Dominated (Obsessed II)

29.

Richard Dawson
Countermove

Four days had passed since Amelia walked out after dropping that bombshell.

I hadn't called her.

I hadn't asked where she'd gone, and I certainly hadn't tried to understand why she thought she could betray me and expect some sort of retaliation. Have I gotten that weak? Am I that big of a joke now? There were some things that didn't need explaining. Betrayal was one of them.

At first, I thought the anger would consume me. It didn't. It settled and somehow, that was worse.
I told myself it was because I was too angry. That I didn't want to hear another excuse, another explanation about why she'd betrayed me while standing in my office, sitting in my meetings, and pretending to work for me. But the truth was simpler than that. I didn't know what I would say if she answered. So I did what I had always done when something threatened to expose a weakness.

I buried it.

I spent most of those four days inside the house, watching the world move on without me. News reports continued to discuss Dawson Enterprises like it was some dead corporation waiting to be buried. Analysts speculated about who would take over. Lawyers called constantly. Creditors wanted answers. People who had spent years shaking my hand now suddenly couldn't seem to remember my name.

It was fascinating, really.

Give people a reason to believe you're falling, and they'll trip over themselves trying to make sure you don't get back up. I sat at the kitchen table with my laptop open, staring at a financial report that made my jaw tighten.

Every day I thank God this house was still under my mother's name, which meant it was one of the few things left that hadn't been frozen, seized, or dragged into some legal dispute. It was strange living somewhere that technically wasn't mine. For years, I'd never had to think about whether I owned something. If I wanted it, I bought it. If I needed it, I acquired it. If someone stood in my way, I removed them. I was always that simple.

Now I was checking my bank balance before buying groceries.

The irony wasn't lost on me.

Numbers that once represented power now represented how much of my life had been taken from me. I leaned back in the chair and rubbed my jaw.

Bianca had been thorough.

That was the part I couldn't stop thinking about. She hadn't simply attacked me. She had studied me.

She had figured out which pieces mattered, which ones I would fight for, and which ones I wouldn't even notice disappearing until it was too late. She hadn't needed to storm into my office or threaten me. She had simply moved things around until I was standing in the middle of my own life wondering where everything had gone.

It reminded me of the way my father used to play chess with me when I was a boy. He never taught me how to win. He taught me how to recognize when I'd already lost.

I hated that memory. I hated even more that Bianca had apparently learned the same lesson.

I had spent years making sure I would never have to worry about numbers like these. I'd built companies within companies, moved money through investments, acquired property, diversified portfolios. And yet Bianca had found the one thing I hadn't accounted for. She hadn't needed to take everything. She only needed to make everything inaccessible. That was the difference between destroying someone and controlling them.