How to Get Girls, Get Rich, and Rule the World (Even If You're Ugly)-Chapter 84: How to Get a Forced Promotion (5)

I shook Silven Dorne’s hand in the dark, and it felt exactly like I imagined it would—a cold, dry promise that no one involved would enjoy the price.

When we let go, there was no polite nod, no fake smile, no sudden declaration of trust. Just business. His guards shifted, clearly annoyed at the time lost on the road. Silven didn’t look back at me as he mounted his horse.

"Be ready," he said, voice like rusted steel. "You’ve made your choice. Don’t make me regret tolerating you."

I didn’t bother answering. I just turned and melted back into the trees, listening to the horse snort and the wagon creak as they resumed their slow, cautious journey to Ashveil.

By the time I reached the city limits, dawn was a greasy smear on the horizon. I had the taste of dirt and old leaves in my mouth. My coat was ruined for good, the lining torn and snagged by branches. My legs felt like they were made of wood, my back hurt from hours of crouching and creeping like a particularly self-loathing fox.

But I’d done it.

I’d made the deal.

A deal that would save Marlow’s life.

And give me everything I wanted.

I told myself it was for the paper. For the city. For Thalia.

But I knew it was also for me.

Because whatever else I was, I wasn’t a saint.

When I finally made it back to Lina’s, the taverna was half awake. She gave me a look that could have peeled paint from the walls and didn’t ask any questions, just tossed me a rag and pointed to the washbasin.

I spent a good half-hour scrubbing off dirt, sweat, blood (most of it mine, some of it from brambles), and a solid crust of shame.

By the time I was as clean as I was going to get, the city was wide awake. Ashveil didn’t wait for anyone. Merchants were screaming prices that no one believed. Kids ran in packs, chasing rumors of circus acts or escaped goats. Guards strolled with the lazy menace of men who didn’t expect trouble but would enjoy it if it came.

And at the center of it all, the printing house.

Marlow’s kingdom.

My future.

I went there in the early afternoon, giving myself time to sleep in Lina’s spare cot for a few hours. Not that I really slept. My brain was like a drunk shouting at every passing thought.

When I arrived, Thalia was already there.

She was pacing.

She did that a lot.

Up and down the narrow aisle between stacks of newsprint, boots clicking on the warped wooden floor, arms folded, jaw clenched.

When she saw me, she stopped so abruptly the hem of her skirt whipped against her boots.

"Where have you been?"

I gave her my best exhausted smile.

"Research."

She narrowed her eyes.

"Dante—"

"I had to make sure the right person got the message."

Her expression twisted. She didn’t like that answer. She liked even less that I wouldn’t elaborate.

But she didn’t have time to press.

Because at that moment, the bell over the door rang, sharp and clear.

And in walked the man himself.

Silven Dorne.

He didn’t arrive with guards.

That was the first surprise.

No show of force. No armored escort.

Just him.

Clean, composed, cloak brushed and straight. Boots polished. Hair neatly combed back. Hands in thin black gloves.

He might have been a banker making a call on a debtor, or a merchant finalizing a deal.

But his eyes were wrong.

Cold. Measured.

The eyes of someone who took notes on your funeral before you stopped breathing.

Marlow was waiting in his office.

We could see them through the cracked door.

I felt Thalia shift next to me, her breath catching in her throat.

"Are we going in?" she hissed.

I shook my head.

"We weren’t invited."

She shot me a glare, but didn’t move.

Instead we both leaned in closer, careful not to creak the floorboards.

We watched.

We listened.

Silven didn’t sit.

He stood by the window, hands clasped behind his back, posture perfect.

Marlow tried to play host.

I watched the old bastard bustle around, offering tea, gesturing to the empty chair, talking too much. His voice had that reedy edge it got when he was nervous.

Silven said nothing for a long time.

Then, finally, he spoke.

And the whole room went cold.

"Mister Marlow. Let us not waste time. You know why I am here."

Marlow laughed, high and brittle.

"Of course! The competition! The award—"

Silven cut him off with a flick of two fingers.

"Stop."

Marlow’s mouth stayed open a moment too long before snapping shut.

Silven continued.

"There will be no award. Not for you. Your paper is being disqualified."

Silence.

It was like watching someone get stabbed, only slower.

Marlow’s mouth worked soundlessly.

"Disqualified? That—that’s impossible. We have the best circulation in Ashveil. We—"

Silven’s voice didn’t rise. Didn’t falter.

"Your methods are suspect. Your authorship is contested. Your sources are unverifiable. Your language is incendiary. Your paper is unfit for endorsement."

Marlow actually choked on air.

Thalia pressed a fist to her mouth to muffle a gasp.

I didn’t move.

I just watched.

Because I’d seen this coming.

Silven went on, voice smooth as polished bone.

"You will, effective immediately, cease all claims of participation in the contest. You will retract any promotional material. And you will stop printing inflammatory accusations that cannot be supported by evidence acceptable to the Council."

Marlow’s face was purple.

"You can’t—this is absurd—"

Silven didn’t blink.

"I can. And I have."

Marlow surged to his feet, fingers splayed on the desk.

"I built this paper from nothing! You think you can just walk in here and take it away? Who do you think you are?"

Silven didn’t raise his voice.

He didn’t have to.

He just waited until Marlow ran out of breath.

Then he said, very softly:

"I am the man giving you a choice."

Marlow froze.

Silven tilted his head.

"You may keep your life. Your daughter’s safety. Even this building. But you will stop pretending you are a publisher. You will surrender your editorial rights. You may, if you choose, continue to provide labor—writing, printing, delivery. But your name will no longer be the one on the masthead."

Marlow sagged back into his chair.

He looked ten years older in a single heartbeat.

Thalia’s hand found mine.

She was shaking.

I squeezed once, hard.

In the office, Marlow’s voice cracked.

"If—if I’m not the publisher... who is?"

Silven’s mouth twitched.

"Anyone you like. Your daughter, perhaps."

Marlow shook his head violently.

"No. No. She’d be marked. They’d come for her."

Silven’s gaze didn’t waver for even an instant. It was the kind of look that didn’t need volume or threats, the flat, bureaucratic glare of someone who had decided you were already a problem to be filed away, a loose end to be trimmed. His voice remained low, unwavering, polished by decades of committee rooms and death warrants drafted in polite legalese. He spoke as if explaining the terms of a loan you would never finish paying.

"Then pick someone else."

And with those words, the entire room fell into a silence so total it became a physical presence, crowding the space between the walls, pressing the air from our lungs. It was the silence that follows a verdict, the hush that wraps itself around the condemned when the sentence is read. A silence that didn’t invite argument or negotiation.

I watched Marlow in profile, the light from his battered oil lamp throwing every line and crease on his face into sharp relief. The old man didn’t move at first.

His hand hovered over the desk like it wanted to hold onto something solid but found only empty air. His mouth opened, a dry, papery sound issuing before any words could form. He shut it again. No protest. No denial. Just a slow, wet blink as the meaning sank in.

His fingers dropped to the scarred surface of the desk with a sound like defeat.

Silven turned to the door with the same meticulous precision he’d used for every motion since entering—like a man who believed even gravity itself should show deference. His boots made no sound on the floorboards.

When he reached the threshold he stopped, his spine ramrod straight, one gloved hand resting lightly on the doorframe as though it might sully him if he clutched it too hard.

He didn’t look back at Marlow. Didn’t offer any last concessions. He just spoke, his voice quiet enough that we had to strain to hear, making the words all the more cruel.

"You already have someone in mind, don’t you, Marlow?"

He left the question hanging there like a noose, letting it creak in the silence.

Marlow didn’t answer. Couldn’t.

His jaw just worked silently, an old man’s dignity crumbling before our eyes, the edges of his moustache trembling with every aborted attempt at speech.

Silven didn’t wait for the reply that wouldn’t come.

When he spoke again, his tone was like a knife sliding through silk, the faintest hiss of warning beneath the civility.

"Good. Choose wisely. Or the next sanctions will be less... civil."

Then he stepped through the door.

For a moment the room stayed perfectly still, even after the door swung shut behind him with a quiet click that might as well have been the hammer falling on an executioner’s pistol. The only movement was the lazy drift of the smoke from Marlow’s pipe, forgotten and guttering in its holder, leaving curling gray ghosts that spun in the stale air.

Thalia pressed harder against me, all the rigid control she had tried to hold collapsing at once. She shook so hard I felt it vibrate through my own chest. She hadn’t realized she’d grabbed my arm until that moment, her fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. When she tried to let go, it wasn’t out of calm but because she suddenly remembered she was too proud to cling to anyone.

But I didn’t let her.

I turned and pulled her against me, one arm tight around her shoulders, the other wrapping around the back of her head. She didn’t fight. Didn’t even pretend to resist.

She just let out a broken sound that wasn’t quite a sob, more like a trapped animal’s whimper, muffled against my coat. Her tears soaked into the fabric, hot and unexpected in the cold room.

I rested my chin on the top of her head, breathing slow and steady, trying to lend her something I didn’t have myself.

We stood there, locked together in the shadows of the hallway, listening to the labored, wheezing breaths of Gideon Marlow in the next room.

Through the cracked door, I could see him slump back into his chair like a marionette whose strings had been sliced. He didn’t collapse dramatically.

He didn’t weep or rant. He just sagged in on himself, every inch of him folding, folding, folding until he was small enough to fit in the grave that Silven Dorne had just dug for him with nothing but words.

His hand shook as he reached for the pipe. He missed it. It clattered to the floor with a dull sound that echoed in the emptiness. He didn’t even flinch. He just left it there.

He looked up once, toward the door.

I thought for a second he might see us, might lock eyes with me and say something. Beg, maybe. Or curse me.

But he didn’t.

He looked right through the door, through the wall, through the world itself.

Eyes unfocused, gray as old ashes.

I knew that look.

It was the same one I’d seen on dying miners who’d spent years coughing blood onto their boots. The look of a man who had already begun saying goodbye to everything, even if his body hadn’t realized it yet.

I felt Thalia’s fingers twist in my coat, clenching so hard it hurt.

I didn’t complain.

I just held her tighter.

Because this was the price.

This was the cost of the deal I’d made in the dark, on that empty road, with the devil who didn’t bother hiding behind horns or fire.

Silven Dorne didn’t need to kill Marlow himself.

He’d just dismantled him in front of us, with no blood spilled, no body to bury.

He’d taken his purpose.

His pride.

His name.

And left the husk to finish rotting in private.

I closed my eyes for a second, just to shut out the sight of it.

But I could still hear it.

Marlow’s breathing.

Ragged.

Wet.

The desperate, humiliating sound of a man trying to hold in tears and failing.

Thalia started shaking harder.

I let her cry.

I didn’t tell her it would be okay.

Because it wouldn’t.

Not for him.

Not for her.

Not for me.

She muffled the worst of it against my chest, her shoulders jerking with every sob she tried and failed to swallow. I felt the warm wetness soak through my shirt and pressed my lips to her temple without thinking, without meaning anything by it except I’m here.

Because that’s all I could offer.

Just being there.

A witness to the wreckage.

I opened my eyes again and looked at Marlow.

Really looked.

He hadn’t moved.

His eyes were open, but they didn’t see the papers scattered on his desk, the medals from old awards tarnished and crooked on the shelf behind him, the inkwell tipped on its side leaking a black tear onto the wood.

He saw nothing.

Because there was nothing left for him to see.

And for the first time in my miserable life, I felt sorry for the bastard.

Sorry enough it made my chest hurt.

Because he wasn’t the monster everyone in Ashveil whispered about.

He wasn’t the tyrant who crushed young writers or sold truth for favors.

Or at least, he wasn’t only that.

He was a man who fought.

Who tried to survive in a world that punished survival.

Who lied because lies kept the presses running.

Who stole my words because he knew the truth was only worth anything if it had the right name on it.

He did what he thought he had to do.

And now, watching him fall apart like rotted timber in the damp, I understood it.

I didn’t forgive it.

But I understood it.

Thalia made a choking sound that was half a question, half an apology, and I hushed her quietly, rubbing small circles on her back with my palm.

I wanted to say something.

Something that would make it make sense.

Something that would give her hope.

But the words wouldn’t come.

Because there wasn’t anything.

Nothing but the knowledge that she was next in line to be marked.

Unless someone else stepped forward.

Unless someone else took the weight.

Unless I did.

I watched Marlow until the lantern behind him flickered, guttered, and finally died, leaving nothing but the shape of a broken man silhouetted against the dying light of the day.

And in that darkness, holding the sobbing girl whose life I was about to ruin to save, I realized what I’d really bought with that handshake on the road.

I’d bought my own damnation.

One line at a time.

One printed word at a time.

But I would take it.

Because I was the only one left who could.