangerous game, Eva,” Alphab said, his voice dropping from a shout to a quiet, dangerous threat.
He paced around her chair, like a wolf circling a trap he couldn’t quite snap shut.
“You think taking my companies strips me of my power?
Your wrong.”
“I think it strips you of your ability to dictate to me,” Eva replied, “And right now, that’s all that matters.
You will sign the contracts I need you to sign.
You will appear at my galas.
And you will not interfere with the dismantling of the Hudsons.”
He stopped, leaning down so his face was inches from hers.
The scent of his cologne—musk, rain, and expensive tobacco—invaded her senses.
For a second, the overwhelming physical pull between them threatened to crack the icy armor she had built around her heart.
But Eva hardened her resolve.
“And if I refuse?” he challenged.”Then you can watch A&D bleed from the inside out,” she said, looking him dead in the eye.
“Now, go and make sure Michael understands his new marching orders.”
The following Monday, the glass doors of Hudson Corporation swung open with violent force.
Charles Hudson, pale-faced and trembling, looked around, but it was just an empty workspace.
“Where the hell is Mr Alpha?
What kind of a trick is this?
He grolwed.
Just then, Alphab strode into the room, his presence alone commanding the space,
“You wanted to see me, Mr. Hudson?” Alphab said, pulling out a chair and sitting down with calculated casualness.
“Alphab, please,” Charles stammered, his hands shaking as he gathered the last of his company’s failing quarterly reports.
“You know our history. You know my family. You can’t just let Eva destroy us like this. What does she have on you? Please help us, you promised.”
Alphab leaned forward, his dark eyes devoid of warmth.
“Eva doesn’t have anything on me, Charles.
She has something for me.
And right now, whatever she wants, she gets.”
“But she’s ruined us!” Charles shouted, his voice cracking.
“No,” Alphab corrected coldly, standing up to tower over him.
“You ruined yourselves when you betrayed her. I am simply here to deliver the final blow on her behalf.”
Charles slumped into his chair, the reality of his family’s downfall crashing over him.
There was no escape.
The great Hudson Corporation was officially at the mercy of a woman they had once discarded, now backed by the most powerful man in the country.