Chapter 3 The first crack in the Glass

Chapter 3:

The First Crack in the Glass

With a hazy excuse, Rebecca Lopez left the room and headed for the garden path. The night air steadied her nerves. Fred didn't follow but his eyes did. Samuel lingered inside, confused but respectful. Forlan took the opportunity to intercept Fred with a casual question about vintage floorings, slowing him just enough.

Inside, music shifted to a softer tune. Smiles returned, hesitant but genuine.

The atmosphere rebalanced for a moment. The undercurrent eased, like a breath held too long finally released.

However, the calm was only superficial. The game had changed and now, each player was subtly recalculating their next move.

Fred Coleman was not merely a businessman he was a brand. To the world, he was a magnate whose empire spanned real estate, luxury interior design, and an ever-growing list of exotic ventures. What few knew was how far Fred would go to control not only markets, but people.

His penthouse in Geneva had walls draped in cashmere and mirrors imported from Murano. Yet his taste wasn't just expensive it was obsessive. Every room was curated to elicit submission: deep leather chairs, low lighting, fine whiskeys arranged like trophies. He didn't entertain guests. He staged them.

In business, Fred was decisive, unforgiving. His deals often ended with competitors absorbed or dismantled, their ventures added to his chain. It wasn't enough to win. He needed to devour. Real estate was his empire's backbone, but he had many ribs: casinos tucked into opulent resorts, underground dog-fighting arenas masked as private clubs, and even a bloodied past in horse racing. He wasn't just a gambler; he had been an addict ruined once, rebuilt twice.

Fred's relationship with risk mirrored his approach to women: calculated, indulgent, and ultimately consumptive.

His sexual appetites were as layered as his reputation. Some mistook his charm for gentility an error he encouraged. His real desires played out behind locked doors, where submission and dominance danced in carefully choreographed routines. He did not acquire lovers; rather, he took them. And once acquired, he studied them like he would a high-stakes investment. He knew their weaknesses, what made them beg, what made them scream. He never pressed, and he never needed to. He manipulated, tempted, intoxicated. His control was always absolute, though his consent was drawn out like silk. He preferred brunettes with sharp eyes. Women who challenged him at first. His liaisons rarely lasted more than three months. He kept them rotating like art pieces some returned, some didn't.

There was Clara, the art historian from Milan who once slapped him in public. She ended up in his Lisbon apartment for two months, never the same after. Or Naomi, the fashion consultant from Tel Aviv, who swore she'd never fall for a man twice her age-until he read her journal aloud during dinner, page by page, having stolen it from her suitcase.

Then there was Alicia young, disillusioned, too eager to impress. She was aboard Fred's yacht in Corsica. She only wore his shirts for two weeks and drank expensive champagne with nothing left to dream about. She returned home to Paris pregnant, but Fred had disappeared ghosted her, erased her presence from every mutual contact.

Guilt never lingered. Fred didn't believe in remorse. To him, people were weaknesses in flesh. He either used them or lost them.

His staff knew better than to ask questions. Mark, his personal assistant, once expressed concern regarding a woman who showed up at the Monaco residence bruised and confused. Mark was gone by week's end.

But Fred wasn't sloppy. He underwent surgery. Everything was layered behind deniability, a labyrinth of legality. Paperwork in other people's names. Cameras conveniently malfunctioning. And women who never spoke publicly-some silenced by money, others by psychological unraveling.

Despite all this, Fred never saw himself as a predator. In his mind, he gave people exactly what they secretly wanted: risk, desire, danger the seduction of ruin dressed as luxury.

And now, he had his sights set on Rebecca.

She intrigued him. She wasn't a conquest yet-but the tension was ripening. He saw it in the way she held her champagne. The way she didn't flinch when he got too close-but didn't relax either. That tightrope walk of resistance was his favorite dance.

But Rebecca was different. He could feel it. This one could break something in him if he wasn't careful. Which, of course, made her irresistible.

The momentary calm of the party fractured once more.

Inside, Fred reappeared, his presence enticing and disruptive. Rebecca had returned too, her composure seemingly intact, but something in her had shifted. She was quieter, colder, her laugh a shade too hollow. Samuel noticed.

"Did he say something?" He inquired while they were briefly alone. "No," she replied, then added after a pause, "Not exactly."

Fred stood with Forlan now, their conversation wrapped in real estate jargon-on the surface. But Forlan's posture had changed. He wasn't merely watching Fred; he was measuring him.

Fred turned mid-sentence, locking eyes with Rebecca across the room. A smirk tugged at the edge of his mouth unreadable to anyone but her. She turned away immediately, her heart skidding in her chest.

Samuel was distracted by a message on his phone. A coded phrase from Don Williams: "The board is heating. Knight might burn the Queen."

He reread it twice, trying to parse its meaning. He didn't realize Rebecca was slipping further from his grasp.

At the bar, Kelvin approached Fred, deliberately. "You're enjoying yourself too much," he muttered.

Fred sipped his drink without breaking eye contact. "Isn't that the point?"

"You're playing with things you shouldn't touch."

Fred chuckled. "Isn't that your job?"

Outside, thunder grumbled distantly. The storm was still gathering. And the players were shifting into place.