Zayden's POV
Aiden's corporate suite occupies the forty-second floor of a building that tries too hard to look expensive—all glass and steel and uncomfortable modern furniture designed to intimidate rather than welcome.
I bypass reception entirely, take the private elevator using a keycard I had copied three years ago when Aiden first started circling the foundation. He never changed his security codes. Arrogance or carelessness—doesn't matter which.
His office door is unlocked. He's on the phone when I walk in, feet propped on his desk, laughing at something the person on the other end said. The laugh dies when he sees me.
"I'll call you back," he says, ending the call without waiting for a response.
I close the door behind me, lock it with a deliberate click.
"Zayden." His feet drop to the floor, body language shifting into something more alert. "To what do I owe the unannounced visit?"
"You've been using Marcus to bypass foundation security." I don't bother with pleasantries. "Four documented instances. Yesterday you crashed a major donor tour and cost us a seven-figure prospect."
Aiden leans back in his chair, expression arranged in careful neutrality.
"Marcus thought it would be nice for me to see the work my brother's foundation is doing. I wasn't aware attending an event at an organization bearing my own last name required written permission."
"You avoided reception, used the staff entrance, bypassed every security protocol we have."
"I walked in a door Marcus opened for me." He spreads his hands, the picture of reasonable confusion. "Hardly an infiltration. Though I have to say, the fact that you're treating a family visit like a security breach tells me a lot about your current state of mind."
I move closer to his desk. "You cornered my wife in a printer alcove. Put your hands on her when she tried to leave. Made repeated references to her pregnancy—information she hasn't disclosed publicly."
"I touched her elbow during a perfectly normal conversation."
Aiden's tone shifts, becomes almost sympathetic—the practiced warmth of a man who's rehearsed this defense.
"Jocelyn's under tremendous stress right now. The media attention, the pregnancy hormones, the public scrutiny—it's completely understandable that she might misinterpret friendly interaction as something more sinister."
"You're calling my wife hysterical."
"I'm suggesting she's anxious. Pregnant women experience heightened emotional responses—biological fact."
He stands, moving around his desk with calculated casualness.
"Add in the Vivienne situation, the donor problems, constant media pressure—of course she's seeing threats everywhere ."
"So when she reports that you violated her boundaries…"
"I'm concerned about her interpretation of normal interaction through a lens of extreme anxiety."
His voice carries false concern designed to sound caring to anyone who might be listening. "Has she seen a doctor recently? High-stress pregnancies can trigger paranoia. It's nothing to be ashamed of."
The gaslighting is so smooth I almost admire the technique. He's not denying anything directly, just suggesting Jocelyn's perception is compromised by pregnancy and stress. Making himself the concerned party rather than the predator systematically targeting her.
"She's documenting every encounter," I say, keeping my voice level. "Dates, times, exact words. Landon's building a harassment case."
"Documentation created by someone in an anxious state isn't necessarily reliable." Aiden moves to the window, looking out at the city below. "Especially when that person is married to someone with a vested interest in believing her version of events."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning you're trapped, brother."
He turns, and for the first time, the mask slips just enough that I see the real architecture underneath.
"You've built these walls around Jocelyn and think you're protecting her, but you're creating a fortress that proves how threatened you both are."
His smile is cold, knowing.
"Every new security measure you implement reinforces the story that you're under siege. That your foundation is unstable, that your wife needs constant protection from threats she perceives around every corner."
He moves closer, voice dropping.
"And the more you build those walls, the more donors wonder why an organization needs fortress-level security just to function. The more the public sees exactly what Vivienne's been saying—that you're a man who responds to challenges with control and isolation rather than transparency."
The strategy crystallizes. Every defensive measure we've taken he's using as evidence of instability rather than reasonable precaution. Our strength reframed as weakness, our protection reframed as paranoia.
"You're saying we should just let you harass my wife without consequences."
"Jocelyn claims I made her uncomfortable. Your response? Revoke access, install cameras, flag board members, implement escort requirements. To outside observers, that looks like massive overreaction to normal workplace interaction."
"Or it looks like an appropriate response to systematic boundary violations."
"Does it?" His eyebrow lifts. "Because it looks like a man so desperate to control his environment that he's willing to destroy professional relationships and organizational stability to maintain the illusion of safety."
I study him for a long moment. This is what he's good at—taking reasonable responses and reframing them as evidence of the pathology he's manufacturing. Every move has a counter-move built in.
Protect Jocelyn, and we look paranoid. Don't protect her, and he escalates. Document his behavior, and he calls the documentation unreliable. Stop documenting, and we lose our evidence.
A perfect trap—elegant in its construction, devastating in its execution. And I almost walked right into it by coming here.
Because that's what this confrontation was supposed to be: me, emotional, aggressive, showing up at his office to make threats that prove I'm exactly the volatile man Vivienne describes.
The unannounced visit. The locked door. The physical intimidation of standing over his desk.
He probably has cameras in this office. Probably has this entire conversation recorded.
"Here's what I came to say," I keep my voice measured, clinical, refusing to give him the explosion he's fishing for. "Stay away from Jocelyn and the foundation. Or find out exactly how much documented evidence it takes to turn harassment charges into something that follows you permanently."
"Empty threats from a man who can't afford the publicity of pressing charges."
His confidence is unshakable.
"Go ahead, Zayden, file harassment complaints. Watch how quickly the media turns 'pregnant woman feels uncomfortable around brother-in-law' into proof that your family dysfunction is the real source of foundation instability."
He's right. Not about the harassment being imagined, about the optics. Filing would create exactly the narrative he wants.
I unlock the door, pull it open.
"This isn't over," I say.
"No," he agrees. "But brother?" He pauses, making sure I'm looking at him. "The next time you want to play intimidation games, remember who taught Father how to play them first."
I leave without responding. Take the elevator down with my hands clenched into fists and the bitter taste of a confrontation I lost before it started.
In the lobby, I stop walking. Stand still in the marble atrium while businesspeople flow around me like water around stone.
He's right about one thing. Confrontation doesn't work. Not with someone who's spent years building defenses against exactly this—direct, emotional, face-to-face anger that he can deflect and reframe and weaponize.
I can't beat Aiden by being louder. Can't win by being more aggressive, more threatening, more present. Every move I make in his space gives him ammunition. Every emotional response proves his narrative.
So I need to stop playing his game entirely.
I pull out my phone. Text Landon: Meeting with Aiden was a mistake. He's recording his office, probably has today's confrontation on tape. We need to change our strategy.
Landon responds in sixty seconds: What are you thinking?
Me: No more direct engagement. He wins every face-to-face because he controls the framing. From now on, everything goes through legal channels. Documentation only. Zero personal contact.
Landon: That's restraint, not strategy.
Me: Restraint IS the strategy. He needs us to be emotional and reactive. We starve him of both.
A long pause. Then: Agreed. I'll draft formal communication protocols. All contact through my office. No exceptions.