Chapter 130: At the Center
The silence in Dimitri’s study was a physical thing, thick and velvety, absorbing the echoes of the shattered weeping from upstairs. Damien didn’t lead Beth to a sofa or an armchair. He guided her to the massive walnut desk, sat her in the high-backed leather chair that smelled of cigar smoke and decisions, and then went to the crystal decanter.
He poured two fingers of amber whiskey, not his usual bourbon, but the good single malt Dimitri kept for people he needed to impress. He placed the glass in front of her, the crystal clicking softly on the wood.
“Drink,” he said, his voice a low rumble. “Not to forget. To settle your hands.”
Beth looked at her fingers, splayed on the polished desk. They were trembling, a fine, constant vibration. She wrapped them around the glass, the cool solidity a shock. She took a sip, the heat a welcome burn down her throat, a focal point for the chaos inside.
Damien leaned against the desk beside her, close but not crowding. He watched the grey light from the tall window play across her profile.
“Three families,” she said finally, the words husky. She didn’t look at him. She stared at the liquid in her glass as if it were a scrying pool. “Three entire, sprawling, powerful fucking families. And I’m a tourist in all of them.”
He stayed quiet. He knew this wasn’t a question. It was an excavation.
“The Rossis,” she began, a brittle laugh escaping. “Your mother finally looks me in the eye and means it after she finds out my mother was Elena Novak. Not because of anything I built. Not because I loved you. Because my bloodline got an upgrade in her ledger. Your father respects the merger. Claire… Claire loves me for me. But she’s the exception that proves the rule.”
She took another, larger swallow.
“The Montgomerys. My name is on the deed. My DNA is in the soil. Dove would burn the world for me. But that love… it’s always had a shape, Damian. It’s the love for the heir. The one who was supposed to come back. Dove held the fort, literally, with calluses and grit, so I could have my big goddamn epiphany and return to claim my throne. She never resented it. But the expectation was always there, in the unspoken space between every conversation we ever had. ‘When are you coming home, Beth?’”
Her voice cracked on ‘home’.
“And the Novaks.” She set the glass down hard. “Dimitri loves me. In his way. But after they took Elena… it was like he couldn’t see me and Dove anymore. We were ghosts of his failure. Polina and Isaak? They were kids who lost their cool aunt. We were kids who lost our mother, our protector, our whole goddamn universe. And they punished us for surviving differently.”
She finally looked up at him, her green eyes swimming with a pain so old it had fossilized. “The loneliest place I’ve ever been is in the middle of a room full of all of you.”
Damien’s chest tightened. He cupped her cheek, his thumb brushing away a tear that escaped before she could will it back. “You see yourself through their broken lenses, mi amore. You always have. The Rossi heir’s rebellious wife. The Montgomery prodigal daughter. The Novak’s diminished cousin. You wear the labels they gave you, even when they don’t fit anymore.”
“What’s left when I take them off?” she whispered, the defiance gone, leaving only naked uncertainty.
“You,” he said simply. “Beth. The woman who built an empire from a nightmare. The strategist who outmaneuvers me on a bad day. My wife. That’s the core. The rest is just… geography.”
A heavy knock on the study door made them both start. It swung open before Dimitri could answer, revealing Dove.
She stood in the doorway, a stark contrast to the opulent gloom. She wore faded jeans, dusty boots, and a worn leather jacket over a plaid shirt. Her hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail, and the scent of cold air, horses, and hay drifted in with her. Her sharp green eyes scanned the room, missing nothing—Beth’s raw face, the whiskey glass, Damien’s protective stance.
“Heard there was a family meltdown,” Dove said, her voice dry as West Texas dust. She walked in, nodding once at Damien. “Figured the cavalry should be the actual family that shows up when shit goes south, not just when the cocktails are served.”
Beth almost smiled. “How did you even know?”
“Polina called me,” Dove said, leaning against the bookshelf. “She was crying so hard I could barely understand her. Something about foundations and houses and you ripping her a new one in a hallway.” A glint of fierce pride showed in Dove’s eyes. “Took the jet. Seemed quicker.”
“You didn’t have to come,” Beth said, but the relief in her voice was palpable.
“Yeah, I did.” Dove pushed off the shelf and came to the desk, grabbing the whiskey decanter and pouring a generous measure into a spare tumbler. She didn’t sit. She drank it like water. “Listen, Beth. The Novaks and their drama? That’s their ecosystem. We got dragged into it because of Mom. But we ain’t of it. Never were.”
She pointed her glass at Beth. “You spent ten years building something real. Something with weight. Not this…” She gestured around at the gilded room. “This pretty prison of resentments. The ranch isn’t an expectation. It’s a fact. You are a Montgomery. I am a Montgomery. That means we fix things. We hold the line. And right now, the line is back in Texas, where there’s a problem with the Wilson account that requires your particular brand of terrifying diplomacy.”
Business. Practical, messy, real business. It was a lifeline.
Beth straightened in the chair, the transformation almost visible. The vulnerable woman receded; the mogul slid back into place. She wiped her face with her palms. “What kind of problem?”
“The kind that involves a missing weapons shipment, a very nervous general, and a pack of coyotes who might be more than just coyotes.” Dove set her glass down. “It can wait ‘til morning. But it can’t wait for you to finish debating your pedigree with people who don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground.”
Beth looked from Dove’s steady, sun-weathered face to Damien’s intense gaze. Three families. But in this room, she had her sister. She had her husband. It was a start. It was more than a start.
“Okay,” Beth said, her voice clear now. She stood up, pushing the heavy chair back. “Tell Dimitri we’re leaving. We’ll take the jet back tonight.”
Damien nodded, a slow smile touching his lips. This was his Beth. Not a tourist. A general. “I’ll make the call to the hangar.”
As they moved toward the door, Beth paused, looking back at the empty whiskey glass on the vast, empty desk. The ghosts of the hallway were still there, whispering. But they were fainter now, drowned out by the sound of her sister’s boots on the marble and the solid, steady promise of work that needed doing. The loneliness receded, not gone, but crowded out by the people who saw her, truly saw her, and had come to bring her home.