The Name That Never Held Him

The elevator ride down from the 42nd floor felt longer than the ride up.

Noah’s reflection stared back at him from the gleaming metal walls — jaw tight, eyes storm-dark. He looked like a man who’d just walked into the wrong room, thrown a punch, and hit something made of glass.

“Biological son.”

The words looped in his head like a skipping record.

He stepped out into the lobby with the folder tucked under one arm like a loaded weapon. He didn’t speak to anyone. Didn’t look at the polished tile, the gold-veined walls, or the security guard eyeing his boots like they were a crime.

By the time he stepped into the blinding daylight outside, his shoulders were rigid with fury.

The walk back to his garage took twenty minutes. He could’ve taken the bus, or called Eli to pick him up, but he needed his feet on cracked pavement and city dust in his lungs.

It kept him grounded.

Every honk, every food cart whistle, every clatter of scaffolding made more sense than what was in that folder.

Jasper Quinn.

Billionaire. Visionary. Titan of industry.

And apparently, the kind of man who left a son in foster care and made it up to him by handing over a kingdom from the grave.

Screw that.

He slammed through the garage’s side entrance and threw the folder onto the workbench.

For a moment, he just stood there, hands braced against the metal, head bowed.

He remembered being eight. Remembered moving through houses with furniture covered in plastic, sleeping on couches, sharing bedrooms with boys who punched first and asked names later.

He remembered the last foster home, the last placement, where Mae had taken him in and told him not to break anything — because she couldn’t afford to replace it.

He didn’t remember anyone named Quinn visiting him. Not once. Not ever.

No birthday cards. No phone calls. No child support.

Just a name on a birth certificate his caseworker once said didn’t exist.

And now? Now he was the heir to the man’s empire?

Noah scrubbed a hand down his face and let out a breath through his teeth.

He opened the folder again.

His mother’s name was in there. Lorraine Camden. That part wasn’t a lie. And if Merrick was right, she’d been a nanny. A live-in employee.

A woman forgotten. Buried in the margins.

He flipped to the last page of the will. There, in Jasper Quinn’s actual handwriting, was a note:

“If you are reading this, Noah, then I’m already gone. I don’t expect forgiveness. I only hope you’ll take what’s rightfully yours — and do better with it than I did.”

Noah read it twice.

The second time, his lip curled.

“Coward,” he muttered.

Suddenly, the garage door banged open, and Eli stepped in holding two coffees and a paper bag in his teeth.

“—morning, mechanic prince,” Eli mumbled through the bag.

Noah looked up.

Eli paused, took the bag out of his mouth, and squinted. “You look like you just got hit by a yacht.”

“I might’ve inherited one.”

Eli blinked. “...Say what now?”

Noah held up the folder and tossed it onto the workbench again.

The logo gleamed gold in the light.

Eli stepped closer, set down the coffees, and opened it slowly. His eyes darted across the first page. Then the second. Then he let out a long whistle.

“No way.”

“Way.”

Eli looked up. “Wait, wait—this Quinn guy? The one who built half of Greystone? You’re telling me that’s your dad?”

“Not dad,” Noah said. “Just… biological contributor. Apparently.”

Eli opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.

“You realize this makes you… like… a billionaire?”

Noah’s jaw ticked. “Only if I go to the reading tomorrow.”

“Dude. You have to.”

“Why? So I can get stared at like garbage and told I’m not one of them?”

Eli raised an eyebrow. “You scared?”

Noah glared.

Eli smirked. “Just sayin’. If I found out some old bastard owed me a fortune and a spot at the table, I’d show up in my dirtiest jeans just to spite ‘em.”

“Already planning on it,” Noah muttered.

Eli grew quiet. Then he said, “Think your mom knew?”

Noah didn’t answer.

Because deep down, he knew the answer was yes.

He walked to the corner of the garage where a small wooden box sat under a tarp. It was where Mae had kept everything she had from his childhood — report cards, drawings, the one photo he had with his mother.

He pulled it out now. Opened the lid.

There it was.

A faded photo of a young woman in a maid uniform holding a baby in her lap. Her hair pulled back. Her smile tight and tired. Her eyes too sad for the moment.

And behind her, blurry but unmistakable, was Jasper Quinn.

Standing in the background like a ghost that had always been watching.

Noah stared at the photo for a long time.

He finally said, “Yeah. She knew.”