Chapter 255 Three Years…Time’s Up

Chapter 255 Three Years…Time’s Up
Chapter Two Hundred And Fifty-Two

He felt it with the specific sensitivity of a man who had spent a decade reading rooms.

The evidence was substantial. He knew that. He had not heard the recording before but he had known it was coming because Fenn had been arrested weeks ago and the arrest of a man who knew what Fenn knew had only one trajectory.

But Monica had introduced something.

Doubt was not the right word. It was not sufficient to produce doubt, what she had said. But it had introduced the human element, the weeping wife and the ten years and the suggestion that loyalty could not coexist with the allegations, and the board members were feeling that element because they were people and people felt things even in boardrooms.

He looked at Lucian.

Lucian was looking at Monica, a half smirk on his lips.

His expression was not what Nathan had expected. 

It was not the expression of a man who was watching a performance and was above it. It was the expression of a man who was watching a performance and understood exactly what it was and was patient about it.

He let her finish.

He let the room hold what Monica had said for a moment.

Then he looked at the board.

“I understand,” he said calmly, “that this is difficult. The allegations are serious and the evidence is extensive and the person being accused is someone many of you have known and worked with for years.” He paused, glaring at Monica,“Monica, I will address your point directly.”

Monica stared ar him, her weeping coming to a stop.

“She is right that loyalty is significant,” Lucian said. “She is right that years of service matter. She is right that I have everything I need.” He paused. “And she is also right that I am standing here asking the board to act on this evidence.” He looked at Monica steadily. “Those two things are not contradictions. They are the same thing. Because this family and this company deserve to know what was done to them. And the man who did it deserves to answer for it.”

He looked at Nathan.

“Not because I want more than I have,” he said. “Because three years of my life were taken from me. Because the people in this room were deceived for three years. Because Aria—” He stopped for a moment.

The pause was not the pause of a man losing composure. It was the pause of a man choosing not to say all of what he could say. “Because the cost of what was done is real, and real costs require real answers.”

The room was very still.

Nathan looked at Monica.

Monica looked like a panda, with mascara streaks running down her face..

She was looking at Lucian with an expression that had moved past the performance into something more genuine, the expression of a woman who has deployed her best tool and watched it be addressed with a completeness that left her without a follow-up.

Nathan looked at the board members.

The room had not decided against Monica entirely.

But it had not decided for them either.

And the two men at the door had not moved.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

The room was still holding the weight of Monica’s performance when Lucian spoke again.

He did not raise his voice. He did not change his register or his pace. He spoke in the same quiet, even tone he had been using since the meeting began, the tone of a man who had no need to perform anything because he had already arrived at the outcome and was simply completing the journey.

“Nathan,” he said. “I want to tell you something.”

Nathan looked at him.

“Do you remember the fourteenth of March, three years ago?” Lucian said. “You came to my room in the evening. The nursing staff had gone for the shift change. You were alone.”

Nathan said nothing.

“You stood at the foot of my bed,” Lucian said, “and you told me that I should have died on that road. You said it was a pity that the truck had not finished the job. You said—” He paused. The pause was not theatrical. It was the pause of a man retrieving something that had been kept in a specific place for a long time. “You said that you had worked too hard for too long to watch me come back and take what was yours.”

The room was completely silent.

Nathan’s jaw was set.

“Those were your words,” Lucian said. “Yours specifically. I remember them with the particular clarity of a man who had nothing to do for three years except hear things and remember them.”

He let that settle.

“The twenty-second of July, two years and four months ago,” he continued, in the same even tone. “You told me about the board meeting that had gone in your favour. You seemed pleased. You sat in the chair beside my bed, which the nursing staff had always found strange because you never sat. They mentioned it to each other. But you sat that day and you told me about the meeting and you told me what you intended to do next.”

Nathan was looking at a point above Lucian’s head, his mouth hanging open in shock.

How the hell had Lucian known these things?

Lucian paused, looking at Nathan like a cat would a mouse

“You were not careful because you believed I could not hear you,” Lucian said. “A full coma is not a selective state. But the coma I was in was not a full one. It was maintained. It was maintained below the threshold of response, which meant I could not move or speak or open my eyes. It did not mean I could not hear.”

Everyone was looking at Lucian now, not believing what their ears were hearing.

Lucian had been in a covert coma.

That was freaking crazy!

Lucian looked at Nathan, his eyes cold enough to freeze hell over..

“I heard everything,” he said. “Every visit. Every word. Three years of your visits, Nathan, and I heard all of it.”

The room stopped breathing.