Chapter 10 - THANE'S BLINDNESS
Thane had spent the first week furious at his mother and sister.
Then Alora asked:
“What did you know?”
He froze.
“About the jewelry?”
“About them.”
That was harder.
Thane knew Sloan spent too much.
Knew Corrine disliked being questioned.
Knew Harold complained:
“Your mother treats the collection like wardrobe.”
He dismissed it.
He also knew Corrine resented Alora’s inventory role.
When Corrine said:
“She’s using pregnancy to control access,”
Thane laughed.
When Sloan said:
“She acts like the safe belongs to her,”
Thane answered:
“Let her finish Dad’s paperwork.”
He never confronted the hostility.
Why?
Because he assumed it was symbolic.
Women arguing over jewelry.
He reduced a real power conflict to family drama.
Alora stared at him.
“You thought because the subject was jewelry, it couldn’t become dangerous.”
He nodded.
“Yes.”
That was his accountability.
After the assault, Thane also reviewed his own messages with Corrine.
He found one he had ignored six weeks earlier.
Corrine:
Your wife is acting like the safe belongs to her.
Thane:
It doesn’t. She’s finishing Dad’s inventory.
Corrine:
Same difference.
Thane had sent a laughing emoji.
He stared at it now.
Same difference.
No.
That had been the warning.
Corrine could not distinguish temporary responsibility from ownership because, to her, having control over something valuable naturally meant possessing it.
Alora never thought that way.
Thane finally understood the conflict had never really been about a six-digit code.
Then she asked:
“Why was the crowbar there?”
Thane looked toward the bedroom.
The crowbar belonged to the contractor who had installed shelving inside the safe wall.
He left it in a storage crate that morning.
Coincidence.
Sloan grabbed what was available.
No preplanned weapon.
That mattered legally and emotionally.
The attack was impulsive escalation during coercion.
Still serious.
Then Thane remembered something else.
Corrine had asked him the previous week:
“When will Alora be alone at the house?”
He thought she wanted to drop off maternity gifts.
He told her.
Alora went silent.
That made him complicit in access, unintentionally.
Then she said:
“From now on, nobody gets my schedule because they’re family.”
May you like
Thane nodded.
No argument.
