Page 28 of Controlled Drift
“My father came and told me I was coming home,” Ethan continued.“That I was done pretending I could have a life that didn’t belong to him.”
Ethan didn’t look at Niko when he said it.He didn’t trust himself to.
“He already had it arranged.My discharge from flight school, the marriage to Cleo, the announcement of the engagement—all of it—it was already in motion.He had certain things he could threaten me with, and he did.I tried to fight him, to find a way to tell you, but his men beat the shit out of me, and dragged my unconscious ass out.”
The reaction in the room was immediate, but Ethan stayed focused on the table, on the weight of the mug in his hands, on keeping his breathing even.
“He wasn’t bluffing,” Ethan said quietly.“He never does.”
“What kind of man does that?”Luca muttered.
“A powerful one,” Ethan replied.“And a sick one.”
Kael leaned forward.“I think I know who your father is.Gregory Rhodes, right?"Ethan shot him a wry smile and a nod."Yeah, he’s an evil fucker.”
That almost made Ethan smile.Almost.
"And then you married Cleo Pembroke?"Niko asked, and there was tension in his tone.
Ethan nodded.“Yeah, I married her, but not because I loved her and not because I wanted to.”He paused, choosing his words carefully.“She didn’t want me either.We were both just leverage.Pawns used by our fathers to make more money.My father—” Ethan heard the hatred he had for that man in his own tone."—kept me on a tight leash, so to speak."
He didn’t talk about the beatings.About the nights spent calculating how much damage he could absorb before it showed.About learning how to stand so blows landed where they hurt less.
He could see Niko noticing anyway.
“Cleo's father did the same for her, despite her pregnancy, and just after she gave birth to Poppy, she got sick,” Ethan said, flashes of how hard she fought, and how horrific the disease was that claimed her, crossed through his mind.“It was cancer.Aggressive and terminal.She fought to stay for our daughter, but in the end, it took her.She endured a lot at the hands of her family and mine.”
"You stayed with her, even though you could have left," Niko said, and it was not a question.
Ethan was surprised at just how well Nik knew him.
“I stayed,” he confirmed.“For her.And for Poppy.”
Niko said quietly, “I know you would have.”
That nearly broke him.
“She lived longer than they expected,” Ethan said.“Long enough that my father kept me exactly where he wanted me.Close.Useful.”
He swallowed.
“While she was dying, and hell, from the first day I could upon my return to the fold, so to speak, I planned.I didn’t run.I waited.I built a fucking empire.”
“Your tech,” Luca said, interest sharpening.
"Yeah, a lot of it," Ethan said."Security was what I did most and best, and a few AI systems."
Luca sat forward.“The AI systems.You don’t meanAegis Vector, do you?”
Ethan’s mouth curved faintly.“That’s one of them.”
Luca let out a low breath.“I use Aegis Vector’s routing and counter-surveillance architecture.It’s ...fuck, it’s elegant.Adaptive, predictive.I assumed it was a black lab or a government ghost project.”
"Nope, just me," Ethan admitted with a shrug.“Six months.That’s all it took to start building capital once I could move freely.”
Drew frowned slightly.“Six months to get all of this up and running?The company, the systems, the infrastructure?”
Ethan shrugged one shoulder.“The bones were already there.I just finally had the courage to build without caring too much about the fucker standing over me with a leash.”
