Chapter Five: Family of Shadows

It had been more than four years since Lucas last spoke to his mother.

But the moment her name lit up on his phone screen, his chest tightened like a vice.

There it was:

MOM Incoming Call.

He just stood there, staring at the screen, frozen. In the background, he could still hear the soft rush of water from the shower Elias was down the hall. Which meant Lucas was alone. Alone with the decision to answer or let it go to voicemail.

He didn’t think. He just picked up.

“Hello?”

A pause, long enough to sting.

Then her voice: sharp, clipped, always a little too cold. “You sound tired.”

Lucas dragged a hand down his face. “Yeah. I am tired.”

“I saw you on TV,” she said. Her tone already starting its descent into judgment. “At that press conference. Standing beside that man. This is your life now? Playing house with a billionaire who doesn’t even know who you are?”

Lucas closed his eyes. Here it was the same old routine. Guilt and frustration wrapped in her concern. “It’s not what you think.”

“It’s exactly what I think,” she snapped. “That family is toxic. I told you that years ago. Remember your engagement party? You came home shaking. I warned you.”

Lucas cut in before she could spiral further. “This isn’t about them. Or you. It’s about me. And Elias. And whatever this… was.”

She sighed, but it sounded more like a scoff. “You mean what you wanted it to be.”

He felt that like a slap. Not new but it still hurt. “I didn’t call to debate. Just to say I’m alright.”

“You’re not,” she said, voice like a door slamming. “And neither is he. You should leave before he remembers why he left you in the first place.”

Then just like that the line went dead.

Lucas stared at the screen in silence.

He didn’t know what stung more her words, or the creeping thought that maybe… just maybe… she wasn’t wrong.

That afternoon, Elias surprised him.

“I was thinking,” he said, towel slung over his shoulder, still damp from his shower. “Maybe we should go to the family archives. Old pictures, documents… maybe something there could spark a memory.”

Lucas hesitated, then nodded. He didn’t really believe in miracles but part of him hoped. Needed to hope. That something anything 

might break through.

The archives were in the quieter part of the Ward estate. Tucked away like a secret. Smelled like old paper, varnish, and silence.

An assistant let them in with a polite smile. “Take your time,” she said before disappearing down the stairs.

Elias walked ahead, eyes scanning the shelves like they were pulling him in. He went straight for the albums.

Lucas hung back, drawn to a glass display case filled with old heirlooms rings, dried wedding invitations, aged black-and-white photos. One frame stopped him cold.

It was Elias’s father, Walter Ward, shaking hands with another man. A brass plate below read:

Ward & Hale Merger, 1985.

Lucas leaned in, heart thudding.

The other man in the photo?

His grandfather.

What the hell?

Before he could make sense of it, Elias’s voice came from across the room.

“Lucas come here.”

He crossed the floor and found Elias at a wide oak table, photo albums laid out like open secrets.

“Do you recognize anyone?” Elias asked, pointing to a group shot.

Lucas froze.

It was their wedding.

Not a media photo. This was personal. Intimate. Someone must’ve taken it from inside the event.

“How… how do you have this?” Lucas asked, his voice suddenly raw.

“It was in a box labeled ‘WH Union 2022.’” Elias looked up. “WH… Ward and Hale?”

Lucas’s stomach turned.

“They catalogued our marriage like a merger,” he said slowly. “Like a corporate strategy.”

Elias’s face darkened. “You think it was arranged?”

“No,” Lucas said. “I think we fell in love. But someone maybe more than one person saw it as leverage. A way to stitch two legacies together.”

Elias sat back, clearly rattled. “That would explain why your name’s buried in parts of my trust paperwork. Not just out of love it was business.”

Lucas nodded slowly. “All this time, I thought I married you. Just you. But maybe I married into something I didn’t understand at all.”

That night was quiet. Too quiet.

Lucas sat curled on the couch, a throw blanket wrapped around his legs, a half-full wine glass in his hand. He wasn’t drinking it just staring into it.

Elias stood by the fire, arms crossed, restless.

“Does it change how you see me?” he asked, voice low.

Lucas glanced up. “I’m trying not to let it. But it’s hard. Everything’s so tangled. Your family, mine. Our past. I don’t know where you end and they begin.”

Elias nodded slowly, then came over and sat beside him. “I get that. I don’t even know where I begin. But I want to. I want to understand all of it. Even if it hurts.”

Lucas looked at him really looked and something in his chest cracked.

“Why?” he asked.

Elias didn’t hesitate. “Because you’re the only thing that feels real. Everything else my past, my name, the money it’s all smoke. But you? You make me feel like I’m breathing again.”

Lucas’s eyes softened. “You used to say that.”

“I did?”

“Yeah. Back when we first moved into the cabin. You said I made you feel like you finally had a home.”

A small smile tugged at Elias’s lips. “Tell me about it.”

Lucas exhaled, the memory almost too vivid. “We went there after the wedding. Just us. No phones. No staff. You tried to cook breakfast and burned the eggs. We laughed for hours and ended up eating cereal on the porch.”

Elias chuckled. “Sounds like something I’d do.”

“We didn’t even have sheets on the bed the first night. Ended up making love on the floor.”

Elias’s expression shifted warm, aching. “Take me there.”

Lucas blinked. “What?”

“To the cabin,” Elias said. “If I’m going to remember us… really remember us… that’s where it’ll happen.”

Lucas stared at him. Then slowly nodded. “Okay.”

The next morning, they packed.

While Elias showered, a plain package arrived. No return address. No name.

Lucas opened it alone.

Inside was a small velvet ring box, an old cassette tape, and a note written in thick, black ink:

The truth isn’t lost. It’s hidden.

Start with the vows you never said.

Lucas picked up the cassette.

The label said:

June 12  Wedding Audio (Uncut)

But their wedding was on June 14.

He swallowed hard.

This wasn’t their ceremony.

This was something else. Something secret.

He slid the tape into a drawer just as Elias turned off the shower.

Some truths needed silence.

And space.

And maybe a cabin in the woods.