Chapter 6 SPEAK OF THE DEVIL
ADRIAN
When I got to the dining room, Ethan was already seated.
At the head where Dad should have been.
Vanessa sat next to him, and Victoria sat at the end. There were two other empty seats left side-by-side.
Aria pulled one out and sat. I took the chair right next to her.
Our arms brushed in the tight arrangement. The sudden skin-to-skin contact sent an immediate, sharp spark between us—a reaction I actively forced myself to ignore.
The silence in the room was instant.
Ethan picked up his glass, raising it high. “To family,” he said, his eyes settling heavily on Aria. “The ones we choose... and the ones we are stuck with.”
He drank. No one else moved.
Victoria cleared her throat, breaking the ice with a forced smile. “Aria, welcome to the family.”
“Thanks. The ice water was a nice touch.”
Victoria’s mouth tightened. “The maid had an accident.”
“Mm.” Aria pushed her soup around with her fork, not taking a single bite. “Lots of accidents happen in this house, huh?”
Ethan leaned back. “Depends on who is in the house.”
“Is that a threat?”
“It’s an observation.”
Vanessa suddenly slammed her fork down against the porcelain. “For once, can we stop pretending? Adrian married her just to hurt me.”
I wished that were the case. “And why would I do that?” I asked, my voice flat.
“I don’t know. Maybe to get back at me.”
“For what?”
“For dating Lucian last summer.”
I used every ounce of restraint I possessed to keep from rolling my eyes. But beside me, Aria didn't bother with self-discipline.
She rolled her eyes so hard I thought they might pop out.
“Oh, please,” Aria scoffed. “If Adrian wanted to get back at you, he would have flirted with me and sent you pictures of us in bed. He wouldn't marry me, you dumbass.”
Vanessa stood up abruptly. “You don’t get to talk to me—”
“Sit down, Vanessa,” Ethan cut in. His tone wasn't loud, but she dropped back into her seat immediately.
“Nessa dear,” Victoria started. Nessa. That was new.
“You shouldn’t raise your voice at your best friend’s... 'wife'.” She intentionally slurred the word. “You know, it isn't proper to exchange words with an animal. It’s highly degrading.”
At that, Vanessa flashed a smug, sheepish smile. For a moment, looking at her wide eyes and sharp teeth, I couldn't see much difference between her and a hyena.
“You’re right, Victoria. I shouldn’t waste my time trying to engage her.”
“Oh, I completely agree,” Aria said, her voice pure, dripping sarcasm.
She propped her chin in her hands and stared straight at my stepmother.
“I mean, it must be so hard for you two to pretend to be human every day. It probably hurts your throats to fake having a soul. Honestly, Vanessa, don’t think too hard. I’d hate for you to wear yourself out over dinner. You clearly don’t have a spare thought in that expensive bag.”
Victoria’s fork hit her plate with a loud, metallic clang.
Her profile turned incredibly rigid, a sharp tension locking across her features. The tiny lines around her mouth tightened until her lips were nothing but a thin white line.
Vanessa’s smug smile completely vanished. Her face turned an ugly, bright red as she widened her eyes, looking like she was choking on her own spit.
Across the table, Ethan started shaking. He didn’t say a word, but his eyes were bright as he bit his lip.
He was loving this.
The drama was a free show for him. He loved it whenever this family started to fall apart, and Aria was doing a magnificent job tearing it down brick by brick.
“You arrogant little bitch,” Victoria whispered. Her high-society elegance was completely gone. She leaned over the table, gripping her silk napkin so hard her knuckles turned white. “You forget whose table you are sitting at. You forget who lets you stay here.”
“And you forget who bought it,” I said.
My voice was dead cold, cutting through the room with a razor-thin patience.
The entire room went dead silent.
Victoria snapped her furious gaze to me. She had clearly expected me to be the quiet son who always shut up to protect the family name.
I didn't. I leaned back in my chair and stared at my stepmother without blinking.
Beneath the edge of the tablecloth, my fingers slid down and firmly clamped onto Aria's knee. The sudden, intense contact was heavy and deliberate.
Aria's breath caught sharply. Her thigh instantly tensed as her hand flew down to grab my wrist, trying to pry my fingers off.
But I held fast. Our fingers intertwined in a tight, silent battle of dominance under the mahogany, sending a thick, overwhelming surge of heat straight between our bodies while the verbal warfare continued above.
“If you talk to my wife like that again, Mother,” I said, my voice completely flat and empty, “I will pull every single dollar from the main trust fund before the banks open tomorrow. Let’s see if you can live your lifestyle on whatever crumbs Ethan decides to give you."
Victoria gasped. She slammed her hand over her chest as if I had physically slapped her across the face. Her eyes went huge, and she couldn't even speak.
Vanessa looked back and forth between us, her mouth hanging open.
Even Ethan stopped smiling. He stiffened in his chair and narrowed his eyes at me, trying to see if I was bluffing.
He knew I wasn't. They all knew I held the real power in the Cole family, even if they liked to pretend they ran things.
Aria didn’t even blink, though her grip on my hand under the table squeezed back with a fierce, burning reciprocity. She let out a happy little hum and pushed her soup away like nothing had happened.
“Wow. And here I thought the food was the only cold thing at this table. Good to know you have some teeth, Adrian. I was starting to think I married into a family of shaky little Chihuahuas who only bark when nobody is looking.”
Ethan stopped looking at me and fixed his stare entirely on Aria. The amusement was gone from his face. Now, he just looked cold and dangerous.
He set his wine glass down on the dark wood with a heavy, ominous thud.
He looked back at me. “This marriage is going to be a problem. With the board. With the press. And most especially... with Dad.”
The doors flung open with a violent crash.
Speak of the devil.
The heavy oak doors slammed against the walls, shaking the frames.
Arthur Cole didn’t just walk in. He took over the entire room.
He stood in the doorway, a towering, massive shadow. He was wearing a dark, flawless suit that looked like armor. His silver hair was neat, but his eyes were completely dead. Dark. Empty.
There was zero warmth in him. There never had been. He was the tyrant who controlled our lives, and seeing him stand there felt like an immediate death sentence.
He didn't look at Victoria, who turned totally white and sank back into her seat. He didn't look at Vanessa, who tried to hide in her chair. He didn't even glance at Ethan.
My father's eyes locked right onto Aria.
He took a step forward. His heavy leather shoes made a slow, echoing sound against the marble floor.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
With every step he took, the temperature in the room felt like it dropped twenty degrees. It was so quiet you could hear the erratic breathing of everyone at the table. He walked straight to the head of the table, stood right over Ethan, and looked down at us.
Slowly, he reached into his coat pocket. He did it so agonizingly slowly it made the wait terrifying. Vanessa gripped her seat, breathing fast and scared.
Arthur didn't pull out papers. He didn't pull out a gun.
Instead, he pulled out a pair of heavy, black leather gloves.
He pulled them onto his hands one by one, snapping the leather tight against his wrists with a sharp, loud crack.
He leaned down, slamming his heavy, leather-clad hands flat on the table, right in front of me and Aria. He didn't blink.
When he spoke, he didn't yell. His voice was a low, freezing whisper that went straight down my spine and turned my blood to ice.
“Did you really think,” Arthur whispered, a creepy, monstrous smile spreading across his face as his dead eyes flicked from me to Aria, “that a piece of paper could hide what you two buried in the dark?”
