Chapter 259 Disowned

Chapter 259 Disowned
Chapter Two Hundred And Fifty-Seven

The word “permanent” settled into the room.

Aria looked at the window.

She thought about a plan designed for someone else arriving at the person who designed it through the indifferent mathematics of a mistaken car in a dim garage.

She thought about what Monica had said in the boardroom.

“They already have everything.”

She thought about what it cost to want what other people had with the specific, consuming hunger that produced the choices Nathan and Monica had made.

She breathed.

“What about Monica?” she asked.

“In custody,” Zach said. “The communication records obtained from Nathan’s channel are sufficient for the charges. Her involvement in the planning of today’s attempt is documented.”

Aria nodded.

“And the hitman,” Lucian said.

“Secured,” Zach said. “Cooperating.”

Lucian looked at Zach for a moment.

“Thank you,” he said. It was simple and direct, which was how Lucian expressed things that mattered.

Zach nodded once and left.

Lucian looked at Aria.

She looked back at him.

“The brake modification was meant for us,” she said.

“Yes,” he said.

“It found him instead.”

“Yes.”

She was quiet for a moment.

She thought about the warehouse three years ago, and a truck on a road, and the long chain of choices that had connected that moment to this one. She thought about the specific shape of consequences, how they moved through the world, how they found their way back.

“Are you going to see him?” she asked.

Lucian looked at the window.

“Yes,” he answered calmly, “I am.”

\-----

The hospital room was on the fourth floor of Crestmont General.

It was a private room, which was not a courtesy extended by anyone who cared for Nathan’s comfort but a practical requirement of a patient under police custody who could not be placed in a general ward without significant security implications.

There was an officer outside the door.

Lucian had the relevant permissions and the officer checked them and stepped aside.

He went in.

Nathan was in the bed with the specific stillness of a man who had been told something and was in the particular early stage of understanding it, where the information had been received but had not yet been fully integrated because full integration was a process that took longer than the hours since the accident.

He was pale.

He looked smaller than he had in the boardroom.

He looked at Lucian when Lucian came through the door and his eyes did the thing that eyes did when they were doing the work of a face that could not do it, carrying everything that the rest of the body had lost access to.

“You came to mock me,” Nathan said.

His voice was hoarse. From the water, or from what had come after the water, or from the hours since, she could not tell and did not need to.

“No,” Lucian said.

He came to the chair beside the bed and sat in it. He sat in it with the unhurried quality of a man who was not performing composure but was simply composed, the genuine version that came from having processed what needed to be processed before arriving.

Nathan looked at him.

“Then why,” he said.

“Because you deserve to hear it from me,” Lucian said. “Not from a lawyer. Not from a letter. From me.”

Nathan said nothing.

“You put me in that bed for three years,” Lucian said. It was not an accusation in the tone he used. It was a statement, the way he would state any fact that was simply accurate and required no additional weight because its own weight was sufficient. “Three years. I heard you walk in and out of that room. I heard you plan. I heard you tell me I should have died on the road.” He paused. “I lay in that bed and I heard all of it and I thought about what I was going to do when I came back.”

Nathan was very still.

“I am not going to do any of the things I thought about,” Lucian said. “I want you to know that. What I am going to do is exactly what I have done. I am going to give what I have to the law and let the law do its work.” He paused. “The law will do a thorough job. The evidence is complete. The charges will be complete. You will answer for the accident and the suppression and the planning of this afternoon, and you will answer for them in the appropriate place.”

Nathan looked at the ceiling.

“You have also been disowned,” Lucian said. “By the family. By the company. Whatever position you held, whatever relationship you had with the family in whatever capacity, it is over. The chairman has signed the relevant documentation. You have no standing in the Graves Empire in any form.”

Nathan closed his eyes.

“I don’t know if you expected me to be angry,” Lucian said. “Or to come here and tell you that I understand why you did what you did. I don’t. I understand the sequence of it. I don’t understand the choosing of it.” He paused. “I think you had choices at every point and you made the ones you made and this is where they brought you.”

He stood.

“I wish you well,” he said. “I mean that in the specific way of a person who genuinely hopes you find something worth having in what comes next. Not for your sake primarily. Because people who remain consumed by bitterness are poor company for everyone around them and I don’t wish that on the people who will have to be in proximity to you.”

He moved to the door and closed it quietly behind him.