Chapter 97 7 years later
Jacob
It’s been seven years since Elsie vanished from our lives.
Seven years since Mum walked back into the Lancaster empire and took over everything—every visible company, every silent partnership, and every underground operation Aiden and I never even knew existed until it was too late to pretend otherwise.
Dad left the mansion not long after the truth about Mrs. Chavez came out. He didn’t fight it. He didn’t argue. He packed what he could carry and walked out like a man who knew the house had rejected him long before the people inside did.
Caleb stayed.
That part surprised everyone.
Normally, he would have followed Dad anywhere, loyalty stitched into his bones. But the truth about his mother broke something in him. The secret that had been kept from him his entire life sat in his chest like a stone. He had the money, the connections, and the intelligence to disappear and build a life somewhere else, but he didn’t.
Instead, he stayed back and helped Mum build TitanCraft from the ground up, while still practicing law on the side. The law firm never shut down—it expanded. Junior lawyers filled the offices, bright-eyed and hungry. Caleb only showed up for cases that were complex enough to interest him or dangerous enough to matter.
The boardroom felt warmer than usual that morning, the kind of warmth that crawls under your collar and refuses to leave. I tugged at my tie, hoping for air, but all I got was more discomfort.
My eyes drifted across the long table and landed on Caleb.
He stood at the head of the room, completely at ease, one hand resting on the table, the other clicking through slides on a large screen behind him. He had the room’s attention without asking for it. Investors, directors, consultants—men who had been in business longer than he’d been alive—watched him closely.
The bastard looked comfortable.
Dressed in a dark suit that probably cost more than my monthly rent, he spoke calmly as charts and figures filled the screen. Profit margins. Expansion zones. Long-term projections. His voice never shook, never rushed.
Seven years had passed, but my brother hadn’t changed.
If anything, he’d grown worse.
Still obsessed with control. Still obsessed with knowing every detail. Still convinced that if he weren’t involved, something would fall apart. Mum let him have his way because, annoyingly, he was good at it. Better than anyone else in the room.
Possibly better than her.
If ambition could grow teeth, Caleb’s would be sharp by now. He funneled all that restless energy into forcing Aiden and me to manage the subsidiary companies so he wouldn’t have to trust outsiders. Materials. Machinery. Logistics. Supply chains. Anything that fed into TitanCraft’s core business, he handed to us.
All so he could keep the company's heart in the family.
In short, seven years hadn’t softened our cold, uptight asshole of a brother one bit.
“The construction of these key factories has led to a steady increase in our profit margins,” Caleb said, tapping the screen. “We’ve reduced outsourcing costs by thirty percent, which means shareholder value has gone up by five percent this quarter alone.”
A low murmur moved around the table.
TitanCraft’s primary business was construction—large-scale industrial projects, government contracts, and private developments. Instead of relying on external suppliers, Mum had insisted we build our own ecosystem. Smaller companies handling cement, steel, machinery, transport, and labor recruitment.
The goal was independence.
If one part of the industry collapsed, we wouldn’t go down with it.
And it worked.
When the main construction arm grew, every subsidiary followed. Money flowed upward and outward. Investors smiled more often. Meetings grew longer.
Mum had been the acting CEO from the beginning, but for the past three years, Caleb had effectively been running the main construction division. To make leadership easier—or maybe to make his life simpler—he shoved Aiden and me into managing the feeder companies.
Neither of us wanted it.
We’d said that clearly. Repeatedly.
But Caleb had a way of making responsibility feel like guilt. He reminded us often that walking away meant abandoning Mum’s legacy, that leaving TitanCraft would mean we didn’t care about the years she poured into building it.
So we stayed.
Emotionally blackmailed, professionally trapped.
The underground side of things remained mostly closed off to us. We knew about the casino. We knew about a club. We showed up occasionally, not to get involved, but to drink, socialize, and pretend ignorance was a choice.
My phone buzzed in my jacket pocket.
Grateful for the distraction, I slid it out under the table. Aiden caught my eye from across the room and subtly nodded toward my screen.
A new message.
From Corey.
I opened it and nearly laughed out loud.
It was a meme, Caleb’s photo from the boardroom camera, his face poorly replaced with SpongeBob’s grin.
A snort escaped me before I could stop it. I turned it into a cough and cleared my throat, trying to look professional.
Aiden grinned openly, sleeves rolled up, phone still in hand. He looked bored out of his mind, scrolling as if the meeting didn’t concern him at all.
Caleb’s eyes flicked toward us for half a second.
Enough to make me straighten.
He finished his presentation and leaned back slightly. “That concludes the financial overview. If there are any questions about expansion timelines or material sourcing, now would be a good time.”
One of the investors raised a hand. “What’s the long-term plan for leadership continuity?”
The room went quiet.
Caleb didn’t answer immediately.
Instead, Mum finally spoke.
She had been silent throughout the entire meeting, seated at the far end of the table, hands folded and just observing. Sarah Lancaster never wasted words unless they mattered.
“I’ll take that,” she said.
Everyone turned to her.
“I’ve spent the last seven years rebuilding this company,” Mum continued calmly. “Stabilizing it. Expanding it. Making sure it no longer depends on any one man, name, or mistake.”
Caleb shifted slightly beside me.
“I’ve also spent those years preparing for my exit.”
That landed.
Aiden straightened. I stopped breathing for a moment.
“I’ll be stepping down as CEO at the end of this quarter,” she said. “A new CEO will be announced shortly.”
Whispers filled the room.
Caleb adjusted his jacket slowly, his expression was blank but u could clearly see through him. I know him like the back of my hand. He didn’t look surprised. He looked prepared. Prepared like a man who had been waiting his entire life for this moment.
Mum’s eyes moved to him briefly before returning to the table.
“This company will remain in capable hands,” she added. “That is all.”
The meeting ended shortly after.
As people stood and gathered their things, I watched Caleb exhale for the first time all morning.
Seven years ago, Elsie vanished.
Seven years ago, everything changed.
And now, standing on the edge of another shift, I couldn’t help but wonder what else the Lancaster name was about to destroy—or inherit.