Harem Startup : The Demon Billionaire is on Vacation

Chapter 501 – Favoritism

Lux turned away, running a hand through his hair. ”I need to know,” he said. ”If I can stop him. Without becoming him.”

Zavros blinked. ”You’re not like him.”

Lux looked back. ”Aren’t I?”

Zavros didn’t answer.

Lux laughed. ”I play dirty. I tempt, twist, whisper, corrupt. I love too hard. I’m possessive. I trade affection for leverage. I build kingdoms from kisses and coins. I’m craving for control. You sure I’m not like him? Afterall... We are all Greed.”

Zavros’s throat bobbed.

”But I don’t betray the ones I love,” Lux said sharply. ”Not even when they leave me. I won’t take the throne until it’s really mine. Until you are really gone.”

Zavros opened his mouth—then shut it.

Yeah. He’d left.

He’d always left.

Too busy being a husband and a lover instead of a Lord and a father. But too proud to kneel and comfort. Too indifferent to pick a side when his son went to war in the boardroom.

Lux started walking toward the edge of the arena.

Zavros called after him. ”Where are you going?”

Lux paused.

”To recalculate,” he said. ”And prepare.”

”For what?”

Lux looked over his shoulder, eyes gleaming red-gold for just a second.

”For the day the seal opens. And everyone finds out it was never a seal. The king needs to know.”

Then he vanished.

No flare. Just gone—like a page turned too fast.

Zavros stood alone in the arena.

The chain around his wrist coiled slowly, like it was afraid.

And for the first time in a very, very long time...

Zavros wasn’t sure he was the strongest Vaelthorn anymore.

He wasn’t even sure he wanted to be.

Zavros didn’t move.

The words still echoed. They dug in slow.

”I don’t betray the ones I love.”

He muttered it out loud.

The chain around his wrist uncoiled fully, sliding down and clinking against the black stone floor. It sounded too loud, too final, like the closing line of a failed deal.

”I guess... I hurt you that much, huh?” Zavros muttered. ”And without realizing... I became the one I hate the most.”

His hand curled into a fist. But there was no power behind it. Only shame.

His father.

The flames around the arena pulsed like they heard him. Or maybe they judged him.

He could still see Zoltarin in his memory. That perfect smile. That confidence. That damn shine. They’d been born the same night. Shared the same blood. But somehow, from the very beginning, Zoltarin had been the golden one. The clever one. The favorite.

Zavros had spent most of his childhood looking sideways. Watching his brother get everything. The finest robes. The private tutors. The magical inheritance pills straight from the greed treasury. The whispered praise. The opportunities.

Their father would touch Zoltarin’s shoulder and say, ”You’re going to rule one day.”

And Zavros?

”You’ll help him, won’t you?”

Not you’ll rule.

Not you’ll shine.

Just help.

That was the role. That was always the role.

He hadn’t even realized how deep it cut. Not until he saw Lux walk away. Wearing that suit like armor. Speaking like a storm behind velvet. Carrying the same weight Zavros once carried.

There had been a time, once, when Zavros wanted nothing more than to be someone. Not a side character in Zoltarin’s story. But his father had never looked at him that way. Not once.

Even when Zoltarin tried to kill him.

Even after Zoltarin snapped and attempted to overthrow the king. After all the betrayals, the throne still didn’t go to Zavros because his father named him.

It was Kaelmor. The King.

The Lord of Hell himself who stepped forward in that cold chamber and said, ”The new Lord of Greed shall be Zavros Vaelthorn. I’ll hear no argument.”

Everyone bowed. But Zavros knew what it meant.

It wasn’t legacy.

It was correction.

The king had seen what favoritism did.

And maybe... maybe the king was trying to spare the realm a second Zoltarin.

But by then, the damage had already been done.

Zavros had stood there, crowned and chained all at once. The heavy ceremonial chain of Greed wrapping around his wrist as if it belonged there. As if that was what he’d always been made for.

He’d smiled. Said thank you. Gave speeches. Set policies. Built the Vault Nexus. Reforged Greed into something modern. Efficient. Lethal in economics. Dominant in diplomacy.

But he’d been numb.

Until her.

Seraphyne.

The daughter of the Lord of Lust. All crimson silk and lazy smiles and that knowing gaze that said she saw through every contract he ever signed.

She didn’t treat him like a throne. Or a tool. She treated him like a man.

She didn’t ask for titles. She asked what his favorite coffee was.

She didn’t demand riches. She snuck into his bath and offered to massage his tailbone until he admitted he liked it.

She made him laugh. He hadn’t laughed in decades.

She was love.

Real. Clingy. Overpowering. Messy. And addictive.

And then Lux was born.

Sharp eyes. That black hair. That air of calculated silence that made everyone around him fidget. He was too calm. Too precise.

Too much like Zoltarin. But made from Greed and Lust.

It terrified Zavros.

He didn’t even realize how deeply until Lux turned fifteen and built his first financial model using mortals as passive income batteries. Brilliant. Ruthless. Too brilliant. Too ruthless.

So Zavros made a decision.

He couldn’t coddle him.

He couldn’t spoil him.

He couldn’t love him like Seraphyne did.

Not openly. Not too much.

Because if he did, he might create another monster.

He threw Lux to the Hell Department at twenty-five. Younger than any CFO in history. Put him on a leash of gold. Surrounded him with legacy demons and sentient tax laws. Told him to thrive or die trying.

Meanwhile, Zavros was on vacation. He’d called it a long honeymoon. The courts laughed. Said he was whipped. The other Lords mocked his absence.

But in truth? He’d just wanted to be loved.

Just wanted to rest.

It wasn’t fair.

It was never supposed to be fair.

But it was supposed to save Lux.

Save Lux.

Save Hell.

Save everything.

But it didn’t.

It scarred him.

Zavros could see it now.

The way Lux smiled like he was closing a deal.

The way he touched people like he was checking for value tags.

The way he never asked for anything... but expected everything to leave him.

Even Lux didn’t react much when he found out about Zoltarin.

Because that’s what Zavros taught him.

He taught him not to need.

And now?

He’d grown into something terrifying. Beautiful. Terrible. And perhaps the only one who could stop Zoltarin.

But not without becoming like him.

That’s what Lux was afraid of. That’s what he’d asked.

”I need to know if I can stop him without becoming him.”

And Zavros hadn’t known how to answer.

Because once... long ago... he’d asked the same thing.

But he’d failed. He’d let it all rot.

Zavros knelt. Not in prayer. Just... knees on cold stone. Palms pressed against the arena floor. Breathing in ash and memory.

He could smell Lux’s cologne still. The one Seraphyne picked out when Lux turned seventeen. Said it matched his aura.

It had.

It still did.

Zavros touched the obsidian beneath him, and it felt warm. Faintly. Like Lux’s magic hadn’t quite faded.

He closed his eyes.

”I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he whispered. ”I was trying to protect you from... from becoming him.”

His throat tightened.

”But maybe all I did was turn you into me instead.”

His fingers clenched into fists. The chain on the floor rattled again, then coiled slowly around his wrist like it belonged there.

It did.

And maybe that was the problem.

He stood slowly.

Looked up at the endless ceiling of the arena.

He could see the ancient carvings now—ones he never noticed before.

Battle records. Not conquest.

Names.

Dates.

Signatures.

Deals.

He exhaled.

And maybe, if there was anything left in the cosmos that still listened, maybe it wasn’t too late to fix at least one thing.

Not for himself.

But for his son.