CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER FOUR

Vincent

I was born into comfort, but I don’t remember much of it. My earliest memory is not my mother’s face or my father’s laugh—it’s the sound of sirens.

My parents had been bank workers. Not rich, not poor, just steady. The day of the crash, I was two years old, strapped in the back seat while they argued about something I’ll never know. Metal screamed against metal, glass shattered, and when the world finally stopped spinning, I was the only one left breathing.

I should have been grateful to survive. But survival is a lonely prize when everyone else is gone.

My uncle took me in for a short while. At first, he tried. But he had a family of his own, mouths to feed, bills piling higher than his patience. One night, he drove me to Evans Orphanage. Said it was temporary. Said he’d come back when things got better. He never did.

That’s how I became Vincent Evans.

The orphanage was concrete walls and rationed food, but it was also where I learned the first rule of life: no one is coming to save you.

I was ten the night I found her. A storm had rolled over the city, and the sound of rain leaked through the cracked windows. I couldn’t sleep, so I sat near the entrance, staring at the dark. That’s when I heard it—a soft cry, weak but steady.

I pushed the door open and found her. A baby wrapped in a thin blanket, left on the steps as if she were nothing more than an afterthought. No note, no name, just the storm as her witness.

I picked her up. She stopped crying the moment I held her, tiny fingers curling around mine. For the first time since my parents died, someone needed me.

The caretakers named her Aurora, but to me, she was Rory. She grew up wild and stubborn, laughing in a way that made the orphanage walls feel less like a cage. She was friendly with everyone, but it was with me that her real joy shone. She’d chase me through the yard, tug on my shirt, insist that I sit with her during meals. She was light in a place that had only shown me shadows.

By the time I turned eighteen, I had to leave. The rules were clear. I kissed Rory’s forehead, promised her I would come back, and walked into a world that didn’t want me.

Scholarships were my lifeline. I filled out forms until my hands cramped, stayed awake nights memorizing numbers, dates, entire textbooks. When the acceptance letter from the University of Astoria came, I knew it wasn’t luck. It was blood, sweat, and a refusal to disappear.

But graduation was only the beginning. My vision was bigger than any desk job. I wanted an empire. Loans were the only way forward.

Bank after bank shut their doors in my face. They saw an orphan boy with no family, no backing, no safety net. I saw the nights I’d gone hungry, the mornings I’d stared at a cracked ceiling wondering if I’d ever matter. Every rejection letter fueled me. I knocked again, and again, until finally, one door opened.

With that first loan, I built my first hotel. Not the grandest, not the tallest, but mine. From there came plazas, residences, towers that kissed the sky. Brick by brick, deal by deal, the Vance Empire rose—and with it, my promise to never be powerless again.

It was years later, when I finally had enough power to walk back through the orphanage doors, that I saw her again. Aurora.

She was fifteen by then, lanky and too grown for her age, but the moment she saw me, her smile was the same. She ran into my arms like no time had passed. The caretakers said she still asked about me, still kept the trinkets I’d left her.

I remembered that stormy night when I first picked her up, her hand clutching my finger like it was the only thing keeping her tethered to this world. She wasn’t just another orphan. She was mine, whether I admitted it or not.

So I signed the papers. I took her home. For the past two years, we’ve lived together. She filled my penthouse with color, noise, life I never thought I wanted. In her laughter, I heard proof that I had done one thing right.

I leaned back in my chair now, staring at the skyline as the memories settled heavy in my chest. The city glittered with everything I’d built, yet it was the past that haunted me.

“Vincent?”

Her voice pulled me back. I turned to see Aurora in the doorway, her hair messy from sleep, her sketchbook tucked under her arm. Morning light spilled around her, softening the shadows of the night before.

“You didn’t sleep,” she said quietly.

I looked at her—the girl I had chosen, the only family I had left and pushed the memories aside. “Couldn’t. Too much on my mind.”

She crossed the room and sat beside me, leaning her head against my shoulder. And for the first time since the night my parents died, I didn’t feel like the last one left.

I let the silence linger before I finally asked, “Rory… yesterday. What really happened?”

Her sketchbook tightened in her arms. “It was stupid. Some kids at school—rich ones—they said I should be grateful someone like you even bothered to keep me. That I’m… charity.”

The word came out like poison, and my jaw tightened.

“And you didn’t tell me all of it last night because…?” I pressed gently.

She bit her lip, eyes glassy but defiant. “Because I hate when you look at me like I’m breakable. I’m not.”

I turned, tilting her chin so she met my gaze. “You’re not breakable, Aurora. But you are mine. And anyone who tries to hurt what’s mine is going to regret it. Do you understand?”

She nodded slowly, a small, fragile smile breaking through. “I knew you’d say that.”

I sighed, pulling her closer. “Then remember it. Because no one—no one—gets to reduce you to where you came from.”

Her fingers curled into my sleeve, and for a moment, the city outside could have burned to the ground and I wouldn’t have noticed.