Chapter 203: The Devil Is A Coward

?Damian’s fingers paused on the tablet screen. "If this is about medical fees, Henry has already cleared them."

?"It isn’t about fees, Damian," Victoria replied calmly. "It’s about the fact that your wife experienced a severe psychosomatic mimicry of gestation triggered by acute psychological trauma. You two are living like inmates in a private war zone."

?Valerie lowered her eyes, shrinking slightly in her chair.

?Victoria didn’t flinch. "The physical crisis has passed, but the foundation between you both is rotting. If you intend to keep her under this roof without driving her into a sanitarium or killing each other by inches, you need outside intervention."

?Damian looked up, his eyes narrowing into cold slits. "Speak plainly, Mother."

?"I have arranged for Dr. Kenneth Hayes to clear his schedule starting Thursday," Victoria said, smooth as silk. "He is discreet, elite, and handles high-profile family disputes. You two are going to start couple therapy."

The dining room fell into a dead, suffocating silence.

?Damian’s jaw tightened so hard the muscle ticked beneath his skin. He locked his tablet with a sharp snap of his thumb and tossed it onto the mahogany table, the glass rattling against the polished wood.

?"Out of the question," he said, his voice flat, icy, and brooking no room for debate. "I don’t have time to sit in an armchair and entertain some overpaid charlatan dissecting my private life. The company merger closes in three weeks, the logistics portfolio requires my physical presence in Frankfurt, and I am not putting commercial operations on hold to exchange feelings."

?Beside him, Anastasia kept her head down.

?She didn’t raise her voice, nor did she roll her eyes. Her fingers simply tightened around the stem of her water glass, her gaze anchored to the untouched eggs on her plate. His excuse of "no time" was laughable, but the silence she offered him was colder than any retort.

?She knew the brutal truth... Damian wasn’t refusing because of corporate meetings or flights to Germany. He was refusing because in his mind, they weren’t even a real couple to begin with.

You don’t take your captive to marriage counseling; you don’t attend therapy with the collateral on a debt. To admit they needed therapy was to admit they were two equal partners trying to mend a fractured bond, and Damian’s pride would never allow him to surrender that level of control.

?Victoria, however, was entirely unimpressed by her son’s corporate deflection.

?She didn’t raise her voice. She picked up her linen napkin, dabbed the corner of her lips with practiced elegance, and set it down before fixing Damian with an unblinking, steely glare.

?"Then do not do it for yourself, Damian," Victoria said, her tone sharp, slicing straight through his arrogant wall. "Do it for Anastasia."

?Damian’s dark eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. "Mother—"

?"Look at her," Victoria commanded, gesturing toward the pale, frail girl sitting across from him. "Look at the woman sitting at your table. In the span of six months, she has survived a targeted vehicular ambush, three days bound in a warehouse basement after a violent kidnapping, and a shootout on the wharf where she watched men bleed out on the asphalt in front of her."

?Valerie winced, pulling her shoulders inward, but Victoria didn’t soften by an inch.

?"She is twenty eight years old, Damian. Her nervous system has been pushed to the absolute brink of total collapse... so severely that her own body generated a phantom pregnancy just to process the sheer, unadulterated terror she lives under every day. She isn’t a piece of collateral in a corporate vault; she is a human being who has endured relentless trauma under your watch."

?Victoria leaned forward, her voice dropping into a quiet, ruthless conviction that echoed through the cavernous room.

?"You think you can protect her with private security, armored glass, and iron gates? You can lock down the entire island of Manhattan, Damian, but you cannot guard her against the horror trapped inside her own mind. She needs professional help. And if you have a single shred of decency left beneath that suit, you will sit in that room and ensure she gets it."

The silence that followed Victoria’s words was thick, suffocating, and heavy with the ghosts of the past six months.

?Damian’s jaw remained locked in rigid stone, his obsidian eyes dark with an unreadable, stormy fury. He looked ready to bark an order to Henry, ready to dismiss the entire conversation with a wave of his hand and retreat behind the cold glass walls of his corporate tower.

?Before he could speak, the soft scraping of wood against marble broke the tension.

?Anastasia pushed her chair back.

?She stood up, slender and pale in her oversized sweater, her posture frail yet unnervingly steady. She didn’t look at Damian. She kept her hazel eyes fixed entirely on Victoria, her voice quiet, flat, and stripped of all anger.

?"Don’t force him, Victoria," Ana said softly, her words falling like ice onto the linen cloth. "Therapy requires honesty, vulnerability, and a willingness to look at the damage you’ve caused. Damian only knows contracts and leverage. He doesn’t know how to speak without holding a knife to someone’s throat."

?Damian’s entire body went rigid. His fingers tightened on the edge of the mahogany table, the wood groaning beneath the sudden pressure.

?"If you think I need professional help after everything that has happened under this roof, then arrange the appointments," Ana continued, her gaze drifting toward the high terrace windows, refusing to give Damian even a fraction of her attention. "I will speak with Dr. Hayes. But I will do it alone. There is no point in dragging him into a charade that only exists when it’s convenient for him."

?Without waiting for permission or a reply, Ana turned and walked out of the dining room. Her quiet footsteps faded down the long marble corridor toward the guest wing, the door latching shut in the heavy silence behind her.

?A lethal, suffocating frost settled over the room.

?Damian stood up so violently his chair tipped backward, caught only by the carpet. He grabbed his coat from the sideboard, his knuckles white, and strode toward the foyer with predatory, hurried strides.

?"Henry," he barked into the hall, his voice echoing off the vaulted ceilings like a gunshot. "Bring the car around. Now."

?He reached the private elevator vestibule, stabbing the call button with vicious force. The gilded indicator lights flickered, the cab rising from the subterranean garage.

?"Run away, then," a cool, composed voice cut through the cavernous space.

?Damian spun around.

?Victoria had followed him into the foyer. She stood with her arms crossed over her tailored silk blouse, completely unbothered by the towering fury radiating from her son.

?"Get out of my way, Mother," Damian warned, his voice dropping into a dangerous, low rasp. "I have a board meeting at nine."

?"You don’t give a damn about the board meeting, Damian, and we both know it," Victoria said, her tone smooth, merciless, and piercing straight through his armor. "You’re running because a twenty eight year old girl just looked you in the eye and called you a coward."

?"Mom, seriously?," He snarled, taking a threatening step forward, his towering frame casting a dark shadow over her.

?Victoria didn’t flinch by a fraction of an inch. She held his furious glare with the unflinching authority.

?"She called you a coward without ever using the word," Victoria continued, her voice dipping into a sharp whisper. "She told you to your face that you are incapable of honesty. And she is right. You hide behind your mergers, your private security because the moment you step into a room with a doctor, someone will shine a light into that rotted, terrified corner of your chest where your father’s ghost still lives."

?Damian’s throat worked, a vein pulsing violently at his temple. "This has nothing to do with father."

?"It has everything to do with him!" Victoria snapped, her aristocratic facade cracking just enough to let twenty years of buried grief bleed through. "Arthur tried to handle every living thing around him until he choked on his own mistakes, and you are walking his exact path. Do you think keeping Anastasia broken and isolated is going to keep her safe? If she suffers a complete psychological collapse—if the board or your old enemies realize the Sterling heir’s woman is losing her mind inside this penthouse—your leverage evaporates overnight."

?The elevator chimed, the brushed-bronze doors sliding open to reveal the empty, mirrored interior.

?Victoria stepped closer, tapping a manicured finger hard against Damian’s chest, right over his hammering heart.

?"She agreed to see Hayes alone because she has already given up on you, Damian. She has already accepted that you are nothing more than her jailer. If you let her walk into that room by herself, you are imprinting that truth forever."

?Her voice dropped to a final, brutal ultimatum.

?"You sit in that chair with her on Thursday, Damian. You sit there and you learn how to be a man, or you let her go. Because if you drive that girl into a sanitarium, I swear to God I will dismantle what’s left of this family myself."

?Victoria turned on her heel and walked back toward the dining room, her heels clicking rhythmically against the stone, leaving Damian standing alone before the open elevator doors, the silence roaring in his ears.