Chapter 100 The Reveal
Caleb
We were all seated in the boardroom, waiting for the mystery woman to finally show her face finally.
MedLyn Lancaster.
I tapped my finger against the polished surface of the table slowly, the sound barely audible but enough to ground my irritation. My wristwatch caught my attention again. I checked the time for the fourth time in five minutes.
“She’s late,” I said coolly, my voice cutting through the low murmur in the room. “That alone tells me everything I need to know about the kind of person who thinks she can run a company as large as TitanCrest.”
Sarah Lancaster glanced at me from the head of the table. “She’s one minute late, Caleb,” she said evenly, before turning back to address Mr. Thomas and Mrs. Anabas. “Perhaps something is holding her up.”
I scoffed inwardly.
Nothing was holding her up.
I knew women like her. Women who thought power was measured by how many people they could keep waiting. They loved the drama of it, lived for the moment when all eyes turned to them. They are Self-absorbed and Addicted to attention.
My brothers, as usual, were useless.
Aiden sat slouched in his chair, scrolling through his phone as if this meeting meant nothing. Jacob wasn’t any better, his attention was split between the screen in his hand and whatever joke he was probably reading.
They didn’t care. They never did.
And despite how often I wanted to smash Aiden’s face into a wall or knock some sense into Jacob, I still cared about them. That was the part that pissed me off the most. They didn’t see how much of their future they were casually handing over to a stranger. They didn’t understand that power, once given away, was almost impossible to reclaim.
And I wasn’t about to sit here and let that happen.
Whoever this woman was, I was ready to tear her apart in front of everyone. Strip away the mystique. Expose her incompetence. Remind the board why TitanCrest had survived and grown under my leadership.
“You okay?” Jacob finally asked, lifting his head and studying me.
I shot him a sideways look. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
He shrugged. “You look like you’re about to murder someone.”
“Only if they deserve it,” I muttered. Then I leaned forward, my palms flattening on the table. “Let’s be clear about something. We don’t need an outsider. This company was built on blood, discipline, and control. Not promises of innovation or flashy projections. When it comes down to it, people will always choose stability over bullshit dreams of higher margins.”
That shut him up.
MedLyn Lancaster was supposed to be young. That was all anyone seemed to know. No social media presence, no public interviews, no photographs anywhere. In this day and age, that wasn’t impressive—it was suspicious.
And anyone arrogant enough to keep people like us waiting was already walking in with a strike against her.
I was wound tight, every nerve alert, waiting to see the woman who thought she could step into my territory.
The chatter in the room died abruptly.
I glanced down at my watch.
Right on cue.
When I looked up, every head in the room had turned toward the doorway.
She stood there, framed by glass and steel.
Tall. Lean. Composed.
A gray suit hugged her frame perfectly, tailored to precision.
I straightened in my chair instinctively, my focus sharpening. This was her. This was my adversary.
Sarah rose to her feet.
A smile spread across her face—wide, genuine, proud. It startled me. I couldn’t remember the last time she’d looked that pleased. Or the last time she’d smiled at any of us like that.
My attention snapped back to the woman walking toward the table and the air instantly punched out of my lungs so hard I thought I might choke.
No.
That wasn’t possible.
I stared at her, my vision narrowing, my heartbeat slamming against my ribs. For a split second, I wondered if the stress had finally broken me. Maybe I was losing my mind. Maybe thinking about Elsie too much had finally crossed into hallucination.
But it couldn’t be her.
Elsie was dead.
I was told she was dead.
I’d asked Diego’s men what he did with her body. They said they didn’t know. That he never told anyone.
This woman—this woman wore confidence like armor. Her posture was immaculate, her expression hard as steel. She carried a designer bag that probably cost more than most people’s annual salary.
Elsie had been a maid.
The last time I saw her, she was wearing my oversized T-shirt, the fabric swallowing her small frame as I handed her over to Diego. She’d had nothing. No money. No power. No future.
There was no fucking way she could be standing here now.
I blinked hard, once, twice, forcing the image to disappear.
It didn’t.
A loud crash shattered the silence.
Aiden was on his feet, his chair tipped over behind him. His chest rose and fell rapidly, his eyes locked on her like he was staring at a ghost pulled straight from hell.
Jacob’s mouth hung open, his face drained of color.
That was when it hit me.
I wasn’t imagining this.
They saw her too.
Elsie was real.
She was fucking real.
“Welcome to TitanCrest City, Miss Lancaster,” Sarah said warmly.
I snapped my gaze to Sarah. She was smiling at her.
What the fuck was happening?
My eyes dragged back to the woman standing at the end of the table, only a few feet away from me now. Goosebumps crawled up my arms. My throat tightened as I finally accepted the truth staring me in the face.
She hadn’t just survived. She’d come back armed.
Excited murmurs rippled through the room.
Sarah stepped forward, her voice strong, carrying easily over the noise. “Ladies and gentlemen, may I officially introduce my adopted daughter—MedLyn Lancaster.”
The words hit me like a gunshot.
“Boys,” she continued calmly, her gaze flicking to us, “meet your sister.”
The room spun.
“I adopted MedLyn seven years ago,” Sarah went on. “I couldn’t introduce her sooner because she was studying, building herself, and establishing her own legacy. She wanted everything kept between us until she was ready.”
My hands clenched beneath the table.
Seven years.
Seven fucking years.
The same seven years Elsie had vanished.
My mind raced, pieces snapping together in ways that made my stomach churn. Every article. Every missing photograph. Every carefully constructed mystery. This wasn’t a coincidence. She didn’t want us to know that she was still alive. She didn’t want to be found.
And Elsie—MedLyn—whatever the hell she called herself now—had come back not as a victim, but as a threat to everything I’ve worked hard for.