CHAPTER FOUR;THE WORLD THAT FORGOT HER

               ****NEW CHAPTER ****

***THE WORLD THAT FORGOT HER***

The city glittered like a jewel washed in gold and silver, its skyline a cathedral of ambition. Streetlights traced the arteries of power, and the Thornbrook estate loomed at the summit of a hill, as if daring the heavens themselves to challenge it. From a distance, it seemed serene, untouchable, a monument to the family’s dominance. Every light in its tall windows, every polished marble surface, every sweeping staircase whispered authority. Yet beneath that veneer of perfection, years of careful construction of wealth, politics, and influence had hardened the family into something colder, sharper, and more insidious than the streets below could ever imagine.

Luke Thornbrook walked the main hall alone, the sound of his polished shoes echoing faintly off the marble floors. He paused at the floor-to-ceiling windows, gazing out at the city that now bent in subtle ways to his family’s will. Governors bowed, business conglomerates shifted to accommodate Thornbrook interests, and the underworld—mafia, cartel intermediaries, and syndicate leaders—knew the cost of crossing their empire. Luke’s chest swelled with quiet pride. He had rebuilt what many had assumed was lost after Alina’s disappearance. He had taken the shards of his father’s empire and fused them into something resilient, something untouchable.

“To think,” he murmured under his breath, watching the river glitter under the moonlight, “all because one girl vanished.”

A faint smirk curved his lips. She was gone—imprisoned, forgotten, or so everyone believed. No one remembered her face, her fire, or the chaos she had once caused. The family had exorcised that chapter neatly. Yet, in rare moments like this, Luke allowed himself a flicker of nostalgia for the challenge she had once been—nothing more than a ghost in memory, harmless now.

The estate hummed with preparation for the night’s gathering. Servants in crisp black uniforms moved like ghosts through polished corridors, adjusting silver candlesticks and polishing crystal until it glimmered like trapped starlight. Outside, gardeners trimmed hedges into perfection, fountains reflecting the amber glow of lamp posts. Every inch of the estate, from the grandiose archways to the subtle inlaid symbols of the family crest, screamed legacy. Luke ran a hand along the cold marble railing, thinking about the people who would arrive tonight: presidents, governors, industrialists, mafia heads, even a few monarchs. The world’s most powerful would be here, united under the Thornbrook roof, and yet they would all be prey to appearances. To Luke, that was the true power—the ability to bend the mighty to social ritual.

He moved to the study, where his father’s portraits lined the walls like silent witnesses. Each face gazed down with judgment and expectation, reminding Luke that power was not inherited; it was earned, maintained, and enforced. The memory of his father’s deliberate gaze in life lingered—now, framed in oil and gilded in dust. Luke smiled faintly, tightening the cuffs of his jacket. The weight of the family legacy pressed on him, and yet he relished it. He had control, precision, and knowledge that the next generation of threats would find only after they had already been defeated. The city below could rise, fall, or riot; within these walls, the Thornbrooks reigned.

From the balcony above, he heard the faint sounds of the preparations for tonight’s main event: Kael Valecrest’s formal ascension into the Thunder Cult. The name alone carried gravity, and the event had drawn attention across continents. Luke’s sharp eyes scanned the gardens and terraces, imagining the arrivals: men whose influence could rewrite laws, women whose intelligence and ambition could topple governments, all converging here tonight, mingling with the Thornbrooks as if hierarchy could be woven from elegance and etiquette alone. And to think, they were all oblivious to the past—the girl who had been imprisoned within these walls, who had challenged them, who had once brought chaos to every plan they now relied upon. They did not know she existed. They did not remember. That ignorance would make the world easier to navigate tonight—but it also made Luke overconfident.

“Everything is in place,” said a voice behind him. It was his sister, elegantly poised, a calculated smile on her lips. She had grown into the Thornbrook ideal: beautiful, controlled, and terrifyingly aware of the mechanisms of power. “The city doesn’t know what it owes us yet.” Her tone was sharp, precise, measured—the Thornbrook way.

Luke nodded, letting her words wash over him. “Let them underestimate us. Let them forget the shadows that built this family. Tonight, they will celebrate, and they will think it is their idea.”

A subtle tremor of wind shifted the curtains, carrying the faint scent of wet asphalt and the city beyond. Luke ignored it, attributing the chill to autumn’s creeping reach, but in the quiet corners of the estate, something stirred—a sense of tension almost imperceptible. It was an anomaly, fleeting, easy to dismiss. Yet, the shadows seemed to bend slightly, as though acknowledging that the house and its master were not quite alone.

He turned to glance at the great hall below, where servants flitted like insects preparing the stage for the night’s power display. Chandeliers gleamed, marble reflected their brilliance, and gold accents sparkled under lamplight. Guests would arrive soon, but Luke allowed himself a final moment of satisfaction: the Thornbrooks were untouchable. Their past mistakes had been buried, their enemies erased or forgotten, and their empire polished until it shone like a mirror reflecting nothing but ambition. And in that moment, he allowed a thought that had not surfaced in years, a thought about a name he would not say aloud: *Alina.*

She was gone.

And yet… Luke could not shake the faint unease that lingered at the edges of his mind, a whisper he could not trace to source. Something in the air felt different tonight. Perhaps it was the wind. Perhaps it was the way the city below shifted as though it were holding its breath. Perhaps it was nothing. Luke Thornbrook, master of perception and calculation, chose to believe in nothing unusual. That was the Thornbrook way: control, confidence, and dismissal of weakness.

Still, the sensation persisted. A flicker in the corner of his vision—a shadow that moved with intention, almost sentient. He blinked. The moment passed. The city gleamed. The estate shone. And the family, from the top of its legacy to the polished floors below, prepared to host the world.

Unseen, somewhere beyond the gates, the night deepened, and the world that had forgotten her waited unknowingly for the storm that was coming.