Chapter 3 The Dinner Table ( Takeda Family)

And Amora watched from the threshold, stomach twisting, breath caught somewhere between heartbreak and horror.

After six months of being tangled in his arms, in his lies, in what she thought was love she had only just learned that very morning that Riku was a married man… with a whole family built long before she ever touched his name.

How was he able to keep her inside such a beautiful dream for so long before she realized she had been living in a nightmare all along?

How could Riku who once seemed almost saintly in her eyes, once warm, once whispering promises against her throat sit beside this woman with a face carved from calm, and act as if she had never even existed in his world?

The man she swore she knew... had been a stranger all along.

A cold-blooded monster disguised as a lover.

He looked at ease. At home.

As if this had always been who he was.

And maybe it had.

Maybe the man Amora had loved had only ever been a momentary flicker of rebellion. A mistake in the program. A shadow he wore before he stepped back into the polished marble mold that bore his name.

Riku, the golden son.

The one of Takeda jewel.

His expression didn’t change. His lips stayed parted, just enough to sip his wine. Amora felt her spine quake. There was no recognition in him not of her, not of anything. Just that dead stare. And she realized, in one sudden, violent moment, that the man she had loved was gone.

Or maybe he had never been there at all.

"This was supposed to be a family gathering," someone muttered without looking up.

And it was.

This was the Takeda family. The kind that smiled for society pages but let their ghosts scream behind velvet drapes.

And now Amora had become one of them just another spirit, lost in silk and madness. She didn’t understand what Riku had become, or how he could be so beautifully, completely hollow.

It was breaking her.

It was making her insane.

And still, outside, the city lights flickered. As if nothing at all was happening behind the marble walls. As if the dead don’t dine too.

“You said you loved me!” Amora screamed, her voice cracking. “You told me I was special! You begged me to stay with you, told me you’d protect me! And now you sit there like I’m nothing!”

Her hand shook violently. The knife grazed her collarbone. Her phone screen glowed, threatening to beam her pain to thousands of followers.

Ren the cousin with a mouth too sharp and a mind far too observant set down her wine glass with deliberate grace, the stem barely whispering against the marble.

She leaned back in her chair, one leg crossed over the other, exuding the kind of power that didn’t ask for permission to be noticed. Her beauty was undeniable strong, sculpted, the kind that turned heads in boardrooms and broke hearts without lifting a finger.

She was an elite kind of beautiful.

Asian royalty in designer tailoring.

Cheekbones like blades.

Blood-red lipstick like a warning label.

She smirked, voice smooth, low, and lethal.

“Third girl this month, Riku.

You’re slipping.”

A few at the table chuckled softly. Riku rolled his eyes.

“Can we not do this tonight?”

Ren wasn’t finished. Her eyes flicked to Riku’s wife  Olivia polished, expressionless, seated like a mannequin draped in couture.

“And please, don’t pretend this is a scandal to your marriage. Everyone knows that arrangement’s been dead on arrival. No love. No loyalty. Just names on a contract.”

Riku’s wife didn’t flinch. She didn’t even blink.

She was made for this. But  One lesson Olivia learned brutal, unspoken, and carved into every gesture at that table was that emotion was contraband. Among the elites, a flicker of feeling was no different than blood in the water: it drew predators, it fed rivals, and worst of all, it offended the very kin who claimed to be family. Survival here demanded more than charm or loyalty; it required silence of the heart. Olivia endured not by yielding to impulse but by sharpening her mind into a blade. Every glance, every pause, every word she released was calculated, as though she were playing a game where one misplaced move meant exile or worst her downfall for her children.

Amora, however, wasn’t. She was unraveling in real time breaking, live for no one and yet in front of everyone. What she didn’t see was that her collapse was not incidental; it was by design. Riku had been waiting for this moment, orchestrating it like a puppeteer tightening invisible strings. To watch her fracture, to see her drenched in raw emotion, was the very spectacle he craved.

He felt it viscerally each tear that rolled down her face stoking something darker within him. A low hum of arousal threaded through his restraint, tightening at his core, pressing against the fabric near his zipper. Yet his expression betrayed nothing. His face was a flawless mask, drained of tenderness, drained of recognition, as if she were already a stranger. The more she dissolved, the more he fed on it, savoring her unraveling as though it were proof of his own untouchable control.

“I gave you everything! I let you use me! You love bombed me until I was blind!”

Cadeyrn, stoic in the shadows, was the primogeniture who never faltered, the one who moved like inevitability itself. And as always, the veteran was already in motion, dismantling the chaos before it could breathe. didn’t even look up as he murmured into his phone, “Disable her access. Wipe the phone. Prep the hospital contact. NDA is pre-drafted.”

Seconds later, Amora’s phone went black in her hand.

Her scream raw and animal bounced off the imported stone.

The guards approached like shadows. They didn’t rush. They didn’t speak. She was restrained with surgical precision. The knife fell. So did her last shred of hope.

Mr. Rei closed his eyes, sighing from somewhere deep and ancient.

“Three this month,” Ren repeated, louder this time. “Do we get a loyalty discount at the crisis ward?”

One of the younger cousins snorted.

Across the table, Cadeyrn returned, calm as ever. “She’s being transported to a private care center. She’ll be sedated before arrival. NDA will hold. Gave her a small settlement for discretion. Her socials are scrubbed.”

“Good,” Mr. Rei murmured. “Make sure the family lawyer reminds her how little her version of events will matter.”

Then, louder: “Give Riku’s wife a bonus in her monthly allowance. And freeze Riku’s club and business credit card. Maybe abstinence will teach him discipline.”

Riku’s jaw tightened, the muscle flickering like a restrained flame. He knew better than to argue with the Chairman his grandfather. Legacy demanded obedience, not defiance.

“I’ll accept my punishment,” he said evenly, his tone clipped with dignity. “And I apologize to everyone for the disruption.”

He forced a polite smile toward his grandfather, though behind it simmered silent pride and bruised ego.

Across the long marble table, his mother Hana ever the devoted matriarch refused to let her son’s reputation be blemished without defense.

“Oh, I’m terribly concerned for the family’s safety,” she declared, eyes widening just enough to pull sympathy her way. “How could anyone have gotten inside?”

Celine calmly dabbed the corners of her mouth with a linen napkin before turning to her aunt, her tone refined but carrying a quiet sting. “Auntie, there’s really no need for worry,” she said smoothly. “My brother Cadeyrn has, as always, ensured the family’s protection. Perhaps the real concern lies in permitting marital activities outside the estate that tends to invite the wrong kind of company.”

Her aunt’s brows arched, but Celine didn’t flinch. Her aunt always came for her brother and for her mother  Maristelle, who wasn’t in attendance that evening so Celine had taken it upon herself to make sure their side of the table was well defended.

Mr. Rei turned his gaze to Cadeyrn, stoic and controlled, the grandson entrusted with both the family’s security and its corporate veins.

“It appears,” Cadeyrn replied, voice cool as tempered glass, “one of the maids left the kitchen door unlocked.”

Before the unease could deepen, Olivia spoke calm, deliberate, her presence cutting through the tension like silk through smoke.

“Then let’s treat this as a systems failure, not a scandal,” she said. “We can integrate the company’s new home-sensor technology into the estate. It’ll serve as a trial for the product launch. I’ll have the prototypes delivered to your office by morning.”

The logic was perfect. Practical. Unassailable.

But beneath the table, her fingers moved with quiet purpose composing a second message to her team.

Authorize an extra deposit, she wrote. To the same maid who had been instructed to let the door remain open so Ammaara could slip inside. The same one who’d been paid to speak a little too loudly at the salon where Ammaara worked, letting whispers of Riku’s affairs drift through the air like perfume.

Olivia didn’t smile. She didn’t need to. Her revenge was not impulsive it was architectural. Every gesture built a wall, every favor planted a seed. She spoke of solutions, but they always aligned perfectly with her hidden agenda.

Mr. Rei nodded approvingly, mistaking her precision for loyalty.

“Excellent. Stay on top of it,” he said. “Family security is our top priority.”

Olivia met his gaze with steady calm. “Of course,” she murmured, her tone smooth as glass.

Ren tilted her glass toward Riku’s wife, dry amusement in her eyes. “Congrats, cousin. Your marriage is officially more useful than affectionate.”

“I stopped expecting affection after the honeymoon,” she replied quietly. “I came for legacy. Not love.”

And just like that, the dinner resumed.

A young woman had collapsed at the altar of power, and not one plate had gone cold.