Chapter 13 - The Heir and the Bastard
Elias Thorne did not look like a monster. He looked like an emperor.
He stood at the edge of the helipad, the freezing alpine wind whipping his long black cashmere coat around him. He was in his early sixties, with striking silver hair, sharp aristocratic features, and the exact same piercing, calculating dark eyes as Olga.
As Olga stepped onto the tarmac, flanked by Julian and the guards, Elias didn't hug her. He didn't smile. He merely evaluated her, exactly the way Jack Vance used to look at a property deed.
“You have your mother’s posture,” Elias said, his voice a deep, resonant baritone that carried over the roaring wind. “And, I am told, her talent for ledgers.”
“I am nothing like you,” Olga replied, her voice cutting through the cold.
“We shall see,” Elias murmured. He turned and walked into the compound.
Olga was escorted through the sprawling estate. It was a masterpiece of lethal luxury—priceless Renaissance art hung alongside biometric security scanners. She was led to a massive suite overlooking the sheer drop of the mountain. A golden cage.
“Dinner is at eight. Wear something appropriate,” Julian said before locking the heavy oak door from the outside.
When Olga arrived at the grand dining room that evening, wearing a simple black evening gown she found in the closet, Elias was seated at the head of a massive mahogany table. But he wasn't alone.
Sitting to his right was a man in his early thirties. He wore a bespoke velvet suit, a Rolex that cost more than a house, and an expression of pure, unadulterated venom.
“Ah, the prodigal bastard returns,” the man sneered, taking a sip of his red wine.
“Olga, this is your half-brother, Silas,” Elias introduced them without looking up from his steak. “Silas, the sister you never wanted.”
Silas looked Olga up and down, his lip curling in disgust. “I heard you grew up in a trailer park with Jack Vance. I’m surprised you know which fork to use.”
Olga took her seat slowly. She recognized Silas immediately. He was Blake Vance, but with billions of dollars and a license to kill. He was arrogant, deeply insecure, and threatened by her presence.
“I grew up learning how to read financial statements, Silas,” Olga said smoothly, picking up her wine glass. “Which is why I know that insulting the only person at this table with an IQ over room temperature is a poor investment.”
Silas’s hand tightened violently around his crystal glass. “Watch your mouth, you little—”
“Enough,” Elias’s voice cracked like a whip. Silas instantly snapped his mouth shut, though his eyes burned with lethal hatred.
Elias wiped his mouth with a linen napkin and looked at Olga. “In three weeks, you turn twenty-nine. On that day, you will sign over the biometric rights to the Rostova Trust, integrating your mother’s ten billion dollars back into my syndicate. Until then, you are my guest.”
“And if I don't sign?” Olga asked.
May you like
Elias smiled, and it was the most terrifying thing Olga had ever seen. “Then Julian will slowly remove your fingers until you do. Enjoy your meal.”
👉 Later that night, as Olga paced her locked bedroom, she heard the faint click of her door unlocking, only to find Silas standing in the darkness with a silenced pistol aimed directly at her chest.
