The estate’s conference room had been crafted for silence. High ceilings arched overhead, heavy beams framed the space, and the long polished table absorbed every spoken word rather than echoing it back.

  He did not cim the head of the table. He sat along the side instead. Dominance never needed a throne to make itself felt.

  He folded his hands once, then let his gaze settle across the gleaming surface toward Camille.

  “Tell me why you’re here,” he said.

  Camille smiled as though they had simply met for coffee, not in the smoking ruins of her husband’s empire. She lowered her bag to the floor with careful grace, the motion suggesting nothing urgent waited inside it.

  “You already know,” she answered, her voice warm with something close to admiration. “You burned my husband. Extinguished him like the st stub of a cigar. You stripped away the company, the contacts, the credibility. And you were right to do it.”

  Savina shifted beside her mother, boots scraping softly over the stone floor. She did not sit. She leaned against the wall instead, arms crossed tight, eyes narrowed while she studied the man who had torn her father apart piece by piece.

  He gave no reply. He simply waited, letting the quiet stretch.

  Camille lifted one hand in a faint gesture toward her daughter.

  “Xavier was obsessed with chess,” she continued. “He spent his life sliding pawns and knights and castles across the board, convinced he was the cleverest pyer alive.”

  Her eyes sharpened, the smile on her lips turning cooler.

  “But I was the one who carried the board the whole time.”

  She let the words settle before she spoke again.

  “And Savina is not a pawn. She is an entirely new board.”

  Savina’s head snapped toward her mother, her scowl cutting deeper.

  “Don’t,” she said, voice low and edged. “Don’t wrap me up like some trophy you can hand across the table.”

  Camille never flinched.

  “You are not a piece, my darling. You are the weapon he has not yet seen coming.”

  Savina pushed away from the wall. Her boots struck the stone in sharp, measured rhythm as she crossed half the room. For the first time she met his eyes directly, her stare steady and unyielding.

  “Let’s be clear,” she said. “I am not here to fuck my way into your circle. And I am definitely not here to be served up like some prize.”

  He leaned back in his chair, arms folding across his chest. His voice stayed calm, measured.

  “And I do not invite anyone into this house who is not willing to bleed for it.”

  Savina’s mouth curved then, the hint of a smirk that carried heat and challenge in equal measure. She stepped closer until only the wide table separated them. Her stance squared, shoulders back, chin lifted in open defiance that somehow felt like an invitation all its own.

  “Then test me,” she told him.

  Her gaze flicked once to Camille before locking back on his, sharp and unwavering.

  “Because I do not give a damn about your throne…”

  Silence thickened between them, heavy with everything still unsaid.

  “…but I might want to own your war.”

  The words lingered like embers drifting through the air.

  His eyes held hers without blinking, weighing the fire in her, measuring the depth of her hunger.

  Camille eased back into her chair, a small, satisfied smile pying at the corners of her mouth.

  The game had shifted, and the room now hummed with new possibilities—raw and mutual.