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CHAPTER TWENTY — THE GHOSTS OF LEGACY
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2026-02-25 13:54:33Aria's POV.
Every footstep we took echoed with a sharp sound. Lucien didn’t slow down his pace, he walked with the measured gravity of a man who was in control. His hand was a firm weight on my back, a silent declaration to the staff and security details lining the hall She is mine, and I am here.
The double mahogany doors to the Grand Boardroom stood like the gates to an ancient citadel. Two security guards, men I didn’t recognize from Lucien’s personal gurads stood at the entrance. They belonged to the company, to Helena.
As we approached, they made a move to step in our way with tight expressions. Lucien didn't even break his stride. He simply turned his gaze toward them, a dark, suffocating aura radiating from him that made the air feel thin.
"Step aside," Lucien said in a tone that left no room for disobedience.
The guards hesitated for a fraction of a second, their resolve crumbling under the sheer pressure of his presence. They stepped back and lowered their heads instinctively in submission. Lucien pushed the doors open.
The boardroom was filled with the elites of Blackwood Industries, a dozen men and women in suits. And at the head of the long, obsidian table sat Helena Blackwood.
She looked magnificent in a structured pearl-grey suit, her silver hair coiled into a perfect, tight knot. She looked exactly like what she was, a woman who had survived a lifetime of betrayal by turning her heart into a fortress of steel. Beside her was an empty chair, the one intended for Jennifer. Seeing only Lucien and me enter, Helena’s eyes flickered with a brief flash of surprise before smoothing over into a cold gaze.
"Lucien," Helena said. "You’re late. We were just discussing the recent... volatility... regarding your personal security and its impact on the company’s stock."
Lucien didn't take his usual seat. Instead, he pulled out the chair at the opposite end of the table for me. He waited until I was seated, his hand lingering on my shoulder for a moment, before he stood behind me, his hands resting on the back of my chair.
"The volatility was an attempted kidnapping of my wife, Mother," Lucien replied in a tone that sounded conversational but laced with a lethal edge. "An attempt facilitated by security codes issued from the mansion, your mansion. I assume you’ve already started the internal investigation to find out who breached your private terminal?"
The room went deathly quiet. Several board members instantly looked down at their tablets, suddenly very interested in their notes. Helena didn’t flinch. She leaned forward, her fingers interlaced on the table.
"I’ve spent forty years protecting this name, Lucien," she said as her voice started hardening. "Your father nearly destroyed it with his 'affections' and his weakness for sentiment. I spent your childhood teaching you that a Blackwood marriage is a foundation, not a playground. If you cannot control your house, you cannot control this company."
She slid a folder across the table toward the board. "The kidnapping incident proved that Aria is a liability. Whether she was a victim or a willing participant is irrelevant to the market. The board is here to discuss a vote of no confidence unless you agree to the restructuring, and the annulment."
I felt the anger bubbling up in my chest, but I remembered Lucien’s words. Arrogance makes people messy. I looked at Helena, not with the fear of the woman she had once intimidated, but with the clarity of someone who saw her pain.
"You’re doing exactly what he did to you, aren't you?" I said, my voice steady and clear.
The board members gasped. Helena’s eyes snapped to mine as a spark of genuine fury ignited in their depths. "Excuse me?"
"Lucien’s father," I continued, leaning forward. "He betrayed you. He chose his own desires over his duty to you, and it broke your trust in the world. So now, you’re trying to force Lucien into a transactional life because you think it’s the only way to keep him safe from the pain you felt. But Helena, you aren't protecting the legacy. You’re just repeating the cycle."
"Shut up!" she hissed, her dignified composure finally shaking. "You know nothing of duty."
"She knows enough," Lucien intervened, his voice dropping into that dark, protective level. He reached into his blazer and pulled out a single, thin document, sliding it down the long table. It stopped right in front of Helena.
"That," Lucien said, "is a full audit of the subsidiary accounts Jennifer Wells has been using for the last three years. It seems my 'suitable' match has been embezzling from the Blackwood charity funds to cover her family's gambling debts. She didn't want to marry me for the legacy, Mother. She wanted to marry me for the bailouts."
Helena’s face paled as she glanced at the document.
"I am not my father," Lucien said, stepping around the chair to stand at my side. He looked at the board members, his presence so commanding that several of them visibly shrank into their seats. "And I will not be governed by the ghosts of a marriage that failed before I was born. My wife stays. My leadership stays. I only agreed to discussing my private life and marriage in a board meeting only to make this clear. And any board member who thinks otherwise can find Marcus outside, he has the severance packages ready for anyone who wants to resign today."
The silence was absolute. One by one, the board members looked at the evidence against Jennifer, then at the united front Lucien and I presented. The vote of no confidence was dead before it even began.
Lucien walked toward his mother. He didn't look like a devil now; he looked like a son who was finally setting a boundary. He leaned down, whispering so only she, and I, could hear.
"I don't hate you, Mother. But I am done being punished for a man’s mistakes who isn't even in this room. Jennifer is gone. Ethan Vance is in a cell. And Aria is a Blackwood. Accept it, or retire to the villa in Italy. The choice is yours, but you will not touch her again."
Helena looked at him, and for a fleeting second, the iron woman vanished. I saw the girl who had been betrayed forty years ago, looking at a son who had grown into a man she no longer recognized. Her lips trembled, but she forced them back into a straight line.
She stood up as her movements slowly turned stiff. "This meeting is adjourned," she announced to the room as her voice became somewhat brittle.
She didn't look at the board as she walked out. She stopped briefly beside me, her gaze scanning my face, the bruises,the wedding ring that glinted under the lights. She didn't say anything, but the look in her eyes wasn't hate. It was a strange and unfamiliar gaze that somehow planted a seed of worry in my heart.
As the doors closed behind her, the board members scrambled to leave, leaving Lucien and me alone in the vast, silent room.
Lucien let out a long, heavy sigh, the tension finally leaving his shoulders. He turned to me, his silver eyes searching mine. "Are you alright?"
"I'm okay," I said, standing up and stepping into his arms. "You didn't hurt her."
"No," he murmured, burying his face in the crook of my neck, his grip possessive and tight. "But I think I finally killed the version of me she wanted. I hope that’s enough."
I held him, feeling the warmth of his body and the steady thrum of his heart. We had won the battle, but the war of the Blackwood legacy was far from over.
As we walked out of the boardroom, Marcus met us at the door. "Boss, we have a problem. The black sedan from the lobby? It wasn't just a photographer."
Lucien’s jaw tightened. "Who was it?"
Marcus handed him a tablet. On the screen was a grainy photo of the man in the car. It wasn't Ethan Vance. It was someone I hadn't seen in this life, a man with a scar running through his eyebrow and eyes that looked like cold ash.
"Vane," Lucien whispered, his aura turning darker than I had ever seen it. "He’s back."
I looked at the screen and for some unknown reasons, my heart began to race fast.
"Who is Vane?" I asked.
Lucien didn't answer. He just pulled me closer, his hand shaking on my body almost imperceptibly.
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