Chapter 43

Arnold’s vulnerability:

I felt like I was losing control. The discovery of Damian and Lily's dark plan to take over the Hawthorne company had thrown my world into disarray, and the weight of it all threatened to destroy me. As I paced the confines of my office, my mind raced with a thousand alternative scenarios, each worse than the last. Damian and Lily had made it clear that they would stop at nothing to achieve their aim, and the notion of them tearing apart everything I cared about made me violently nauseous. The Hawthorne legacy, the corporation that had provided my family with a living for generations, was at risk. And I couldn't stop it. I'd spent my entire life working to develop and preserve that empire, only to have it stolen away by my own flesh and blood and the woman who once professed to love me. I felt a familiar sense of powerlessness rush over me as recollections of my time with Lily threatened to consume me whole. I could still feel the pain of her betrayal—how she h