Chapter 143 Snowfall and Choices
Lucian's POV
When Ash and I came downstairs, he had his scarf pulled up over his face.
"You're late," Briar called out, packing snow between her gloved hands. "That's a penalty."
The snowball hit Ash square in the chest. He blinked at the white splatter on his jacket, and before he could retreat, Rowan was there, shoving snow down the back of his collar with a wicked grin.
"Come on, kid," Rowan said, dancing back as Ash yelped. "You gonna let us get away with that?"
Ash's hands moved slowly at first, gathering snow. But when his first snowball caught Rowan in the face, something shifted. The next throw came faster, harder, and soon all three were engaged in an all-out war, breathless and laughing.
I leaned against the old basketball hoop, watching Briar deliberately miss her throws to give Ash easy targets. She was turning potential charity into genuine play. Every time Ash landed a hit, Rowan stumbled dramatically and Briar declared him champion. Gradually, the tension in Ash's shoulders began to ease.
An hour passed before they finally collapsed in the snow, their clothes soaked through and their faces flushed.
A few days later, Mrs. Cross showed up at my door again. I was at work when it happened, which she'd clearly planned. Iris met her at the gate with polite hostility, prepared to call the police if necessary, but before things could escalate, Ash intervened.
"Let her in," he told Iris quietly. "I'll see her."
When I came home that evening, Ash was waiting in the living room, his posture straighter than it had been in days. He met my eyes directly when he spoke, and his voice was steady.
"I want to do the DNA test," he said. "Not because I want to go with them. I just don't want her bothering you anymore. Briar was right—some things you have to face head-on."
My throat went tight. This was Ash trying to protect me in his own way, trying to take responsibility for a situation that had been thrust upon him through no fault of his own. His maturity in this moment made my heart ache.
"Okay," I managed to say. "We'll arrange it."
The results came back a few days later with a 99.99% probability of biological relationship. Mrs. Cross arrived at my house within an hour of receiving the confirmation, her husband trailing behind her with an expression that was equal parts relief and trepidation.
She went straight to Ash and wrapped her arms around him, sobbing so violently that her whole body shook. The sound of her crying filled the entire house, raw and broken and desperate. Mr. Cross stood awkwardly to the side, his hands flexing uselessly as if he wanted to join the embrace but didn't know if he was allowed.
I stepped out of the room and sat on the front porch steps, staring at nothing in particular. The memory surfaced unbidden—my mother coming home with a bundle in her arms, her face glowing with fierce protectiveness as she'd shown me the tiny, wrinkled baby she'd found. "This is your little brother," she'd said, and I'd looked down at the small creature and felt something shift in my world.
Twenty years. In the blink of an eye, that wrinkled newborn had become a young man tall enough to look me in the eye. And now the people who had the biological claim to him were inside my house, holding him and crying over him, while I sat outside like a stranger.
The brother I'd raised for twenty years didn't truly belong to me after all.
When Mrs. Cross finally emerged, her face was blotchy and her eyes were swollen nearly shut. She grabbed my arm with both hands, her fingers digging in hard enough to bruise.
"Please," she begged, her voice hoarse from crying. "Please convince him to come home with us. You're keeping him here, aren't you? You won't let him go?"
I pulled my arm free with more force than necessary and walked back into the house without answering.
Ash found me in my room a few minutes later. He wheeled himself through the doorway and looked at me with an expression that was both determined and slightly defiant.
"I'm not leaving," he said flatly. "I like being Ash Kincaid. I'm not changing my name."
I reached out and ruffled his hair roughly, the way I'd done since he was small enough to ride on my shoulders. My throat was too tight to speak for a moment, but finally I managed a single word.
"Good."
Over the next few days, Mrs. Cross's approach changed dramatically. The first few attempts had been disasters—she'd shown up demanding Ash return with her, had cried and pleaded and threatened until I'd had to call security to escort her from the property. But then something shifted.
When she arrived this time, she brought a photo album and spoke in a gentle voice as she showed Ash pictures of people he'd never met. "This is your grandmother," she said softly, pointing to a smiling elderly woman. "This is your uncle. They all want to meet you."
Iris pulled me aside while Mrs. Cross was still with Ash in the living room. "She cried terribly yesterday," Iris reported quietly. "They talked for hours. I think she's finally accepted that he's not going to just pack up and leave with her."
I nodded and told Iris to set an extra place at the dinner table.
When Mrs. Cross emerged from her visit with Ash, I met her at the door. She looked exhausted but calmer than I'd seen her before.
"I'm sorry," she said, her voice rough. "For how I've acted. I carried him for nine months, gave birth to him, and then he was just gone. Everyone told me to give up, said he must have frozen to death in that storm, but I never stopped looking. When I thought about that insane woman who stole him, about Daniel—" Her voice broke. "I wanted to kill him. I've been living like a ghost for twenty years, and today was the first day I felt alive again."
The raw pain in her confession made something in my chest twist. I understood then that the love between siblings would always be fundamentally different from the love between a mother and child.
"You can visit whenever you want," I said. "Especially when I'm not home. He shouldn't have to choose between us."
She asked about Ash's injuries, and I gave her the sanitized version. "An accident. He's recovering, but it'll take time before he can walk again."
After dinner, Kai stopped by to drop off some files. We retreated to my study to discuss business, but the conversation quickly turned to strategy.
"Use Ash as leverage," Kai suggested, leaning back in his chair. "Tell Daniel you'll return his son in exchange for Sterling Pharmaceuticals' financial records—specifically the ones documenting their illegal revenue streams."
I felt my jaw tighten. "If you can't say anything useful, keep your mouth shut. That's my brother you're talking about."
"Willow only dared to hurt Ash because she knew the Sterling family would pressure you to back down," Kai pressed. "The Sterlings and Montgomerys are in bed together. Take down one, and the other falls too."
The wolf inside me snarled, pushing against my control. I'd raised Ash for twenty years, had protected him and cared for him and taught him how to be strong. I hadn't done all of that just so I could use him as a bargaining chip someday.
"No," I said flatly. "I'll negotiate with Daniel on my own terms. Ash is off the table."
After Kai left, I sat in my study for a long time, staring at nothing. Eventually I heard Iris's voice in the hallway outside my door.
"Didn't you say you were going to bring this in?" she was scolding someone. "Why did you just leave it by the door?"
A knock. "Sir, I brought you some fruit."
I stared at the closed door, my mind blank and exhausted. I didn't respond.
Another knock. "Sir?"
"Just leave it outside," I finally said, my voice coming out more tired than I'd intended.