I couldn’t fucking believe it.
Floris had hacked my cameras. My cameras. The surveillance system I’d paid seven figures to make impenetrable, and this girl with trust issues and a smart mouth had cracked it like she was solving a crossword puzzle.
I should’ve been furious. Should’ve had her dragged out by security, contracts voided, brother’s treatment terminated. That’s what I would’ve done to anyone else who had the audacity to break into my digital fortress.
Instead, I was… impressed? Aroused? Some twisted combination that made absolutely no sense.
She wasn’t even scared when I found her in the archive. Just sitting there with Sia’s tape playing, looking like she’d seen a ghost. Which, honestly, she had. Sia’s past was a graveyard I’d buried for good reason.
“You think I wouldn’t find out you hacked the cameras?” I’d said, expecting her to scramble, to lie, to beg for forgiveness like they always did.
“I knew you’d find out,” she’d replied, calm as ice. “I just needed to buy some time.”
Buy some time. Like she was planning a heist instead of having a psychological breakdown in my private vault.
What the fuck was happening to me?
I’d had dozens of assistants over the years. Some lasted weeks, others months. They all followed the same pattern—resistance, breakdown, compliance, disposal. Clean. Predictable. Profitable.
But Floris? She was rewriting the entire playbook.
When she’d asked if I’d ever loved someone before, I should’ve deflected. Should’ve turned it into another power play, another psychological chess move. Instead, I’d answered her. Honestly.
“Not in a way that kept them alive.”
The words had come out before I could stop them, and the look on her face—shock, horror, something that might’ve been pity—made me want to either kiss her or strangle her.
Maybe both.
My phone buzzed. Unknown number, but I recognized the pattern. Only one person called from rotating burner phones like she was running a drug cartel instead of living in suburban hell.
“Eric.” Not a greeting. A command.
“Mother.” I didn’t hide the irritation in my voice. “What do you want?”
“Such a warm welcome for the woman who gave you life.”
Helena Brighton. Seventy-two years old, living in a mansion in Haarlem that I paid for, and still wielding guilt like a weapon of mass destruction.
“I’m busy.”
“You’re always busy. Too busy for family, apparently.”
I walked to my office window, looking out over Amsterdam’s skyline. “Is there a point to this call?”
“Dinner. This Sunday. My house.”
“I’m not coming to Haarlem for one of your theatrical dinner parties.”
“I wasn’t asking.” Her voice turned sharp, the way it did when she was about to deploy the heavy artillery. “You’ll be there. Seven sharp. And don’t even think about sending one of your little assistants with excuses.”
The word ‘assistants’ dripped with contempt. She knew exactly what I did with them, had known for years. Probably approved, if I was being honest. After all, she’d been the one to teach me that love was just another word for control.
“I have a company to run.”
“The company can survive without you for one evening. Your mother, however, is getting older. More fragile. Who knows how many more family dinners we’ll have?”
Emotional manipulation 101. She’d been perfecting this routine since I was ten years old, watching her reduce my father to a groveling mess with just a few well-placed words.
Dad had been weak. Pathetic. Begging for scraps of her attention like a dog under the dinner table. She’d trained him to crawl, to plead, to sacrifice his dignity for the illusion of her love.
“Please, Helena,” he’d whisper, on his knees in their bedroom while I watched through the crack in the door. “I’ll do anything. Just tell me what you want.”
And she’d look down at him with those cold blue eyes and smile. “What I want is for you to remember your place.”
That’s where I’d learned it. The art of breaking people down until they thanked you for the privilege. The delicate balance between pain and pleasure that kept them coming back for more.
“I don’t take no for an answer, Eric.” Her voice brought me back to the present. “You know that.”
And fuck me, I did know that. Even at thirty-five, even with an empire built on other people’s secrets, I could still feel that old familiar tug. The need to please her, to prove I was worthy of her attention.
It was pathetic. It was also impossible to ignore.
“Fine,” I said, the word tasting like ash. “But I’m bringing someone.”
“Oh?” Interest crept into her voice. “The new girl?”
Of course she knew about Floris. Helena Brighton made it her business to know everything about everyone in my life. Probably had a file on her thicker than most government dossiers.
“Her name is Floris.”
“Floris.” She tested the name like wine. “Unusual. Is she… suitable?”
“She’s complicated.”
“Good. I’m tired of the simple ones. They bore me.” A pause. “Bring her. I’m curious to meet the woman who’s got my son so thoroughly distracted.”
“I’m not distracted.”
“Eric, darling, you haven’t fired her yet. For you, that’s practically a marriage proposal.”
The line went dead before I could respond.
I stared at the phone, feeling that familiar cocktail of rage and resignation that came with every conversation with my mother.
She still had her hooks in me after all these years. Still knew exactly which buttons to push to make me dance to her tune.
Just like she’d done with Dad until the day he died. Just like I did with every woman who walked through my door.
The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, they say. But sometimes the apple grows up twisted, learns to enjoy the game, and becomes something even more dangerous than the tree that spawned it.