Chapter 27 Livia’s Terms
Livia Armitage did not use the family elevator. That was the first warning.
Dario saw her through the glass wall of the conference floor, walking past the executive bank as if convenience were something other people needed. She came through the main corridor where assistants, junior counsel, and voting-family representatives could see her arrive. Public correction, then not private concern.
He stood at the head of the small conference room and watched his mother remove her gloves finger by finger. Black leather, no haste, no wasted gesture. On the wall screen, the winter vote packet waited with its neat columns and understated threats – trust blocks, board confirmations, Vey commitments, foundation optics. All the clean machinery that made families like his look inevitable from the outside.
Livia entered without knocking. “Close the door p>
Dario did. She set her gloves on the table beside a folder so thin it could only be dangerous.
“Where is she p>
“If I knew that, this meeting would be shorter p>
His mother’s eyes lifted – a colder version of his own. “Do not be clever while Mathias is counting your mistakes p>
“Mathias can count anything he likes. His leverage does not change the facts p>
“The facts are that your pregnant mistress has counsel, a doctor outside our network, a public statement using the word mother, and enough paper to make St. Orla nervous p>
The word mistress landed deliberately. Dario kept his face still.
“Aveline is not a public problem if people stop feeding the story p>
“She is public because you made her invisible in a room full of donors and expected invisibility to feel like gratitude p>
For a moment, the room narrowed. Livia was not defending Aveline – Dario knew better than to mistake accuracy for sympathy. His mother had always been able to identify the weak join in a structure. She could see where a marriage held, where a board seat could crack, where a person had been insulted too thoroughly to remain useful.
“Celine’s statement stabilized the first wave,” he said.
“Celine’s statement gave the story manners. It did not end it p>
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“Anika Senn is posturing p>
“Anika Senn is building a record p>
He disliked hearing the name in his mother’s voice – it made the problem sound external.
“The hearing will clarify medical access p>
“The hearing will put your private conduct into a room where someone else keeps minutes p>
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Dario moved to the window. Below, the city ran in straight lines and controlled traffic. Winter light struck the neighboring tower and split oder pale bands across the carpet. He had spent years learning the difference between real danger and noise. This felt like noise because it was personal, and that was what bothered him- personal problems should not be allowed to touch governance.
The conference room had been designed for confidence. Leather chairs with low backs so no one could hide inside them. A table long enough to separate opponents but not so long that a vote could pretend to be impersonal. A screen that made family money look like a neutral sequence of charts. He had closed acquisitions in this room. He had persuaded cousins who hated him to call self-interest duty/He had watched older men underestimate him because he was careful with his voice and let them confuse restraint with hesitation. He had never once felt the room ask whether he had lied to a woman in a hospital corridor.
Now the question sat everywhere.
“I did what was necessary to preserve the vote,” he said.
Livia laughed once- not warmly. “No. You did what you wanted and called the delay strategy p>
He turned. “I did not ask Celine’s father to turn my marriage into a hostage document p>
“You accepted the benefits of the hostage document for 9 years p>
“I have a child with Celine p>
“You have 2 children inside pregnant women and a 6-year-old son whose school already has parents whispering beside the gates p>
That struck harder than he wanted. Nico should not have been in this.
“Keep Nico out of it p>
“I am trying to keep all of us out of it p>
Livia opened the thin folder. Inside were printed screenshots – Celine’s statement, Aveline’s denial through counsel, CityGlass commentary, a cropped image of Dario at St. Orla’s donor reception with Celine’s hand on his arm and Nico beside them. Under it, someone had written: timeline issue?
Dario picked up the page. The handwriting was unfamiliar, and that irritated him too. If an enemy was going to reduce months of necessity into 2 smug words, he wanted to know whose hand held the pen. Instead the page had passed through enough people to become anonymous a donor’s daughter, Livia’s office, Mathias’s counsel, Celine’s family office. Each layer made the insult cleaner. Timeline issue. As if Aveline were arithmetic.
“Where did this come from p>
“A donor’s daughter with too much time and a private account. It has not moved widely p>
“Then why am I looking at it p>
“Because Mathias is looking at it p>
He set the page down. Livia watched him.
“Mathias does not care what you promised the Ashby woman. He cares whether Celine looks humiliated before his vote block renews its usefulness p>
“Aveline has no interest in humiliating Celine p>
“You are still thinking like a man who believes intention matters more than use p>
His mouth tightened. “Do not call her the Ashby woman p>
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Livia’s expression did not change, but the pause sharpened. “There it is p>
“What p>
“The part of this you keep mistaking for loyalty p>
Dario said nothing.
“If you loved her, you should have told the truth before you made her body part of our succession problem p>
“Do not p>
“I am not moralizing. I am describing the order of events p>
He wanted, suddenly and uselessly, to tell her that Aveline had not felt like succession – not at first, She had felt like the one room in the city where the name Armitage did not enter before him. She had not asked for seating charts, vote math, foundation calendars, Celine’s family dinners, or the tiresome social choreography of being married in public to a woman who understood him only as a position she was entitled to share. Aveline had looked at him as if he were a man before he was a structure. Then she had become pregnant-and the structure grad arrived to collect the room.
The calm was worse than accusation. Dario had been shouted at by board members, threatened by creditors, flattered by men who planned to betray him. Livia’s disappointment had always been more efficient – it did not need volume. It simply removed unnecessary coverings.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“Contain her quietly p>
“That is already in motion p>
“No. You have been pursuing her like a husband with wounded pride. I am telling you to behave like a man who understands exposure p>
“Meaning p>
“No scenes. No visible cars at women’s clinics. No men in building lobbies where friends can photograph them. No contact that makes her look hunted p>
Grant had warned him. Dario did not let the irritation show.
“We need her location p>
“Then find it without proving you are searching p>
“That may take time p>
“You are out of time p>
Livia slid another page across the table. It was the winter vote agenda, marked in red.
“Mathias is prepared to ask for a delay if this expands. A delay keeps his leverage in place. It gives Celine’s side room to demand conditions. It gives cousins who dislike you a polite reason to become principled p>
“They do not have the numbers p>
“They have enough numbers if you arrive covered in scandal and insisting everyone call it private p>
Dario looked at the red marks – meeting, trust confirmation, interim governance, delay petition. All very clean. Families did not stab each other in conference rooms anymore – they adjusted calendars.
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“What are your terms?” he asked.
“Mine p>
“You summoned me before the meeting. You want something p>
For the first time, his mother’s face softened – not with mercy, with memory, perhaps. She had once held the majority trust vote in a marriage that taught her exactly how expensive softness could become when recorded by the wrong people.
“I want you to remember that the Armitage name is not a romance p>
“I know that p>
“No. You know it as a slogan. I know it as a bill p>
Silence settled. On the other side of the glass, an assistant paused with a tray of coffee, saw the closed door, and moved on.
Livia closed the folder. “If you cannot contain Aveline Ashby without giving Mathias ownership of your panic, step aside before the winter
vote p>
Dario went still. “You would back that p>
“I would back the structure that survives p>
“I am your son p>
“Yes,” she said. “That is why I am saying it to your face p>
For 3 seconds he saw the shape of it — not abandonment, worse. Assessment. Livia did not want him destroyed; she wanted him corrected, and if correction failed, she wanted the family protected from the cost of his wanting.
Dario thought of the nursery boxes, the yellow blanket, the ring in his pocket, Aveline’s public sentence- I am the mother of the child I am carrying. He could hear her saying it. Not pleading, not performing – exact as a blade.
His mother gathered her gloves. “The vote meeting starts in 12 minutes. Mathias will be charming. Celine will be dignified. You will not appear distracted p>
“And Aveline p>
“She is not in this building p>
It was the cruelest thing Livia could have said because it was practical.
Dario opened the door for her. She stopped beside him. “Do not confuse possession with strategy again p>
Then she walked out into the corridor where everyone could see he had been made to wait. Dario remained in the room until the door clicked shut. For a moment, he did not move – movement would have admitted that Livia’s terms had entered him.
The city below continued cleanly without asking whether he deserved it. A black car turned at the light. A messenger crossed between towers with a satchel under one arm. Somewhere in the building, Celine was likely being offered tea by people who wanted to measure whether humiliation had touched her face. Aveline was lying somewhere outside his map with his child inside her and documents in her hands.
Not outside his reach. Outside his map. There was a difference. He corrected it internally as soon as he noticed it.
He took out his phone. Grant answered on the second ring.
“Yes p>
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“Stop using anyone visible p>
“Understood p>
“No building lobbies. No clinic entrances. No calls from numbers that trace back to us. I want her location, her doctor schedule, and every person between her and the hearing p>
Grant was quiet. “Parameters p>
Dario looked at the winter vote packet, at the red delay marks, at his own reflection in the glass-composed enough to pass for innocent.
“Find Aveline,” he said. “And do it without leaving marks p>
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Tai Jun
Tai Jun is a dreamer and storyteller who believes the sky is never the limit. He spends most of his time with his friend Lian, chasing new horizons and crafting tales that soar beyond boundaries.