“You’re absolutely right,” Cole said, folding his fingers around hers and squeezing gently.
“Whatever path you choose, I’ll walk it beside you without hesitation.”
She was born a Campbell. He carried Griffiths blood. They had tumbled into love despite everything, exchanged vows, and created twins who embodied both legacies. Their daughter would someday inherit the entire Griffiths empire. The hatred had to die with them. To perpetuate the war now would mean waging battle against themselves, against their own flesh and blood.
Lost in the depths of their conversation, they traveled the corridor’s length without noticing the distance melting away. The hallway terminated at a spacious lounge where the Griffiths men had gathered, their wives and children clustered around them in anxious anticipation.
When they’d first witnessed Cole storming into that sacred council hall, shock had rippled through their ranks like electricity. Everyone had braced themselves for his immediate expulsion, for the brutal punishment that tradition demanded. Instead, to their absolute astonishment, he now emerged from those hallowed doors with Elliana’s hand clasped firmly in his. The elders hadn’t punished him. It was unheard of.
For countless generations, Griffiths men had been barred from entering the council hall—forbidden by iron-clad rule. Cole had become the first to shatter that ancient prohibition. And he’d walked out completely unharmed.
The crowd stood even more thunderstruck now than when they’d watched him burst through those doors.
This rang especially true for the Griffiths men themselves. They’d been raised beneath crushing suppression, conditioned to swallow every injustice in suffocating silence. To them, Cole represented something entirely alien. No, not merely alien—a warrior deity made flesh. Today marked the first time they’d witnessed the truth with their own eyes: men could actually rise and defend themselves. Perhaps the Griffiths women weren’t the terrifying legends they’d been taught to fear after all.
Cole, oblivious to the internal revolutions sparking through their minds, frowned at their submissive postures. The sight dragged his thoughts back to the concern Elliana had voiced earlier. If Griffiths men were valued so little, treated as lesser beings, what future awaited his grandson? No. These absurd, archaic family rules needed to be torn down and rebuilt from nothing.
Just then, a middle-aged couple emerged from the crowd, bowing with careful respect toward Elliana. Elliana tilted her head.
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“And you are?”
“My name is Clifford Griffiths,” the man said.
“I’m Katrina’s father.”
The woman beside him added softly, “Belinda Griffiths—her mother.”
.
.
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