Page 26 of Dallas Rivals

Not angry, not distant—just… somewhere else.

“Flowering plants, seed plants, vascular plants, terrestrial, green…”

His breathing starts to slow, the rhythm returning, the tension in his shoulders easing.

After a while, he sits down on what looks like a lounge chair and finally lies back.

I wait a few minutes, but he doesn’t move again.

He must’ve fallen asleep.

So I keep going, my tires crunching softly against the dirt.

But I can’t shake the feeling in my chest—this deep, aching sadness for a man who looks like he has everything yet still seems like he’s fighting ghosts no one else can see.

If I had to compare him to a character, it’d be Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights.

He’s got that same presence—brooding, unreadable, magnetic in a way that doesn’t make sense.

I used to think his mind was spinning a thousand thoughts whenever he scolded me, and now that I’ve seen him like this—alone, vulnerable, human—I’m sure of it.

I just hope revenge isn’t one of the things keeping him awake at night.

Emily Brontë already proved that never ends well.

The story of Property Group is kind of tragic—but it’s got a happy ending.

I’ll keep it short, since talking about feelings and family drama isn’t exactly my strong suit.

My father used to run the company. He was the boss, the king, the man who thought he built everything we had. Until Luca—my older brother—finally forced him to step down and let the rest of us steer the damn ship.

Turned out, that was the smartest move anyone in this family ever made.

Because somewhere along the line, we realized our old man was the root of most of our problems—the competition he planted between us, the stress, the constant pressure to perform like machines. All those choices we made in our lives weren’t really ours. We just made them trying to please him.

Now Silas, the oldest, has taken full command.

And for once, things actually feel different.

First change: the branch rivalry? Dead.

We stopped comparing numbers. Finally admitted that our markets aren’t the same—New York’s got the pot of gold, Texas has the oil. There’s plenty of money here, sure, but no one competes with Manhattan.

Silas also cut down in-person meetings by half. Which, for me, is the best damn decision anyone’s ever made. I hate—and I mean hate—traveling to big cities.

New York feels like a nightmare come to life.

Miami’s tolerable—mostly because Luca’s beach makes up for the people.

San Francisco? Too damn cheerful. Everyone there looks like they’ve had three cups of optimism for breakfast.

Right now, we’re on a video call—each of us in our own offices—running the business like adults for once. I’m sitting in my glass-walled corner office, the city stretching out behind me in a blur of steel and noise, papers scattered across my desk like they’re plotting a coup. The kind of professionalism we could never show our father, because he never gave us the chance.

Killian: Stop yawning, for Christ’s sake—you’re making me do it too.

The message flashes on my screen while he smirks at me through the camera.

I’m in my office. The monitor’s big enough to see every one of my brothers in high definition. Silas is talking—again—about the new policies he wants us to apply at each branch. God bless him for marrying an environmentalist; otherwise, he’d never have turned half this company green.