CHAPTER HUNDRED & SEVENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER HUNDRED & SEVENTY-FOUR

KYLE

Finding Lucian really wasn’t hard.

Not with Jack’s help. He was able to trace the last ping from the encrypted USB Lucian tossed at me, and with a little digital maneuvering—and some favors I probably owed him drinks for—we narrowed it down to an old building tucked into the edge of the city. The kind of place people went when they didn’t want to be found.

A forgotten corner.

A ghost’s hideout.

The apartment number he gave me looked like it belonged to someone who didn’t believe in permanence. 

And when we got there… the door was already creaked open.

Yeah.

We.

I glanced at Ashley standing beside me—jeans, sweatshirt, eyes sharpened with purpose. She hadn’t said much on the drive over, but her silence hadn’t been cold. It had been focused. Grounded. Like she was here not out of obligation, but out of something stronger.

Conviction.

I still didn’t understand it.

I never imagined she’d still see me not after everything I told her. I thought she’d walk away. I thought the weight of the truth would snap whatever fragile thread was left between us. I thought it would be the final blow. The one that proved I’d always been a little too broken to hold on to something good.

But here she was.

Still holding on.

To me.

To us.

And I don’t think I’d ever been more afraid or more certain about what came next.

I took a breath and we stepped inside.
.I’ve been expecting you, brother.”

Lucian’s voice drifted out from the shadows—cool, even, like he was narrating a memory instead of speaking in the present.

Ashley flinched beside me.

It wasn’t dramatic—just a subtle recoil, like the air had changed and her body noticed before her mind did. But I felt it. I saw it. And I hated that her first moment near my brother had to come wrapped in unease.

I reached for her hand instinctively. She didn’t pull away.

Lucian stepped forward from the gloom of the small apartment, and for a moment, I could barely reconcile the figure in front of me with the ghost that had haunted my childhood.

He looked like the past dressed in present-day bitterness—messy hair pushed back, sleeves rolled to the elbows, that same scar etched above his brow. But there was something more now. Something sharp beneath the surface. A man forged in fire, not raised in comfort.

He glanced at Ashley—briefly, almost dismissively—before letting his eyes settle back on me.

And when he spoke again, his tone was quieter. “You brought her.”

“I didn’t bring her,” I said, my voice low, steady. “She came. On her own.”

Lucian’s gaze flicked between us again, this time lingering a second longer on the way my fingers laced through hers.

“Brave,” he muttered, half to himself. “Or foolish.”

Ashley didn’t flinch this time. She stepped forward instead, chin high. “Maybe both.”

A corner of Lucian’s mouth tugged, just barely. Not quite a smile. Not quite mockery.

“I see why you can’t let her go,” he said, directing the words to me but never taking his eyes off her.

I stepped in front of her, just slightly, my voice sharp. “Don’t.”

Lucian held up a hand in mock surrender, but the air had shifted again. The tension between us wasn’t just familial now—it was volatile. Like an unspoken history stretching a little too thin.

“I didn’t come here to trade barbs,” I said.

“Then why did you come?” he asked. “For more truth? More ghosts? Because I’ve got plenty of both.”

I took a breath. “I came because I need to know everything. The real story. Not my father’s version. Not the one I’ve lived in my head for twenty years. I want to hear it from you.”

Lucian’s eyes darkened, and for a beat, the apartment felt too quiet.

Then he nodded once, slowly.

“All right,” he said. “Then sit down, Kyle. You and your little storm of a woman. Because what I’m about to tell you doesn’t just break the truth.”

His voice dropped, sharp and final.

“It buries it.”

Lucian didn’t sit.

He walked to the far window, the thin curtains swaying with the breeze leaking through the cracked pane. For a moment, he said nothing—just stared out at the city like he was remembering a world that no longer existed.

“I wasn’t supposed to survive,” he began.

His voice had changed. No longer biting or sharp. Just tired. Like the words weighed too much to speak quickly.

“Ezra was real.”

My breath caught.

“I remember that name,” I said, stunned. “He was… your friend. The boy you wouldn’t stop talking about when we were little.”

Lucian turned slowly, eyes dull. “He was more than that. Ezra was part of the same trial Father created. A project disguised as a behavioral study. They called it cognitive aptitude enhancement, but it was never about testing intelligence.”

He paused, jaw tightening.

“They were testing fear, Kyle. Response under threat. Control under chaos. Ezra was one of their favorites. Until he stopped responding the way they wanted.”

Ashley stood still beside me, her breathing shallow. I could feel the tension winding through her like a wire.

“They killed him, Kyle,” Lucian said. “In one of the chambers beneath the east wing. I watched it. He screamed. And I did nothing. Because I was too weak.”

My stomach turned.

Lucian’s eyes didn’t blink.

“After he died, something broke in me. I didn’t care about surviving anymore. I didn’t care about Father’s approval. I only cared about ending it. So I set fire to the east wing. I thought maybe the truth would burn with it. Maybe I could kill the nightmare and disappear.”

I swallowed hard, my pulse hammering.

“You were just a child,” I whispered.

Lucian laughed bitterly. “So were you. But we weren’t allowed to be children, were we?”

He turned again, pacing now. A slow, mechanical walk like he was trying to hold himself together.

“After Ezra died, Father locked me. He said I was unstable. Dangerous. He called me deluded to you too.  A threat to his legacy. Then one night… I escaped. Burned everything I could”

He stopped walking. His voice dropped into a dangerous stillness.

“And the worst part, Kyle? You saw me that night. And all you saw was a killer.”

My lips parted, but no words came out.

“Mom knew,” he continued, softer now. “She found out what Father was doing. She found the recordings. The drugs. The schedules. She confronted him.”

Lucian’s eyes met mine—sharp, accusing, and full of the ache I had buried for decades.

“She wasn’t supposed to die that night, Kyle. She was supposed to expose him. To take us and leave.”

My throat closed. “You’re saying…”

“I didn’t push her,” he said, voice suddenly fierce. “He did.”

I froze.

Lucian’s hands trembled as he ran them through his hair.

“She wanted out. She was going to tell the board. Tell the press. She said she didn’t care about his empire anymore. And that night, she told me to get ready. We were leaving.”

His voice broke.

“She never came downstairs.”

Ashley moved beside me, silent and stunned, her hand brushing mine again—but I couldn’t feel anything beyond the roar in my head.

“I ran upstairs when I heard her scream,” Lucian whispered. “And I saw him. Our father. Standing at the top of the stairs. Alone.”

I couldn’t breathe.

“And then you came,” he finished. “Just in time to see me there. In time for him to say, ‘Look what your brother did.’”

The room spun.

“That was all it took,” Lucian said. “One sentence. One lie. And I became the monster.”

Silence settled like ash over everything. The air was too thick, the walls too tight.

Ashley was the one who broke it.

“Oh my God,” she whispered. “You’ve been carrying this all your life.”

I looked at Lucian, but I couldn’t see him through the blur.

“I spent my whole life thinking I buried a killer,” I rasped. “But I buried the wrong person.”

Lucian gave a hollow nod.

“You buried the only one who ever tried to protect you.”

I didn’t move.

Couldn’t.

Lucian’s words rang in my ears like thunder in a canyon..loud, echoing, impossible to outrun. My body was frozen, but my mind was spiraling. Spinning through every memory I ever had of that night. Every carefully buried thought. Every silence that used to feel protective and now only felt like rot.

He was telling the truth.

I didn’t want to believe it but some part of me had always known. Some small, broken voice buried under everything, whispering that something didn’t add up. That it didn’t make sense for Lucian to have just vanished. 

I just never had the strength to listen.

I dragged in a breath, but it scraped against my lungs like glass.

“You’re saying…” I could barely speak. “You’re saying that our father killed her.”

Lucian’s expression didn’t shift. He just nodded, slow and cold.

“And I—” My voice cracked. “I believed him.”

That was the part that shattered me.

I believed him.

I believed a man who would murder his own wife and erase his son like a blemish from a perfect white sheet.

I backed up, my hands on my hips, my chest heaving.

“I let him turn me into him,” I said. “All these years… I thought I was building something better. Fixing everything. But I was just repainting the same rotten foundation he left behind.”

Ashley stepped closer, her presence grounding, but I couldn’t meet her eyes yet.

Lucian just stared at me. Not with contempt anymore. Not even blame.

Pity.

That was worse.

“I don’t hate you for it,” he said, his voice quiet now. “You were a child. You didn’t know.”

“But I should’ve known,” I bit out. “I should’ve looked for you. I should’ve asked questions. Fought harder. Something. Anything.”

“You were six,” Ashley said gently. “And he was your father.”

I shook my head, still not ready to let myself off that hook.

“I spent years defending Blackwood,” I said. “Killing myself to resurrect his company. Carrying his name like it meant something. I thought I was saving the legacy.”

Lucian walked past me, to the small kitchen counter, and picked up a glass of water. His movements were slow, tired. “You saved your business.”

The silence that followed was loud. Unforgiving.

I finally turned to face him fully.

“I’m sorry,” I said, and the words weren’t enough not even close but I meant them with every piece of me.

Lucian looked at me like he didn’t expect to hear them. Like maybe he’d imagined this moment for years, but never with that ending.

“I know,” he said.

It wasn’t forgiveness. But it was a start.

Ashley finally moved, placing a hand on my arm. Her touch didn’t just steady me—it kept me standing.

“I need to see him,” I said after a long beat. “Face him.”

Lucian’s eyes darkened, but he didn’t argue.

Ashley, however, did.

She stepped in front of me, chin lifted. “You will. But not alone.”

I frowned. “Ash—”

“No,” she said firmly. “We’re doing this together. You’re not carrying this alone anymore.”

Her words were a balm I didn’t know I needed. I looked at her, really looked and the girl I’d fallen in love with was still there, even after everything. Still standing. Still choosing me.

Lucian looked between us, something unreadable flickering in his gaze. And for the first time, he didn’t seem angry to see her standing at my side.

“Then we better move fast,” he said. “Because if Jonathan Blackwood knows you’ve found me… he won’t stay quiet for long.”