The moment Sael's bedroom door clicked shut, the living room seemed to exhale a breath it had been holding. The air, once charged with his raw, masculine energy, now hung heavy with the scent of his sweat and the lingering electricity of that kiss.
Katherine Beck professional composure was in tatters. A faint, rosy blush painted her cheeks, and her usually sharp, analytical eyes were slightly glazed, she subtly adjusted her skirt, the fabric of her sensible panties still tingling from the imprint of his possessive grip. She fanned herself with a hand, a nervous, uncharacteristic gesture.
"Well…" she began, her crisp British accent a little breathier than usual.
"That was… eye-opening… And extremely different." The words were a massive understatement.
She'd just been thoroughly dominated by her best friend's son, and her body was still humming in agreement with it. Cathy beamed, a proud, almost smug smile on her face. She could still feel the ghost of his hand on her ass, the taste of him on her lips.
"That's right, you know. He is different... He's just… more confident now.". There was a maternal pride in her voice, but underneath it was the thrill of a woman who had been claimed by a powerful man.
Vera nodded vigorously, her dark eyes shining. "Sí, hermana. He knows what he wants now, and he is getting it,". She too was replaying the feeling of his rough hands clamping onto her, pulling her against his damp chest. But then her expression shifted, the carnal memory giving way to maternal concern.
"But how has he really been? With all this… noise.". She gestured vaguely, indicating the invisible storm of bad press swirling around them.
"He's doing great. Seriously... like nothing was going, really,". She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Bella, who had been watching the entire exchange with a mix of arousal and sisterly pride, piped up.
"Right now, his body and mental were steadily recovering... He's not the same person who hid in his room all day…" She didn't add that she'd often catch herself staring at him during his workouts, fascinated by the play of muscles under his skin.
"But the bashing… on the news… has he shown any sign it's getting to him? Has he been quiet or withdrawn?". Cathy's smile faltered slightly, the worry returning to her eyes.
"Not even a little… If anything, he seems… amused by it, He'll read some outrageous headline and just chuckle.". Bella shook her head.
Coming from the kitchen, Emily and Nadia joined them, drawn by the conversation. Nadia wiped her hands on a towel, her serene expression curious. Emily looked between the women, sensing the serious vibe.
"He eats like a growing bear," Nadia stated, her voice a calm, warm balm. "He sleeps soundly, woke up smiling… There is no storm in his eyes, only calm… like he always was these days,". Her assessment was simple and final.
Emily nodded in agreement. "I talked to him about it yesterday... I was more pissed off than he was! I was ready to start a war in the comments section for him.". She rolled her eyes. "He just shrugged, took a sip of his protein shake, and said, 'Eh… just let them be.' He's completely unbothered. It's kinda weird, honestly.".
The entire family—Kate, Cathy, Vera, Nadia, Bella, and Emily—was now gathered. The atmosphere was a strange cocktail of lively confusion and deep concern, all underpinned by the shared, unspoken warmth that Sael's presence always left in his wake, around them.
The mood shifted again as Sael's bedroom door opened, He emerged, having changed into a pair of low-slung athletic shorts that hugged the V-line of his hips and a loose, black oversized T-shirt. The shirt did little to hide the broad planes of his shoulders and the defined swell of his pectorals beneath the soft fabric. He moved with an easy, predatory grace that was both relaxed and intensely focused.
He dropped onto the couch between Cathy and Vera, his body radiating warmth. He didn't speak, just leaned back and got comfortable, his presence immediately becoming the center of gravity in the room.
For a few minutes, there was light chatter. How was work at the diner? How was the sewing coming along? It was a fragile, normal moment.
Then Kate, ever the professional, expertly steered the conversation. She smoothed her skirt, the ghost of his touch making her skin prickle, and locked her lawyerly gaze on him.
"Sael, darling," she began, her voice regaining some of its usual crispness.
"We need to talk about something less pleasant... We've all seen it, have you been following the recent… malicious attacks on Silent Hill?".
The room fell silent. All eyes turned to him. The moment of truth had arrived.
All eyes in the room were locked on Sael. The weight of Kate's question—the worry of his mothers, the concern of his sister and cousin—hung in the air like a thick fog. They were braced for him to be angry, defensive, or even hurt. He gave none of that. Sael just leaned back further into the couch cushions, his posture the picture of indolent ease. A lazy, almost bored smile touched his lips
"Yeah, Aunt Kate," he said, his voice a low, calm rumble. "I knew about it from the start... I have Sunday monitors everything... Every chirp, every whisper… all of them were monitored from early on, so I caught on, very early on…." He gestured vaguely toward his room, as if the all-seeing AI was a mildly interesting pet.
Cathy couldn't stand it. She leaned forward, her hand instinctively reaching out to rest on his knee. Her voice was tight, laced with a mother's protective fury. "Who is it, baby? Who's doing this to you? Tell us…. We deserve to know."
Sael turned his head to look at her, his expression softening for a fraction of a second at her concern. Then he looked back at the group, his gaze sweeping over each of their worried faces.
"Well… basically everyone," he said.
The word was so simple, so casual, it took a moment to land.
He let it hang there for a beat before elaborating, as if he were listing ingredients. "90% of the major game companies in the world, all joined the band wagon…. The big players… they got spook, I guess,".
The silence that followed was absolute. It wasn't thoughtful; it was stunned, deafening. 'Everyone.' The scale of it was incomprehensible. They'd been worried about a rival, maybe a disgruntled critic. Never the entire, multi-billion-dollar industry.
Cathy's face lost all its color. Vera's hand flew to her mouth, her eyes wide with terror. Nadia, usually the picture of serene strength, gripped the arm of her chair, her knuckles turning white. Emily and Bella just stared, their mouths agape, the reality of facing down a hydra with countless corporate heads finally sinking in.
Kate was the first to break the silence, her legal mind cutting through the familial fear. She sat up straighter, her professional persona slamming back into place, though a faint flush still remained on her neck from his earlier… greeting.
"Thundra Corp?" she asked, her voice sharp. He gave a single nod.
"AE Games?" Another nod.
"Macrosoft? Jonami? Kony?" With each name, her voice grew more incredulous, and with each nod from Sael, the room felt smaller, the walls closing in.
"Sael…" Kate's voice was a mixture of awe and dread.
"These aren't just companies… These are billion-dollar empires, they have private security, legal teams that can bury a small country in paperwork, lobbyists, politicians in their pockets… This isn't a fight, it's a… it's a trap... We can't sue them; we can't even fight them… They'll drag us through courts until we're bankrupt and broken!".
She was laying out the brutal, realistic odds, her mind already racing through case studies of David vs. Goliath battles where David got utterly annihilated. Sael listened patiently, that infuriatingly calm smile never leaving his face. When she finished, he let the tense silence stretch for just a moment longer.
Then he spoke, his voice quiet but carrying absolute authority.
"Who said anything about fighting them?". The question was so absurd it short-circuited their panic. They all just stared at him.
He continued, his tone that of a patient teacher explaining something simple to very bright children who were overcomplicating it. "Honestly, I don't have to do anything…. We don't have to lift a finger.".
He shifted, sitting up slightly, his gaze becoming more focused. "Let me explain the real situation to everyone... They're feeling threatened… Sure they can do anything the like…. But here's the thing they don't want you or anyone to know: my game is too good...".
He said it not as a boast, but as a simple, irrefutable fact.
"They can't replicate it... They can't even understand it, they've spent probably millions already—literally millions of dollars—trying to crack my code, to reverse-engineer it, to find out how my game works…". A dark, amused chuckle escaped him.
"And even after all that…they've gotten nothing, they've bricked hundreds of copies of my game, that they hoarded…. Their most advanced decryption suites look at my code and see hieroglyphics written in a language of pure math that hasn't been invented yet….". He looked at Kate, his eyes glinting.
"Their best supercomputers, running flat-out, would need a thousand years to even begin to decipher it. thousand years.". He let that number hang in the air, watching it demolishes their concept of the threat.
"They're powerful… Yes, but, also pathetic. They're like children throwing a tantrum because someone built a better sandcastle…. And all they can do is try to kick sand on it…. because they can do jack shit about it,".
The living room was utterly silent, save for the low hum of the climate control. Sael's words had painted a picture so staggering it had short-circuited their fear. They weren't up against powerful enemies; they were watching a pack of wild dogs fruitlessly hurling themselves against an impenetrable fortress wall. The scale of his confidence was a physical presence in the room, more solid and real than their own anxieties.
I watched their faces, seeing the dawning comprehension war with lingering concern. They were almost there. They just needed to see the full blueprint of the fortress.
"By the way… there's no legal issue on my end," I continued, my voice calm, factual, not defending myself, but this is just so they can eased up.
"Meteor Studios is one hundred percent legit, All the paperwork is perfect, filed and approved…. Every single asset in the game—every texture, every sound file, the specific spectral shader on Lisa's skin, the fucking polygon counts and model of the fetus in the sink—is individually copyrighted and patented… I created it all, and own it all. Down to the last byte…. So, there is no problem there,".
I glanced at Kate. The lawyer in her was struggling against the awe. This was her domain, and I was describing a level of legal preparedness that was borderline obsessive, but absolutely necessary.
"Is that… true?" Cathy asked, her voice small, looking to Kate for the professional verdict.
Without a word, Kate pulled her tablet onto her lap. Her fingers flew across the screen, accessing public copyright and patent databases. Her eyes scanned the results, widening incrementally with each new entry she confirmed.
"He's right," she breathed, her professional facade cracking into pure astonishment.
"It's all here. It's… incredibly thorough…. Unusually so for an indie developer, the codebase is registered under a new proprietary language classification… The audio waveforms are patented as unique auditory identifiers, you even… you even patented the creature design classifications and the specific psychological pacing algorithm?" She looked up at me, her expression one of utter disbelief.
"This is solid…. They can't steal a thing, heck they can't even claim independent creation of a similar monster… Wow, you've thought of everything, Huh?". Kate looked impressed.
I just shrugged. "I anticipate my game would be big... So, I didn't leave a single hole for anyone to exploit it, I know just how predatory this industry was…". Stealing and court case were common in gaming industry, so I do this just in case.
Kate shook her head, a slow smile of admiration spreading on her face. "It's iron-clad…. They have no legal footing whatsoever; so that is why, their only option is this smear campaign….". She said it with a new conviction. The threat was being systematically dismantled before her eyes.
It was then that the maternal concern, the core of their worry, resurfaced. Vera reached out and placed her hand over mine. Her touch was warm, worried.
"Mijo," she said, her voice soft. "We believe you, we see you've protected your work. But… ¿y tu corazón? Your heart? Aren't you upset? Hurt by what they're saying about you? About your creation? It's so hateful…. Everywhere they were talking bad about your game,".
Cathy and Nadia nodded vigorously, their eyes searching mine for any sign of hidden pain. They were prepared to comfort, to soothe. They were looking for a wound to tend to. I looked at their worried, beautiful faces and couldn't help the grin that spread across mine. It was a wide, genuine, utterly amused grin.
"Upset? Hurt? At first… Kinda~". I let out a single, sharp laugh. "Now? I am thanking them.".
The reaction was instantaneous and priceless. They all stared at me as if I'd just sprouted a second head. Bella's mouth dropped open. Emily blinked, Cathy and Vera looked horrified, as if I'd finally cracked under the pressure. Even Kate looked confused.
I held up my phone. "Sunday, pull up the real-time sales and engagement metrics for Silent Hill. Project it….".
A moment later, the data streamed onto the tablet screen Kate was holding. Graphs and numbers glowed, a beautiful tapestry of success.
"Look," I said, my voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. I pointed to a series of massive spikes on the graph.
"See this spike? That's right after the first news report about a player fainting…. This one? That's when the story broke about the government investigation, And this monster spike here? That's when the talking heads started going on about 'psychological trauma' and 'mass hysteria.'".
I leaned forward, my eyes sweeping over each of them. "Every time they run a story about how dangerous and terrifying my game is, my player count explodes…. Every government 'warning' is a free ad telling every horror fan on the planet that this is the real deal, The ultimate challenge, they're not JUST smearing me; they're proving my point for me…. They've spent millions of dollars to certify Silent Hill as the most hardcore, boundary-pushing experience ever created… They've made 'so scary it might hospitalize you' and 'it was so scary that even the government investigate it' ."
Kate's eyes darted between the data and my face. I watched as her brilliant legal mind connected the dots, saw the sheer, diabolical genius of it, the confusion on her face melted away, replaced by dawning, incredulous understanding. Then, she did something I didn't expect.
"Hahahaha!!". She laughed. She caught on, it was a full-bodied, loud, incredulous roar of laughter that filled the living room. She threw her head back, the elegant line of her throat exposed as she howled.
"Oh, that's brilliant!" she gasped, wiping a tear from her eye. "It's absolutely brilliant! They've accidentally endorsed it! They've turned their own attack into the ultimate fucking marketing campaign! They're not your competition; they're your unpaid, overly dramatic publicity team!".
"Yep, and that government investigation, basically saying that my game was government endorsed game basically… that is why I thanked them,". I confessed with a smirk on my face.
The rest of the family looked from her laughing face to my grinning one, the truth slowly sinking in. The fear and tension that had gripped the room for the past hour evaporated, replaced by a sense of bewildered, triumphant awe. Their man was under attack, but not by a punch to the gut, but a tickle instead.