Chapter Twenty-Five: In the Shadow of the Heir

The silence after Lucien’s words stretched long enough to feel like a second betrayal.

“That’s the real heir.”

I stared at him, trying to decode every piece of the puzzle I thought I understood. My heartbeat was a whisper in a room full of detonated secrets.

“I don’t understand,” I said finally, my voice sounding smaller than it ever had in his presence.

Lucien didn’t sit. He stood at the edge of the desk like he needed the distance to breathe. “Reagan had a child in secret. A son. Born just after he was exiled. The plan was always to install him as the future of the Blackwood empire.”

“Then who are you?”

His eyes darkened. “Collateral.”

The word hit harder than it should have.

Lucien Blackwood—CEO, billionaire, monster in silk—looked at me like a boy caught in someone else’s prophecy.

He continued. “My mother tried to protect me. She knew Reagan was building a dynasty through manipulation. He wanted an empire, and he needed someone malleable. Someone loyal to him. That baby… he was raised somewhere else. Off the grid.”

I felt sick. “Where?”

Lucien’s jaw flexed. “That’s the problem. No one knows. But I can feel him, Ivy. In every move Reagan makes. He’s grooming the world for someone else to inherit it.”

“And what about me?” I asked bitterly. “What am I, Lucien? A key? A pawn?”

His eyes softened—just a flicker. “You were supposed to be the final lock. But Reagan didn’t account for one thing.”

“What?”

“I fell in love with you.”

The air left my lungs.

Not because I believed him. But because I wanted to.

Because in that moment, with moonlight cutting sharp angles across his face, he looked more broken than dangerous.

I stood. “Then why did you leave me?”

His gaze dropped. “Because I didn’t want to be the man who turned you into a weapon.”

He looked back at me.

“And because I didn’t trust myself not to.”

Later that night, I walked the halls of the estate alone.

Lucien had retreated to the study, locked inside his ghosts again. And I? I wandered back to the place I had first felt fear in this house: the gallery.

The paintings still watched me.

But one had changed again.

The faceless woman—me—was now split down the middle. One half bathed in light, the other consumed by fire. Above her hovered a crown, bleeding from its thorns.

And in her arms, a child with no face.

My skin prickled.

I turned away.

And that’s when I saw him.

A figure in the reflection of the glass.

Tall. Young. Watching me.

I spun around—but the hallway was empty.

Only my racing pulse echoed back.

By morning, the estate was in chaos.

The eastern wing had been breached.

No signs of forced entry. No alarms. Just a trail of muddy footprints leading straight to the vault.

The trunk was gone.

All my mother’s letters. All the evidence.

Gone.

Lucien stood beside me, his hands clenched into fists.

“He’s here,” I whispered.

Lucien nodded. “Or he was.”

Julian returned that afternoon, uninvited, with information I hadn’t asked for.

“There are whispers,” he said, sipping something dark and sweet from a crystal glass. “A man matching Reagan’s son’s description was seen boarding a jet in Dubai. Destination unknown.”

Lucien didn’t look impressed. “Whispers. That’s what you bring?”

Julian smirked. “Whispers built your empire, cousin.”

I couldn’t take my eyes off him.

He looked too relaxed. Too pleased with the chaos.

“What aren’t you telling us?” I asked.

Julian tipped his glass. “Only that the game’s changed. And you’re no longer the queen, Ivy.”

I stepped closer. “Who is?”

His grin widened. “The one with nothing to lose.”

That night, I found a note tucked under my pillow.

Written in the same cruel, elegant hand that had haunted my life for weeks.

Do you know what it’s like to wear a crown made of your mother’s bones?

I do.

Shall we meet?

R.B., Second Son?