Dorian Hale's father, Edric Hale, built the empire by out-pressuring hurricanes, out-buying guilt, and emotionally underwriting nothing. He believed love was a tax nobody should pay voluntarily.
Dorian's mother Elena once loved Edric fiercely until his obsession with control smothered tenderness like wax suffocating flame.
Elena did not die.But the marriage did.Quietly.Like gas escaping a valve nobody repaired.
That day, Dorian inherited not heartbreak, but the fear of repetition.
Which explained his posture.His insomnia.His obsession with oversight.And his lifelong belief that intimacy would one day file a hostile takeover if permitted too close.