The silence in the hotel suite was the loudest thing I'd ever heard. It wasn't just quiet; it was an active presence, pressing on my eardrums, making the fine hairs on my arms stand up. It felt thick enough to choke on. In that heavy quiet, Charles's words kept replaying, not like an echo, but like a record skipping on the same devastating line. My father's company... a man just like me... he taught me everything I know.
Five years. For five long years, I had built my entire life around one goal, one clear, unwavering image in my head: Charles Damien as the architect of my father's ruin. The villain. The target. I had nourished my hatred with that image, fed it every single day until it was the only thing keeping me warm. And in less than a minute, he had shattered it. He hadn't just denied it; he had reframed it, turned it into some kind of twisted origin story. He wasn't the monster. He was the monster's student. A protégé of pain.
