Before Celeste could speak, or Adrian could call for the estate security guards, the ten-year-old boy let go of Celeste’s hand.
He took two steps forward, standing directly between his towering, black-clad mercenary sister and the kneeling senior maid.
She looked up, trembling, and found her adoptive father, Adrian, staring at her.
The billionaire tech magnate had stepped forward, his tall frame radiating a glacial, terrifying pressure that made the entire room feel ten degrees colder.
His face was set in a expression of merciless judgment.
There was no fatherly warmth left in his eyes; there was only the cold, evaluating calculations of a man who had built a kingdom from scratch and realized there was a parasite feeding on his floorboards.
“Father… I…” Rosalle stammered, her lips turning blue with genuine panic as she instinctively shrank back from the terrifying coldness in his gaze.
“I was just trying to mediate… I didn’t want Sister to feel—”
“Silence,” Adrian said, his voice dropping into a low, conversational tone that was somehow ten times more terrifying than a shout.
He didn’t look at Rosalle; his eyes shifted to the kneeling, trembling Madam Evelyn on the rug.
“When did the domestic hierarchy of the Hartwell Manor degrade to the point where a senior housekeeper takes operational directives from an adopted daughter regarding the living arrangements of my biological heir?”
Madam Evelyn began to kowtow against the floor, her forehead slapping against the wood.
“Chairman, Sir! I was wrong! I was blind! I didn’t mean to offend the Eldest Miss! I really didn’t! Please—”
“Arian,” Adrian Hartwell commanded coldly, not even blinking at the servant’s begging.
The twenty-year-old heir’s posture was rigid, his voice ringing out like a steel gavel.
“Here, Father.”
“Contact the human resources directorate of Hartwell Group immediately,” Adrian ordered, his eyes sweeping over the ruined room.
“Terminate Evelyn’s employment contract with cause. Revoke her estate security credentials, confiscate her communication devices, and initiate a full financial audit of her personal accounts over the past five years. I want to know whose money she took to deliberately sabotage the east wing.”
He turned his head slowly, his dark eyes locking onto the pale, paralyzed form of Rosalle.
The silence stretched between them like a drawn bowstring before he spoke again, his words dropping like heavy stones into a tranquil pond.
“And while the audit is being conducted,” Adrian continued coldly, “instruct the estate management team to re-evaluate the staffing allocations for the entire south wing. It appears we have been far too lenient with our domestic discipline. From this moment on, no servant in this manor is permitted to take direct orders from anyone other than myself, your mother, or your Eldest Sister. Anyone who fails to understand the bloodline hierarchy of this family will be removed from the capital by nightfall. Is that understood?”
“Understood, Chairman,” Arian replied crisply, pulling his encrypted sleek phone from his suit pocket and immediately initiating the termination protocols without a second glance at the weeping maid on the floor.
Sebastian stood silent, his fists unclenching as a deep, burning wave of realization and shame washed over him.
He looked at the canvas drop-cloths, then at the calculating tears on Rosalle’s face, and finally at the small, straight back of his ten-year-old brother who had been the only one brave enough to call out the rot in their home.
For the first time in his rebellious eighteen-year-old life, Sebastian realized that the “sweet, innocent sister” he had been blindly defending might not be the victim she always pretended to be.
Celeste watched the executive purge unfold with quiet, professional satisfaction.
Her father had passed the evaluation test with a score of nine out of ten.
He was rough around the edges, a true underworld commander would have executed the audit silently before springing the trap, but his willingness to publicly strip the fake daughter of her authority in defense of the real bloodline was respectable. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
She squeezed Noah’s hand gently.
“Shall we go, Fourth Brother? I believe the air in this room has become excessively congested.”
“Yo-young master, you can’t! You can’t leave me here alone like this by myself! It was me who took care of you all these years so meticulously, it was me who raised you! I don’t deserve to be treated like this! Young Master! Young Miss, please…!”
Evelyn wailed and howled from behind, as Rosalle’s posture stiffned, there was no reaction from Noah himself.
“Yes, Sister. Let’s go,” Noah said brightly, turning his back on the weeping maid, the frozen white lotus, and his stunned older brothers without a shred of hesitation.
Hand-in-hand, the tall, black-clad mercenary and the small, delicate ten-year-old heir stepped out of the ruined suite, walking down the sunlit corridor toward the western wing of the manor, leaving the storm of executive wrath to rage behind them.
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The fourth heir’s sanctuary was located at the quietest, most secluded corner of the manor’s second floor, a space specifically chosen by Grace years ago to insulate her sensitive youngest son from the noise and chaos of formal banquets below.
When Noah pushed open the door to his room, Celeste stepped inside and felt her internal threat-assessment protocols power down entirely.
The room was spacious, immaculate, and bathed in the warm, golden light of the late afternoon sun streaming through dual glass doors that opened onto a private terrace overlooking the manor’s botanical gardens.
The walls were painted a soft, calming slate blue, lined with custom floor-to-ceiling built-in bookshelves overflowing with encyclopedias, classical literature, astronomy charts, and complex mechanical blueprints that would have challenged a university engineering student.
Everything was organized with geometric precision, not a single book was out of alignment, not a single speck of dust marred the polished walnut floorboards.
In the center of the room sat a large, comfortable queen-sized bed draped in thick, pristine white cotton quilts and plush navy-blue pillows.