Page 133 of Stolen Harmony
The Note That Broke
Elias
Ididn't make an appointment.
The municipal building felt different when you were carrying rage like a loaded weapon—every sterile corridor, every fluorescent light, every polished floor a reminder of the ugliness beneath the gloss. The air tasted metallic, recycled through too many vents, carrying the stench of bureaucratic decay and Victor's particular brand of institutional corruption.
My footsteps echoed, too loud, as I walked past the secretary's desk without slowing. She called after me—something about appointments and proper procedures—but her voice faded into white noise. I moved past the civic posters about community service and civic pride, past the photographs of Harbor's End's golden days when men like Victor hadn't yet learned to turn virtue into profit, straight to the frosted glass door with my brother's name etched in gold.
The letters seemed to mock me as I pushed through without knocking, each one a testament to his rise and my willful blindness to what that rise had cost.
Victor looked up from his desk like he'd been waiting forme, that infuriating smirk already fixed in place. His office was as sleek and sterile as ever, all sharp lines and expensive intimidation designed to make visitors feel small and insignificant. It smelled of leather and whiskey and something else—something that reminded me of funeral homes, of things preserved long past their natural expiration.
The walls were lined with awards and commendations, photographs of Victor shaking hands with politicians and business leaders, the carefully curated evidence of a man who'd built his reputation on other people's graves. Behind his desk, floor-to-ceiling windows offered a panoramic view of Harbor's End spread below like a chess board, every building and street a piece in his game.
“Elias,” he drawled, setting down his fountain pen with deliberate care. The pen was gold, expensive, probably worth more than most people in this town made in a month. “What a surprise. Though I must say, you look terrible.”
The casual cruelty in his concern made my hands clench into fists. He was enjoying this, drinking in my suffering like fine wine.
I didn't close the door. Didn't sit in one of his leather chairs, didn't play by the rules of civilized discourse he'd spent decades perfecting. I stood in the middle of his office like a storm finally finding its target, my entire body vibrating with barely controlled violence.
“I know.” My voice was low, raw, shaking with fury that had been building for days.
His pale eyebrows arched in mock surprise, but I could see the satisfaction in his eyes, the predatory pleasure of a cat that had finally cornered its mouse. “Know what, exactly? You'll have to be more specific, dear brother. You've been so delightfully vague lately.”
“Everything.” My throat tightened around the word,around the weight of betrayal that threatened to choke me. “Dad. The house. The cameras. Rowan.”
For the briefest moment, something flickered in his expression—not surprise, but the pleased recognition of a plan finally coming to fruition. He leaned back in his chair, crossing one ankle over his knee with the casual elegance of a man who'd never faced real consequences for his actions.
“Ah. So the old man finally cracked.” His smile was sharp enough to draw blood. “I wondered how long it would take guilt to eat through his spine. Longer than I expected, actually. I gave him too much credit for moral fortitude.”
He spread his hands like a magician showing an empty deck, the gesture somehow managing to be both dismissive and theatrical. “And now you've come running to the wolf with stories of the sheep. How deliciously predictable.”
The casual dismissal of our father's pain, the reduction of a lifetime of love and respect to a strategic weakness, made something violent rise in my chest. “What did you do to him?”
Victor's smirk widened, and I caught a glimpse of something reptilian behind his eyes, something that had learned to wear human expressions but had never quite mastered human empathy.
“Which him?” His voice was silk over steel, each word carefully chosen for maximum impact. “You'll have to be more specific, brother. Father? Lover? Boy? I've had such interesting conversations with all of them lately.”
I slammed my fist on his desk, rattling the crystal decanter and sending papers scattering. The sound was loud in the sterile office, violence disrupting the careful order he'd built around himself.
“Don't call him that.”
“Rowan?” Victor tilted his head, voice dropping to something almost intimate, almost gentle. “Oh, but that's exactlywhat he was the night I had him. A boy lost in a man's body. Angry, desperate, aching to be wanted by someone—anyone—who might make him feel less broken.”
He poured himself a drink, slow and deliberate, as if to prove he owned time itself, that my rage was nothing more than entertainment for his amusement. The whiskey caught the light from his desk lamp, amber liquid that reminded me of Rowan's eyes when he was drunk, when he was vulnerable, when he was everything Victor had taken advantage of.
“You should have seen him, Elias. The way he looked at me when I walked into the bar—like I was salvation and damnation wrapped in an expensive suit. Though perhaps you'd rather not know the details. Perhaps you'd rather preserve whatever romantic fantasy you've built around your stepson's... appetites.”
My pulse thundered in my ears, drowning out everything but the need to make him stop talking, stop breathing, stop existing. “Tell me what you did to him.”
“You want details?” Victor's pale eyes glittered with malicious joy, the expression of a man who'd found the exact pressure point that would cause maximum pain. “How wonderfully masochistic of you, brother. Very well.”
He took a sip of his whiskey, savoring both the alcohol and my anguish. “He tasted of whiskey and salt when I kissed him. Bitter on the tongue from the cheap liquor, but underneath—ah, underneath was something sweeter. That particular sweetness that only broken men carry, the kind that seeps out when they stop fighting themselves and finally let someone else take control.”
“Stop.” The word came out strangled, barely human.
“But we're just getting to the interesting part.” Victor's smile was pure poison, designed to infect every good memory I had of touching Rowan, of holding him, of believing what wehad was sacred. “I barely touched him before he kissed me. Deep, hungry, like he'd been starving for years and I was the first meal he'd been offered. He was drunk, yes, but the eagerness—God, Elias, you would have hated me less if he'd fought. But he didn't. He opened like he'd been waiting his whole life for someone to give him permission to be ruined.”
