A Crown of Broken Glass

Aria

The door clicks shut behind me, the sound as final as a vault sealing. Twenty pairs of expensive eyes fix on me, dissecting my five thousand dollar dress, my carefully styled hair, the calculated tremor in my hands. The boardroom of Sterling Industries is a cathedral of glass and steel overlooking the city, and I am the sacrificial lamb. Or, perhaps, the ghost at the feast.

“So. You’re here.” The voice belongs to a man with a shock of white hair and a face like a collapsed souffle. Arthur Kensington, board member. Eighty years old and still clinging to power like it’s a life raft.

I offer a small, hesitant smile. The kind of smile that says I’m fragile, that I might break. It’s a lie, of course. I don’t break. I calculate. I dismantle. “I am. It’s… a lot to take in.”

The air is thick with the scent of old money, leather, and predatory intent. My gaze sweeps the room, cataloging faces I’ve spent the last six months memorizing from photographs. Skeptical allies, outright enemies, and two men who matter more than all the others combined. My eyes land on him first. Caleb Vance. My cousin. He leans back in his chair, a smirk playing on his perfectly sculpted lips. He looks every bit the corporate prince, from his tailored suit to the smug glint in his eyes. Those are the eyes I remember from my father’s nightmares. His father’s eyes.

“Welcome home, cousin,” Caleb says, his voice dripping with insincere charm. “Or should I say, welcome back to the land of the living? We weren’t sure you’d remember the way to the office.”

A ripple of uncomfortable laughter circles the long mahogany table. There it is. The opening salvo. The dopamine tease begins now. The raw, visceral need to see that smirk wiped from his face is a fire in my gut. It’s the fuel for this whole insane plan.

I let my lower lip tremble just so. “The doctors said there would be gaps. Big ones. But the name Sterling… that, I remembered. It felt like coming home.” I touch the simple gold locket at my throat, a prop Marcus insisted on. It’s my anchor, a tangible piece of the lie.

Caleb’s eyes narrow. He wants a fight. He wants me to be an imposter, a fraud he can expose and discard. He has no idea how right he is, or how badly he’s underestimated me.

Then, I feel another gaze. Colder. Sharper. It cuts through the noise of the room and pins me in place. Mason Trent. The Chief Operating Officer. He sits at the opposite end of the table from the chairman’s empty seat, my seat. He hasn’t said a word. He doesn’t need to. His silence is louder than Caleb’s taunts. He watches me with an unnerving stillness, his dark eyes giving nothing away. He’s not a prince like Caleb. He’s a king in a self imposed exile, observing the board as if it’s a game of chess he’s already won. My file on him was thick, but the man himself is a cipher. He is the one vAriable I can’t control.

“Anastasia,” Arthur Kensington grunts, pulling my attention back. “Your grandfather, God rest his soul, left strict instructions. Your return activates your claim to his seat and his controlling shares. This meeting is a formality to welcome you to the board.” The word ‘welcome’ sounds like a curse on his tongue.

“I appreciate the warm reception,” I say, my voice soft. Vulnerable. I need them to see a lost girl, not a threat. “I know this is sudden for everyone. It’s sudden for me. One day I’m… well, I’m not sure where I was. The next, I’m here. With a past I don’t recognize and a future I’m not sure I’m ready for.”

I can feel the shift in the room. A few of the older members soften. Pity is a powerful weapon. Caleb, however, leans forward, placing his elbows on the polished table. He’s not buying it.

“How convenient,” he says, his voice a low drawl meant to carry. “A bump on the head and ten years of wandering the wilderness, only to reappear the moment grandfather’s will is read. The timing is, you must admit, impeccable.”

“Caleb,” a woman with severe black hair warns. His mother, presumably. Another viper in the nest.

“What? We’re all thinking it,” he insists, his eyes locked on mine. “So tell us, Anastasia. What’s the last thing you remember? Before your grand reappearance, of course. We’re all dying to know what life is like for a billionaire with amnesia.”

This is the moment. The rage baiter has set his trap. My pulse is a steady, slow drum. I don’t feel anger. I feel a cold, clear purpose. He thinks he’s cornering me. He’s just giving me a stage.

I look down at my hands, clasped in my lap. I let a tear escape, tracing a single, glittering path down my cheek. I practiced this in the mirror a hundred times. The key is to let it fall, not to wipe it away. Wiping it away is defiance. Letting it fall is surrender.

“I remember… flashes,” I whisper, my voice cracking perfectly. “Cold. The smell of pine needles. I remember being afraid. I don’t remember my name. Or my father’s face. I just remember a feeling. Like I’d lost everything that ever mattered.”

My father’s face. I see it every time I close my eyes. Gaunt and broken after the Vances ruined him, stole his life’s work, and left him with nothing. The memory is so sharp it’s a physical pain. I channel it, letting the real grief bleed into the performance.

“I didn’t know who I was, where I came from. The people who found me… they were kind. I lived in a small community. Simple. Quiet. I didn’t know about Sterling Industries. I didn’t know about any of this until a private investigator showed up with a photograph.”

It’s a beautiful story. Marcus crafted it himself. A trail of breadcrumbs leading to a secluded commune in Oregon, complete with forged records and paid witnesses. A tragic tale of a lost soul finding peace in anonymity. Caleb can dig all he wants. All he’ll find is the legend we built.

I look up, meeting his mocking gaze directly. “I’m sorry if my timing is inconvenient for you, Caleb. But I didn’t choose this. It chose me. I’m just trying to… remember who I’m supposed to be.”

The performance is flawless. I see it in the sympathetic glances, the slight nods. I’ve won the room. All except for one.

Mason Trent still watches me, his expression unreadable. His gaze isn’t sympathetic. It isn’t hostile. It’s analytical. He’s not watching a lost heiress. He’s watching a predator that has just entered his territory. He sees something the others don’t. Or maybe I’m just projecting. The man is a statue carved from ice and ambition.

“Enough,” Arthur says, clearing his throat. “The girl has been through enough. Let’s move on to the quarterly reports. The acquisition of OmniCore.”

Caleb scoffs but leans back, temporarily defeated. He shoots me a look that promises this is far from over.

Good. I’m counting on it.

For the next hour, they talk numbers. Projections, acquisitions, market shares. It’s a language I know better than they think. Marcus drilled me for months, turning me into a walking database of Sterling Industries’ finances. I remain silent, playing the part of the overwhelmed, grieving heiress. I let my eyes glaze over, my posture slump just a little, every inch the out of place porcelain doll.

“The primary issue with OmniCore is their decentralized server infrastructure,” Caleb says, preening for the board. “Their security protocols are a mess. Integrating them into our system will require a complete overhaul, a project that my department estimates will cost north of fifty million and take at least two quarters.”

He’s showing off. Establishing his authority. Trying to prove how indispensable he is and how useless I am.

“A costly but necessary endeavor,” Arthur agrees, nodding sagely.

I wait for the perfect pause. Then, I speak, my voice barely above a whisper.

“You could bypass the integration.”

Every head swivels in my direction. The sudden silence is deafening. Caleb looks at me as if I’ve just grown a second head.

“I’m sorry?” he says, dripping with condescension. “Did you have something to add, Anastasia? A brilliant business insight from your time weaving baskets in the woods?”

I ignore him, looking directly at Arthur Kensington. “OmniCore’s greatest asset isn’t their infrastructure. It’s their patent on predictive data modeling. It’s revolutionary. You don’t need to absorb their messy system. You could run their algorithms as a closed loop on a secure cloud server, a virtual sandbox. It would give you all of the benefit with none of the security risks. And it would cost a fraction of fifty million.”

I let the words hang in the air. The details are courtesy of Marcus, fed to me through an earpiece so small it’s undetectable. But the delivery, the timing, that’s all me.

Caleb is speechless. His mouth opens and closes like a fish. He looks utterly, completely dumbfounded. The sheer, unadulterated pleasure of it is a drug. This is why I’m here. For moments exactly like this. To watch the architect of my family’s pain crumble under the weight of his own arrogance.

Arthur Kensington stares at me, his bushy white eyebrows climbing toward his hairline. “A virtual sandbox…” he murmurs, intrigued.

Across the table, something flickers in Mason Trent’s eyes. It’s not approval. It’s not surprise. It’s… recognition. It’s the look of a grandmaster seeing an unexpected, clever move from a new opponent. And it terrifies me more than anything else in this room.

He leans forward slightly, his first movement of the entire meeting. His voice is low, a gravelly baritone that commands attention without trying. “An interesting proposal. Where did you learn about sandboxing protocol, Anastasia?”

His question is a scalpel, precise and dangerous. Caleb accused me with a sledgehammer. Mason probes with a surgeon’s skill.

I lower my eyes again, feigning shyness. “I… read a lot. In the community. We had a library. Mostly old books, but someone donated a collection of tech magazines. I always found them… logical. A comfort, I suppose. When you don’t have memories, it’s nice when things just make sense. Follow rules.”

The lie is thin, but it’s the best I can do. Caleb seems to recover, sensing a weakness.

“Tech magazines,” he scoffs, shaking his head in disbelief. “We’re supposed to bet the future of this company on something you read in a magazine?”

“It’s a valid strategic alternative worth exploring,” Mason says, his voice cutting across Caleb’s. His gaze is still on me. He isn’t defending me. He’s merely stating a fact. But it silences Caleb instantly. For the first time, I understand where the real power in this room lies. It’s not in the Sterling name or the Vance ambition. It’s in the quiet, unnerving competence of Mason Trent.

The meeting wraps up soon after. I’ve survived. I’ve drawn first blood. I can feel the shift. I am no longer just a ghost. I am a player. As the board members begin to file out, muttering amongst themselves, I stand on shaky legs. Part of the act, mostly genuine adrenaline.

“A remarkable first day, cousin,” Caleb says, stopping beside my chair. His smile is gone, replaced by a cold, hard glare. “Don’t get comfortable.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” I say softly, meeting his gaze. For just a second, I let a flicker of the real me show. A hint of steel beneath the porcelain. I see the surprise in his eyes before he turns and storms out.

Soon, the room is empty. Except for him.

Mason Trent remains seated, watching me from across the expanse of polished wood. The setting sun glints off the glass walls, casting long shadows. He hasn’t moved. I feel like a butterfly pinned to a board.

I gather my purse, my movements slow and deliberate. I should go. I need to get out of here, call Marcus, and breathe. But I can’t seem to move. His stare holds me captive.

Finally, he rises. He is taller than I thought, broad shouldered in his perfectly cut dark suit. He walks toward me, his footsteps silent on the plush carpet. He stops a few feet away, close enough that I can smell the clean, sharp scent of his cologne. It smells like cedar and cold winter air.

He says nothing. He just looks at me. He’s searching for something. Looking past the expensive dress, the lost girl act, the carefully constructed lies. He’s looking for the truth.

My heart, which was so steady before, begins to pound against my ribs. Caleb is a snake. I know how to handle snakes. You charm them or you cut off their heads. But Mason Trent… he’s something else entirely. He’s a wolf. And he knows, somehow, that I am not one of the sheep.

After what feels like an eternity, he gives a single, almost imperceptible nod, and walks out of the room without a word.

I finally exhale, the breath I didn’t realize I was holding rattling in my chest. I lean against the table for support, my legs suddenly weak. The dopamine rush of putting Caleb in his place is gone, replaced by a chilling, profound sense of danger. I came here to hunt a snake. I think I just found a dragon.