Chapter 38 Blood never forgets

Chapter 38 Blood never forgets

George hated restaurants like this. Too clean, too quiet, and too expensive. This was a kind of place where people whispered instead of spoke because they wanted to hear themselves think.

He didn’t come here to think. He came because Alasdiar invited him.

He stepped inside the upscale Korean-style restaurant, the kind with lacquered wood, dim lanterns, and floors that reflected light like black water. A hostess bowed. He ignored her and walked straight down the hall. He didn’t need directions. He already knew which room his father was in.

He reached the sliding door and paused, not because he hesitated, but because he wanted one clean breath before stepping back into the family he’d been thrown out of.

George slid the door open.

Alasdair Whitmore sat alone at the low table, a cup of tea steaming untouched beside him. Age had made him thinner, sharper, like his bones were cutting their way out of him. His eyes lifted, the same pale grey George remembered, the same eyes that once looked at him with pride, then disgust, then nothing at all.

Neither of them spoke.

The silence wasn’t awkward. It was a battlefield they had both walked into willingly.

George lowered himself onto the seat across from him. He didn’t take off his coat. Didn’t soften his posture. Didn’t offer greeting.

He wasn’t here for peace.

Alasdair cleared his throat. “You look older.”

George smiled without warmth. “Being banished tends to age a man.”

The words hit their mark. Alasdair’s jaw tightened, barely.

“So,” George said, leaning back, stretching out his legs. “You called me. That must’ve hurt.”

Alasdair didn’t rise to the bait. “There are things you need to hear before you destroy everything.”

George laughed. Low. Mean. “Destroy? Father, I’m only reclaiming what was mine.”

“It was never yours.”

“It was, until Caroline took it.”

There. Her name. Hanging in the air like a ghost neither of them had buried.

Alasdair ran a hand over his face, tired. “George…”

“Don’t.” George’s voice cut clean through the room. “Don’t say her name like you mourn her. You chose her. Again and again. You made it very clear.”

And now Alasdair finally broke.

“I loved her more.”

There was no hesitation. No apology. Just truth. Heavy and blunt.

George felt it hit him, harder than he wanted it to. He blinked once, slowly, like he was trying to swallow a punch.

“Of course you did,” he murmured. “The perfect daughter. The crown jewel. The one who smiled the way Mother used to.”

Alasdair didn’t argue.

“She inherited everything,” George said, voice sharpening. “The land. The houses. The trust. The future. And you left me scraps. No, less than scraps. You left me nothing.”

“I left you what was safe,” Alasdair replied. “You were angry even as a child. You never understood limits. I had to protect…”

“Her,” George snapped. “Always her.”

Silence again. Thick. Pressurized.

George leaned forward, elbows on the table.

“Do you know what it feels like,” he asked quietly, “to wake up one morning and realize you’ve been erased from your own family?”

Alasdair looked away.

“And don’t pretend you didn’t expect me to fight back,” George added. “You made me. You shaped me. You pushed me until something you were satisfied.”

“You tried to burn down the estate,” Alasdair said. “You tried to kill me, George.”

“That house was rotting,” George hissed. “You were rotting. Everything was already dead. I just tried to finish the job.”

“And that’s why I sent you away.”

“No.” George’s voice softened, dangerous. “You sent me away because you were afraid. Not for me. For her. You were terrified I’d turn that rage on Caroline.”

Alasdair didn’t deny it.

Of course he didn’t.

George’s hands tightened into fists under the table. Not big, obvious fists. Small, controlled ones. The kind a person made right before doing something irreversible.

“She never came,” he said. “Not once. Not to visit. Not to write. Not even to say goodbye.”

“Caroline believed…”

“I know what she believed,” George cut in. “She told you, didn’t she? Before she left.”

His father swallowed, throat bobbing.

“What were her words?” George pressed. “Say them.”

Alasdair hesitated. For a man who’d commanded empires, it was the first time George ever saw him look… afraid.

“She said…” His voice roughened. “She said, ‘His rage will eat the world.’”

George went still.

A single breath left him. Slow. Controlled.

The sentence felt like teeth dragging through an old wound.

He looked down at the table. The wood blurred for a moment, not from tears, he’d burned those out of himself years ago but from something colder.

“She judged me even as she ran,” he murmured. “Perfect Caroline. Runaway Caroline. Hypocrite Caroline.”

Alasdair’s voice softened. “She didn’t run out of fear of you.”

“I know why she ran,” George said. The words came out low and edged. “The nurse.”

His father closed his eyes.

“Her nurse,” George went on. “The one you let into our house. The one she fell in love with. The one she got pregnant for. Daphne’s father.”

Alasdair didn’t interrupt. Couldn’t.

“And then,” George said, “she cut us off. Cut you off. Cut the Whitmore name off. Left everything behind. All the inheritance she got? Gone. Walked out as none of it mattered.”

Alasdair’s voice cracked. “She was happy.”

“She was selfish,” George snapped. “She stole everything. My future. My birthright. And she never looked back.”

Alasdair leaned in, eyes sharp. “She didn’t steal your life, George. You destroyed it yourself.”

“And yet,” George whispered, “I’m still here.”

The air in the room shifted and thickened, like the walls were listening.

“She stole my life. Her daughter won’t steal my legacy.”

Alasdair’s face drained. “You’ve become exactly what she feared.”

“Yes,” George said, smiling. “And she’s not here to stop me.”

For a long moment, neither man moved. The tension sat between them like a third presence, their past, their sins, their shared blood that refused to die.

Then George stood, pushing the seat back with slow finality. The conversation was over. The decision, solidified into something darker.

Alasdair didn’t try to stop him.

George slid the door open, felt the cold hallway air brush his face, and stepped out without a backward glance.

The restaurant lights looked softer now, dimmer, like the world outside was holding its breath.

George walked through the corridor, past the silent staff, past the warm kitchen smells and clattering plates. None of it touched him.

His world was down to a single purpose.

He stepped into the night and headed for his car parked under the glowing streetlamp, its black body slick with rain. His right-hand man, Rourke, opened the door for him without greeting.

George slid inside, shutting the door with a heavy, final thud.

Rourke glanced at him through the mirror. “How did it go?”

George rested his head against the seat, eyes half-lidded, voice almost gentle.

“Just a little more time,” he murmured.

“Before I finish her up.”