VICTOR GRAYSON
The room stank of smoke and impatience.
Victor paced like a lion in a cage, sharp eyed and coiled tight with rage. His cigarette burned down to the filter between his fingers, untouched. The ash had already fallen to the floor unnoticed.
"She’s out of the hospital."
Julian, his right hand said, voice quiet.
For one heartbeat, the room was silent, eerily still.
And then....
Crash.
The glass tumbler shattered against the wall, splintering into glittering shards as Victor surged to his feet, breath ragged.
Julian didn’t flinch. He knew better. Knew when to speak and when to stay still.
Victor's eyes wild, bloodshot, unblinking, darted like he was searching for someone to rip apart with his bare hands.
"She was supposed to stay put. Bleeding. Silent. Useless."
His voice dropped, chillingly low.
"She was mine."
Ariana. That broken little thing. A goldmine wrapped in scars and silence. He had planned everything, everything around her.
"She was supposed to be mine."
He muttered, barely above a whisper.
"Everything was set."
He ran a hand through his hair, tugging at the strands like they could pull the chaos out of his skull.
"All those years. All that money."
He seethed, spit laced with fury.
"And for what?"
He turned sharply, eyes gleaming with something too unstable to name.
"That moronic scum, her stepfather, had the audacity to demand half."
His laugh cracked through the room like broken glass.
"Half! Of everything I built, everything I earned through her."
He slammed his fist onto the table, hard enough to shake the crystal decanter resting on it.
"He actually said,"
Victor hissed, mimicking a slow, mocking drawl,
"‘We’ll use her as we want.’"
A pause.
Then an explosion.
"MINE!"
Victor paced again, breathing hard. The veins in his neck pulsed like they wanted to rip through skin.
"They earned millions from me."
He spat, shaking his head in disbelief.
"Used her face, her name, her silence to tug on strings and line their filthy pockets. And I let it slide. I let it slide because I thought, thought, I could control them."
Another bitter laugh ripped from his throat.
"But no. They got greedy. They forgot who they were dealing with."
He turned to Julian, eyes wild.
"I should’ve killed them sooner."
Julian said nothing.
YOU ARE READING
Silent Scars
Teen FictionAfter enduring years of neglect and cruelty from her mother and stepfather, Ariana's life changes drastically when tragedy brings her under the guardianship of five brothers she's never met and they never even knew they had a sister. For her brother...
