Chapter 257
Thomas
I watched Arthur's expression shift from surprise to something approaching satisfaction. Eleanor—Lance's stepmother—wore a small, knowing smile. Even Diana looked grudgingly impressed, though there was a tightness around her eyes that suggested complications I didn't have the bandwidth to analyze.
But none of that mattered.
Because in that moment, watching Lance and Serena stand together—her hand in his, their bodies angled toward each other like binary stars locked in gravitational embrace—I felt something I hadn't experienced in decades.
Defeat.
Not the tactical kind, where you lose a battle but live to fight another day. The absolute kind. The kind that makes you realize you've been playing a fundamentally different game than your opponent, and yours was rigged from the start.
All my life, I'd watched Arthur shower Lance with the unconditional love he'd never given me. Well, Father—before I started faking illness, before I perfected this dying-man act you bought so easily—I used to beg for even a fraction of what you gave him. Watched him hand over the company I'd helped build to a twenty-four-year-old who'd barely finished graduate school. Watched myself get shuffled off to European operations like some mid-level manager being put out to pasture.
But this—this—was somehow worse.
Because Lance had something I'd never managed to give Felix. Something my son had never even learned to want.
Love. Real, genuine, fight-through-hell-for-you love.
Felix was brilliant. Charismatic. Capable in ways that should have made him unstoppable. But he'd never had someone look at him the way Serena was looking at Lance right now—like he was the fixed point around which her entire universe revolved.
And Felix had never looked at anyone that way either. Not even me.
Especially not me.
My son's affection was transactional at best, weaponized at worst. When Felix had dragged me into this confrontation with Lance, it hadn't been out of concern for my wellbeing or some filial desire to protect me. It had been pure calculation—using me as a shield, a distraction, a tool.
Just like I'd used him, if I was being honest.
The thought settled in my chest like a stone.
Serena, on the other hand, had walked into a police station—into potential danger—because the alternative was letting Lance face it alone. No calculation. No angle. Just... loyalty. Devotion.
The kind of thing I'd spent sixty years pretending didn't exist because I'd never been able to inspire it in anyone.
I've lost, I realized with crystal clarity. Not just this confrontation. Everything.
My hand moved toward my jacket pocket, toward the phone I'd been checking compulsively all day. Maybe it was time to admit defeat. To tell Lance everything—about Saint's Bay, about his mother, about all the ugly compromises I'd made over the years. To take whatever punishment he deemed appropriate and finally, finally, let this burden go.
My fingers had just closed around the phone when it vibrated.
A message. From Felix.
I pulled it out, thumb moving automatically to unlock the screen. And froze.
The image loaded slowly—hospital whites, medical equipment, and my son's face, pale and drawn with pain. But it was the text beneath that made my blood run cold:
Dad. Doctors say I might not make it. And if I do, I'll be a cripple for life. So I'm asking for one last thing. One final wish before I die or become something less than human.
Make Lance and Serena pay for what they've done to us. Make them suffer the way we've suffered.
If you don't—if you let them win—then I'll die knowing my own father chose his coward's peace over his son's justice.
I'll die hating you.
My hand tightened around the phone until the edges bit into my palm.
Around me, the interrogation room continued its pantomime of justice and truth. Lance and Serena stood together, untouchable in their mutual certainty. Arthur watched with paternal approval. Eleanor smirked. Diana waited.
And I sat there, caught between the son I'd failed and the nephew I'd always envied, holding a phone that felt like it weighed a thousand pounds.
One last fight, I thought distantly. For Felix. For all the love I never knew how to give him any other way.
My thumb moved across the screen, typing out a response I knew would seal all our fates.
I'm not done yet, son. Not by a long shot.