CHAPTER HUNDRED & SEVENTY-SIX

CHAPTER HUNDRED & SEVENTY-SIX
CHAPTER

KYLE

Lucian shifted beside me, every muscle in his body tense. His fists clenched at his sides, trembling. Ashley was still behind me. Quiet. Present. Her silence said everything. And mine?

Mine was ready to explode.

“You killed her,” I said again. Louder. “And you let me believe he did.”

Jonathan’s jaw ticked.

That was the crack.

I stepped forward. “You told me she slipped. You told me Lucian was the reason she died. You made a six-year-old believe his brother was a murderer and his mother—” I choked. “That she deserved it.”

Still, he said nothing.

Just looked at me with those empty eyes, like this wasn’t unraveling decades of pain

“I saved this family,” Jonathan said coldly. “She wanted to expose things that would’ve torn it apart. She was emotional. Reckless. She wasn’t thinking about the consequences—”

“She was our mother!” I shouted, the words ripped from me. “She was your wife!”

“And she was going to destroy everything I built,” he said sharply. “Your mother didn’t care about legacy. She wanted out. She was scared of what we were doing, what we’d become, but she didn’t understand the cost of quitting. She thought love was enough to fix everything. But love—” he scoffed, “—love doesn’t keep people fed. It doesn’t build empires.”

I took a step closer, breathing hard.

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have built one that needed to be fed with corpses.”

His face twisted for the first time. Just a flicker—but it was there. Anger. Guilt. Or something twisted trying to disguise itself as logic.

“Everything I did was for this family,” Jonathan said, voice rising. “For you. For the name. For the future I wanted you to lead.”

“You didn’t do it for me,” I spat. “You did it for control. For power. You sacrificed your wife, your son—your entire family—for a legacy that rotted before it even bloomed.”

He rose from his chair, slowly, deliberately. “You wouldn’t be the man you are if I hadn’t done what I did.”

“You’re right,” I said. “I wouldn’t be. I’d be better.”

We stood face-to-face now. No more desk. No more titles. Just a father and the son he thought he still controlled.

“I rebuilt Blackwood,” I said, my voice quiet but sharp as a blade. “Not because of you. In spite of you. You want to take credit for the man I’ve become? Then fine. You created a man who sees through your lies. Who doesn’t kneel to monsters. Who knows that blood does not excuse betrayal.”

Lucian stepped forward.

His voice came quiet at first. Measured. But laced with something colder than rage.

“Do you know what it feels like to be forgotten, Jonathan?”

My father blinked, unmoved. Still hiding behind that mask of pride, as if the conversation was beneath him.

Lucian didn’t wait for a response.

“Because I do,” he continued, his tone tightening. “I know what it’s like to scream behind walls that no one listens to. To be locked away like a mistake, experimented on like a project, while you sat at press conferences pretending nothing was wrong.”

Jonathan’s jaw clenched.

“But I wasn’t a project,” Lucian said, stepping closer. “I wasn’t an accident. I was your son. And you erased me like a typo.”

He took another step, his boots echoing against the cold marble floor.

“You locked me away for something you created. Ezra didn’t die because of an accident. He died because he was the proof that your twisted vision had a cost.”

Jonathan’s lips parted, but Lucian kept going, voice rising now—layered with something deeper than fury. Resolve.

“I watched Ezra die. Do you remember him, Father?” Lucian spat the word like venom. “ Gifted. Gentle. One of the first kids to show signs of enhanced cognition from your serum. And what did you do? You pushed him too far. You made him your little test, and when his body couldn’t keep up—he burned from the inside.”

A pause.

“I held his hand while he died,” Lucian said softly.

Even Jonathan didn’t speak this time.

“And when he was gone, I burned the east wing,” Lucian added. “Not because I wanted revenge. Because I wanted release. Because I thought if I reduced that place to ash, maybe I could silence the screams.”

His fists trembled now, the tendons in his neck pulled taut like bowstrings.

“You didn’t just ruin me,” Lucian said, every word shaking with restraint. “You ruined kids. Children. You turned them into numbers on a page. Made their pain a byproduct of progress.”

“And what would you have had me do?” Jonathan said, finally. “Walk away from the edge of revolution? From science that could have changed the world?”

“No,” Lucian snapped. “I would’ve had you be a father.”

The words split the air.

Jonathan faltered for a moment, just barely. But I saw it.

“I don’t care about your empire anymore,” Lucian continued. “I don’t care about the buildings, or the labs, or the fake smiles you sell the world. That version of Blackwood is dead. You buried it when you let it rot under secrets and blood.”

He turned, motioned to me without looking.

“This man—your son, not the one you tried to design in a lab—he rebuilt it. Without the cruelty. Without the chains. He took what you left in ashes and built something stronger. Something real.”

Jonathan scoffed under his breath.

But Lucian stepped forward again, until they were inches apart.

“You can’t bring it down,” he said flatly. “No matter how much you try to claim it. It’s not yours anymore. You failed it. You lost it.”

Jonathan’s expression twisted.

“And maybe that’s the only justice you’ll ever understand. Watching from the shadows while the world you tried to control flourishes without you.”

Lucian's voice dropped again. Calm. Ruthless.

“But make no mistake. This doesn’t end here.”

Jonathan’s eyes narrowed.

“I will go public,” Lucian said. “I will tell the world everything. About the experiments. About Ezra. About the others. About every other company involved. I’ll name names. Show scars. I’ll drag every horror you buried into the light. And I won’t stop until the last kid who ever screamed behind your walls gets justice.”

Jonathan stepped back, just slightly. His breath hitched, barely audible—but it was there.

Real fear.

The kind that creeps in when you know you’re no longer untouchable.

“I don’t need to ruin your legacy,” Lucian said. “You did that yourself. I’m just going to make sure it’s remembered right.”

Silence pressed in.

Heavy. Final.

Jonathan didn’t speak again.

Couldn’t.

And maybe that was the first time in his life he truly had nothing left to say.

We turned to leave.

Lucian was already walking toward the door, his steps steady. Ashley followed, silent as ever—but I knew her silence now. It wasn’t fear.

It was fury laced with grace.

I paused, just before I stepped out.

Turned back to him.

He was still standing in the same spot, the king of nothing, surrounded by cold marble and the ghosts of everything he destroyed.

I looked at him for a long moment.

Not with hatred.

Not even anger anymore.

Just truth.
.

I wanted—God, I wanted—him to say something. Anything. Any word that reminded me of the man who used to sit between us at dinner, who called us his boys, who kissed my mother’s cheek when he thought we weren’t watching.

But he didn’t.

Because that man was already gone.

Had been gone for a long time.

And maybe, deep down, I’d always known it.

I gave him one last  and with that, I turned and walked away.

Not from the house.

From him.

From every shadow he ever tried to cast over my name.