Jare's pov:
A slow, cold satisfaction spread across Katrina's features. It was the look of a predator who had finally managed to corner its prey after weeks of stalking in the tall grass. She stepped even closer, the faint, suffocating scent of her expensive, clinical perfume filling the small space between us. It was a sterile, sharp scent that instantly brought back the worst memories of my childhood—memories of being judged, measured, and found wanting.
"I knew you would see the light, darling," she murmured, her voice laced with an oily, soothing approval that made the blood in my veins feel like liquid mercury. She raised a manicured hand, her long fingers brushing against the lapel of my suit jacket in a gesture that was supposed to be maternal, but felt entirely like a brand. "You were always the sensible twin. The reliable one. The one who understood that power requires sacrifice. It's high time you stopped letting her drag you down with her emotional baggage and childhood vulnerabilities."
She turned on her heel, walking gracefully back to the head of the mahogany table where her designer leather briefcase sat open. She reached inside and pulled out a thick, heavy, matte-black folder, sliding it across the polished wood toward me. It glided silently over the reflective surface, landing right before my chest with a heavy, ominous thud.
"If we want to secure your future—and protect you from the catastrophic fallout she is bringing upon us—we must act decisively and ruthlessly," Katrina said, her tone shifting seamlessly from maternal comfort to sharp, corporate malice. "Jay is entirely too unstable to inherit the mantle of this family. Her little domestic distraction with Keifer has left her wide open, exposed, and soft. We are going to use that softness to systematically dismantle her credibility with the board until she has nothing left to stand on."
I stood perfectly still, my posture locked, keeping my face an unreadable, frozen mask to hide the violent, primal recoil happening beneath my skin. My heart hammered against my ribs, but my voice remained a flat, dangerous monotone. "What are the terms?"
"First, the network infrastructure," Katrina detailed, her dark eyes gleaming with an insatiable, cold ambition. "I need you to alter the routing protocols on the offshore accounts you so brilliantly defended today. Introduce a deliberate compliance vulnerability into row forty-two. Make it look like a sloppy, emotional oversight on Jay's part—a footprint left behind because her mind was elsewhere. When the external audit hits next week, the board will see her as a massive liability. Her chances at the CEO chair will vanish before the first vote is even cast."
She tapped the black folder resting under my hands, her sharp fingernail making a clicking sound against the heavy paper.
"And second, this," she continued, her voice dropping into a demanding, low whisper that vibrated through the empty room. "Inside is a master share-transfer agreement. It legally relinquishes her voting rights and assigns her corporate equity directly to you in the event of a critical security breach. You need to take this to her tonight, Jare. Find a way to get her signature on it. Tell her it's a security release, tell her it's a protective proxy to keep her safe from our stepfather—I don't care what brilliant lie you have to use. Just get it signed."
My fingers tightened against the edge of the folder, the heavy paper crinkling slightly under my grip. The sheer weight of the betrayal she was asking me to execute hung in the air, thick, suffocating, and heavy. But as I stared at the documents, a realization hit me. This wasn't just a corporate takeover. This was an assassination of Jay's entire life.
"She won't sign it easily if she reads the fine print," I said, my voice cutting through the quiet room, sounding intentionally detached, sharp, and ruthless—exactly the type of nephew she wanted me to be. "Jay is paranoid. Especially now."
"Then ensure she doesn't read it," Katrina countered smoothly, a cruel, mocking smile touching her lips. "She's too busy playing house to notice the knife in her back. But that brings me to the final phase of this operation, Jare. Eliminating Jay from Mariano Enterprises isn't enough. The Mythicals group needs to fall apart, too."
I froze internally, my grip tightening even further on the folder until my knuckles turned a deadly shade of white. The Mythicals were our group. The elite, tightly knit unit that Jay and I had built from the ground up, our absolute last line of defense against the shadows of our past. If the Mythicals collapsed, both of us would be stripped of our protection, entirely vulnerable.
I forced my eyes to narrow slightly, playing the part of the power-hungry strategist perfectly to hide my shock. "The Mythicals? We built that group to be ironclad, Aunt Katrina. They are fiercely loyal, and they don't break easily. Trying to dismantle them from the outside is a suicide mission. How exactly do you expect them to fall apart?"
Katrina chuckled, a soft, chilling sound that echoed off the glass walls of the boardroom. She leaned against the edge of the mahogany table, looking at me with a terrifying sense of triumph.
"You don't break a group like the Mythicals from the outside, darling. You break it from within," she explained, her voice dripping with venomous satisfaction. "You cause a fight between the core members. A deep, fracturing wedge of suspicion and betrayal. You feed them conflicting commands, alter their communication logs, and plant fabricated evidence of a mole inside their operational ranks. Make them believe that the people sitting right next to them are selling them out. Once the seeds of doubt are planted, they will turn on each other. A house divided against itself cannot stand, Jare. When they start fighting amongst themselves over who leaked the coordinates, the Mythicals will fracture, and the whole system will collapse."
She stepped forward, patting my arm one last time, her touch freezing me to the core.
"Do this, Jare, and the Mariano empire belongs entirely to you. You won't have to be anyone's shield ever again. You will finally be the king."
I picked up the folder, tucking it firmly under my arm. I stared directly into my aunt's calculating eyes, letting the heavy, unreadable mask lock completely into place, hiding the deadly promise of protection I was making to my sister and our group in my head.
"Consider it done," I muttered, turning on my heel and walking out of the boardroom without looking back, already planning how to turn her own game against her.