Point of View: Sabrina Valerius
The Valerius private gardens were clashing with the sterile, expensive smell of my own composure. I stood beneath the weeping willow, its long branches shielding me from the prying eyes of the security cameras. In my hand, the tablet felt like a piece of radioactive lead. The numbers on the screen remained unchanged. Four hundred million dollars. A hole in our legacy large enough to swallow my father whole.
Julian walked toward me, his pace easy, his hands shoved into the pockets of his designer trousers. He looked exactly like the man the world adored. Charming but carefree. The perfect shadow to my brilliant light.
"You sounded urgent on the phone, Sabby," Julian said, offering that boyish grin that had bailed him out of trouble since we were children. "Is the gala planning that stressful? I told you to let me handle the floral arrangements."
I didn't smile back. I couldn't. My heart was a jagged stone in my chest. I turned the screen toward him.
"Explain this, Julian."
His eyes dropped to the screen. For a heartbeat, the mask flickered. His pupils dilated, a micro-expression of pure, unadulterated panic that only someone who had spent their life studying him would catch. Then, the charming mask slid back into place, smoother than polished marble.
"I have no idea what I'm looking at," he said, his voice light. Too light. "Some sort of internal audit?"
"Don't lie to me. Not today." I stepped into his personal space, my voice a low, vibrating blade. "I tracked the signatures. I found the shell companies, Julian. I found the codes you used to bypass my own security protocols. You stole from us. You stole four hundred million dollars from our father's legacy."
Julian's breath hitched. He looked around the garden, his easy posture collapsing into something frantic and small. He grabbed my wrists, his fingers trembling.
Sabrina, please," he whispered, his voice cracking. "It's not what you think. I didn't steal it
"Then who?" I demanded, trying to pull away, but he held on. His grip was desperate. "Who is worth destroying our name over?"
"I got in deep," he choked out, and I saw the shimmer of tears in his eyes. Julian didn't cry. Julian was the laughter in our house. Seeing him break felt like watching a monument crumble. "A gambling debt from the London accounts. I thought I could flip the investment, win it back before you noticed. I was trying to protect the family from the scandal of my own stupidity. If Father finds out, he'll kill me. You know he will. He doesn't believe in mistakes, Sabrina. He only believes in results."
I felt the first crack in my resolve. This was the boy I had grown up with. The boy who had held my hand when mother was too sick to get out of bed. The boy who had promised we would rule the world together.
"Four hundred million, Julian?" I asked, my voice softening despite the warning sirens in my head. "How could you be so reckless?"
"I'm a fool," he sobbed, sliding to his knees on the manicured grass. He looked up at me, a broken prince in a silk suit. "I'm a coward and a fool. But you're the Sovereign. You can fix this. You can move the funds back, bury the trail. Just give me time to close the accounts. Please, Sabrina. If you love me at all, don't let him throw me to the wolves."
The pain i felt was unbearable. My father was a man of iron; Julian was right. If Lord Alistair Valerius learned of this, Julian wouldn't just be disowned. He would be erased.
"Forty-eight hours," I whispered, the words feeling like a betrayal of my own soul. "I won't report it yet. You have forty-eight hours to return every cent and prepare a full confession for me to review. If the accounts aren't balanced by the end of the gala, I'm taking this to Father myself."
Julian grabbed my hand, pressing his face into my palm. His tears were hot against my skin.
"Thank you," he gasped. "You've saved my life. I swear, I'll make it right. You're the only person who has ever truly understood me."
I pulled my hand back, feeling a sudden, inexplicable coldness settle over the garden. I looked down at him, my brother, my shadow.
"Go, Julian," I said, my voice turning back to steel. "Fix it. And never speak of this to me again until it's done."
He nodded frantically, scrambling to his feet. He wiped his eyes with a silk handkerchief, his breathing ragged.
"I won't let you down, Sabby. I promise."
I watched him walk away. I stood there for a long time, the weight of the secret pressing down on my shoulders. I had chosen mercy over justice. I had chosen blood over the law of the Valerius empire. It was the first time I had ever allowed my heart to override my intuition, and the silence of the garden felt like a funeral.
I didn't see the way Julian stopped at the edge of the willow tree. I didn't see the way he smoothed his hair, his face transforming in a terrifying instant. The tears vanished. The desperation evaporated.
Julian pulled a burner phone from his pocket, his thumb gliding across the screen with a precision that was anything but frantic. He looked back at me, standing alone under the willow, and his lips curled into a cold, predatory smile.
"She took the bait," Julian said into the phone, his voice a flat, dead monotone. "The Sovereign has a heart after all. A fatal weakness."
There was a pause as the person on the other end spoke.
"No," Julian replied, his eyes narrowing as he watched me. "She won't have forty-eight hours. She won't have forty-eight minutes once the gala begins. Is Lethe ready?"
Another pause.
"Good," Julian whispered. "Do it tonight. I want her mind shattered before the stroke of midnight. If she can't remember the crime, she can't point the finger at the criminal. By morning, the Valerius Diamond won't be a genius anymore. She'll just be a disgrace."
He tucked the phone away and walked out of the garden, whistling a light, jaunty tune.
I stayed beneath the tree, staring at the tablet. My thumb hovered over the delete key for the audit logs. I hesitated. My intuition, that legendary Sovereign frequency that had never failed me, was screaming. It felt like a physical pressure against my skull, a warning of a storm I couldn't see.
"It's just Julian," I told myself, my voice trembling in the quiet air. "He's family. He's my blood."
But as the sun began to set, casting long, bloody shadows across the jasmine, I couldn't shake the feeling that I hadn't just saved a life. I had signed a death warrant. My own.
I turned and headed back toward the mansion to prepare for the gala. I thought of Mark and the diamond he had given me. I thought of the silver gown waiting in my dressing room. I thought of the future. I didn't know that the girl who walked back into that house would never walk out of it again. I didn't know that the next time I saw the stars, I wouldn't even know my own name.
The trap was set. And I had walked into it with my eyes wide open, blinded by the one thing a Sovereign should never possess: mercy.