CHAPTER 171: THE THRONE OF GLASS AND BLOOD

–Livana–

Behind my sunglasses, I watched Laura unravel. Her sobs came like torn fabric, ragged and raw — trauma worn openly across her face. She shouldn’t be here. She shouldn’t see this. But of course she would. Of course she would see everything in time.

Damon reached for both of her hands while she tried to pull herself together. My attention remained on my sister, but the house had other music: Grandma Olivia battering Carrie and Father with words and physical. Father doing everything to shield Carrie. I should have been pierced by pain, but I felt nothing — not the kind of nothing that’s empty, but the kind I cultivate: a cool, deliberate absence. Grandpa Reagan had slipped away, probably to fetch a gun. I turned my head a fraction; I didn’t need sight to know where Logan stood. His footsteps answered mine — light, precise, a shadow that followed a shadow.

"What should I do then?" Damon asked.

"Call the police," I said, the words sharp as glass. "I don’t want Grandpa killing anyone before they’re arrested." Damon hesitated at my side. "Go." I muttered and rose with my walking stick. Casey hurried to me and took my arm.

"That’s probably an AI!" Casey snapped, grip hard on my sleeve. She didn’t expect Laura to yank her head back.

"Don’t you fucking dare touch my sister!" Laura snarled, belly heavy with anger and stillness, and she struck. Damon stopped her, prying her hands from Carrie’s hair and guiding her away.

A deafening report cleaved the room. I turned toward the sound.

Grandpa stood by the open double doors in the family room, a shotgun in his hands. He loaded another round. Logan moved faster than the gun — he grabbed the weapon, and within a breath the police, led by my husband, flowed in. Female officers gently extracted Grandma from Casey’s grasp; blood and red bruises marred Father’s face.

"No! No!" Carrie lunged toward her mother. "Mom—"

"Call our lawyers!" Casey shrieked.

"I’ll fucking kill you, you bastard!" Grandpa bellowed at Father. "And you?! I fed you! And you killed my daughter!" His voice fractured into a sound I had never heard from him: raw, ragged, full of a grief I could feel like a hot coal in my chest. For a moment — only a moment — something loose in me trembled at that pain, at the sight of it.

Grandma nearly collapsed. Deanne moved to cradle her, holding her close until she steadied. I wore my composure like armor. Weakness is a currency I do not spend. I felt Damon’s worried gaze on me as if it were a physical pressure across my shoulder blades.

"Livana," Grandpa Edward’s voice rose behind me. "Why? Why do you have to—"

I turned toward him. "I know you love me, Grandpa. I lost that feeling when I lost Mother. When you all told me it was an accident." My voice was calm, slow. I stared at his face through the opaque glass of my sunglasses; his sigh was a confession.

"I don’t know what to say, my granddaughter. But your father—"

"You’ll cover for him, I see." I exhaled — a small, chilly sound. "I won’t withdraw this case. Let them rot in jail and rot in hell together. They were all part of it when they killed my mother."

"Grandpa!" Carrie’s cry cut the air.

The officers moved through the family with practiced words, advising of rights and procedure. Damon stood by me, a solid presence. Grandpa sighed again. "Take care of the Empire, Livana. I think this is the end. Your grandfather is furious. I can’t blame him. I can’t blame you."

He left, finding Grandma Belinda and guiding her from the room. Carrie followed, pleading. Laura had collapsed onto the sofa; Damon told her to breathe in steady measures.

I tapped my cane and approached until I stood in front of her. The cane’s wood hummed with the smoothness of my palm; the room smelled of dust, perfume, and the metallic tang of blood. Sound painted everything — the scrape of the sofa, the distant siren’s wail settling into something thin and steady.

"Are you calm?" I asked.

"What—what the fuck?" Her voice cracked. "Is that what you saw back then?"

I had bottled every feeling to a perfect, gleaming core. There was no cracking allowed. "Yes. Our mother fell and died." I kept my tone even. "Calm down, Laura. They will get what they deserve."

"How can I calm down?" she sobbed.

"You shouldn’t be here," I said, and the words came out softer, more cutting for being quiet.

"But it’s a family gathering—"

I turned my back. "Take me to the study." I raised my hand; Damon closed his around it.

"Let’s go." Deanne’s voice called from the doorway.

"You can come after you’re calm, Laura," I told her.

I remained composed — distant and cold. My chest ached like a coin pressed into tender skin, but I would not show it. Not showing is power; not showing is dominance. The family’s pulse was in my hands now. Taking over the empire was not a dream but a near-finished blueprint, and I intended to sign my name across every page.

I sank into the Carrington family’s main chair. Deanne placed a stack of papers on the desk like a ceremonial offering.

"Freeze all accounts," I said, voice clipped.

Deanne was already on the phone, fingers moving like competent moths over glass. "That also includes whatever Carrie is carrying," I added.

"Got it." Damon leaned against the desk beside me and, for a brief, traitorous moment, let his hand ghost across the exposed hollow at my back. The sensation was a small betrayal of comfort; I did not turn.

I let Damon read the documents aloud while I pretended to consult them — feigning blindness with the kind of precision that has made me an art. The rustle of paper, the cadence of his voice, the faint scrape of a chair — these were my map.

"Livy." My grandmother Olivia’s voice, fragile as old lace, drifted in. "What are you doing? Let’s go home." She sniffled; age had thinned her edges.

"I’m taking over, Grandma," I said. "Don’t worry. This won’t take long."

"Livana!" she cried. "Let’s go to your mother."

A sting pricked behind my eyes. I blinked it away and steadied my face. "Take Laura with you," I told her.

"We need you," she pleaded.

"Liva," Damon murmured.

I held my silence like a room holds its breath. Then I gave my orders, slow and absolute. "Deanne, escort them all outside. Logan, take Grandma to Mother’s monument."

"Got it," Logan said, crisp, efficient.

"Liva," Damon said, softer.

"Go with them," I replied, cool as a blade.

"No, I’ll stay."

"Leave." I turned my head just enough for the corner of my mouth to harden. "I want to be alone with Deanne."

Damon faltered, then, because he knows when to obey and because I make obedience more attractive than resistance. I sat and rested my hand on the desk, the polished wood a small, real thing beneath my palm.

"Now," I commanded.

–Damon–

I never expected Livana to be this cold. She’s a blade wrapped in silk — beautiful and brutal at the same time. She took the old study meant for the head of the family and made it hers faster than anyone thought possible. I waited outside the door like a viper at the lip of its lair. Behind it she moved with Deanne through papers and ledgers, unearthing names and signatures as if they were children’s toys to be broken and catalogued. Her men had already cordoned off the couple’s room and her father’s study — precise, silent, like the household had been turned into a fortress overnight.

Carrie lingered in the hallway, a small, restless shadow against the marble. The house smelled of perfume and the dry tang of fear; somewhere, a clock ticked slow and threatening.

"Carrie," I said, letting the smile sharpen into something sardonic. "I think you should stay in your room." I crossed my arms, the leather of my jacket creaking like a warning.

"What are they doing?" she asked, eyes flicking to the men posted outside her parents’ bedroom.

"Doing their job," I answered, plain as a decree. She moved faster than I expected — rushed me, shoved me off the door, tried the knob. Locked. Predictable.

"Unfortunately, Livana doesn’t want to be disturbed," I shrugged, the words a curtain.

"Livana!" she screamed.

Two maids came at her with the efficiency of soldiers. They grabbed her arms, hauled her back, and then planted themselves with their backs against the door. No softness in their faces — just the impassive mask of trained bodies standing guard.

"What the fuck?" Carrie flailed and tried to strike, but they caught her hand like nets. Their posture was mechanical, unreadable, and worse: unyielding.

"Damon," Grandpa Reagan called. He sounded like a man who’d had his blood boiled and then cooled into something sharp. I approached him and saw his hands tremble, small autumn leaves in the force of a gale. We walked together toward the mansion’s great double doors; the hallway swallowed our boots’ echoes.

"Can you do something for me?" he asked, voice low, eyes darting like a hunted thing.

"It depends, Pops," I replied, tilting my head.

He faced me fully then. "Kill that bastard for me."

"Which one?" I crossed my arms, amused and tired all at once.

"That manwhore," he spat.

I sighed, because there are taxes even on rage. "Grandpa, we can’t ruin Livana’s plan. It’s better that they suffer in the police station, for now." The words landed heavy, like a final warning. I watched the lines around his mouth soften as he considered it; fury has a way of learning patience when it sees a larger score.

"It’s my fault," he muttered. "For letting that child into the family." His voice broke on the last word as if the house itself listened.

Ines was their miracle girl — the soft, golden center of some old family prayer. I remember how they had wanted another child, how they’d spoken of balance and heirs and mercy. Mercy, it seems, had been misfiled.

He dropped the thought into the hush between us. "I am afraid that Livana had already taken her mother’s attitude. She never cried, right?"

I thought of that recording, of Livana listening with the quiet of a tide pulling back. I don’t recall ever seeing her cry. Did she even lift the corner of her mouth when she heard what they’d done? The memory is a dark thing I turn over sometimes, the way a man might turn a dagger in his hand to find its edge.

No answer came. Only the house — and the knowledge that when the family’s blood boils, someone always pays in the end.