Chapter 2

The screech of tires outside the emergency entrance barely registered as Cybil Ashcroft flung her car door open and stepped out, her heels clacking sharply against the wet tarmac. Her coat flared behind her in the wind like a cape, a useless piece of fashion in the face of raw panic.

“Daniel Ashcroft,” she barked at the front desk before the receptionist could finish her greeting. “My son was brought in after a car accident. Where is he?”

The young woman blinked up at her, startled. “Yes, ma’am. He’s in surgery now. The trauma team—”

“I want to speak to a doctor. Now.”

“I’ll get someone to update you. Please take a seat in the family waiting room, just down the corridor.”

Cybil didn’t thank her. She turned on her heel and marched down the sterile hallway, breath shallow, heart pounding as if it were trying to escape her chest. Her fingers were cold, though she couldn’t recall when she had taken off her gloves. The world around her blurred, beeping machines, the distant roll of gurney wheels, the unmistakable smell of antiseptic and fear.

God, no. Not Daniel.

She reached the waiting room and paused in the doorway, stunned by the emptiness. It felt wrong, as if someone else should have arrived already. But Daniel had no one. No wife, no children. No one to be here but her.

Her knees buckled slightly as she sank into a stiff blue chair in the corner, back straight, hands trembling in her lap. She didn’t cry. Cybil Ashcroft had always been composed. Still, pressure built behind her eyes, and her jaw ached from clenching.

She thought about the call, the nightmare words: There’s been an accident. He’s unresponsive. Her stomach twisted.

Daniel, her eldest, wasn’t perfect, but he had built something meaningful. He had taken the family company and turned it into a legitimate empire. He was reserved, methodical, emotionally distant at times. Yet, beneath it all, he was a good man. And now he was lying cut open on an operating table, bleeding from injuries no one had even described.

Her fingers curled into fists. What would happen if he didn’t make it?

The answer arrived immediately, James.

Cybil’s stomach dropped. Her younger son, the afterthought. Indulgent, reckless, a walking disaster in her otherwise carefully constructed life. He had drifted from scandal to scandal, clinging to family money and Daniel’s shielding. He had flunked out of two universities, crashed three cars, and turned every business opportunity into a public embarrassment.

If Daniel died without an heir, everything would pass to James.

The thought made her nauseous.

Cybil stood abruptly and began to pace, heels tapping like gunfire across the floor. She had to focus. There had to be a way to stop James from inheriting. A clause, a loophole, something.

The door creaked open behind her. She turned, expecting a nurse or doctor, but the scent of cologne and last night’s whiskey reached her first.

James.

Wearing sunglasses indoors, his shirt wrinkled and half-buttoned beneath a leather jacket, he looked like he had just crawled out of someone’s bed. He probably had.

“Hey, Mum,” he slurred, rubbing his eyes beneath his shades. “Got your message. Is Danny really…?”

He trailed off as he saw her expression.

“You smell like a bar,” she said coldly.

“I came straight from… well, it doesn’t matter, does it? I’m here now.”

She turned away from him in disgust. He flopped into a chair like the world owed him a soft landing, letting out a dramatic sigh.

“He’ll be fine, right? Danny always pulls through. He’s like a cockroach. Unkillable.”

“Shut up, James,” she snapped.

Silence settled between them, thick and tense.

Cybil pinched the bridge of her nose. She couldn’t deal with him, not now. Not while her world was hanging by a thread in the operating theatre.

Without another word, she stepped out of the waiting room and pulled her phone from her handbag. Her hands trembled as she scrolled to a number she hadn’t called in months.

Philip Trenton – Family Solicitor.

She pressed “Call.”

“Cybil?” came the voice on the second ring. “I just saw the news. I was going to call—”

“There’s no time for pleasantries,” she cut in. “I need your legal expertise immediately.”

A pause. “I’m listening.”

“If Daniel dies, everything goes to James, doesn’t it?”

Philip sighed. “As it stands, yes. Daniel’s estate, the company, he named no successor. No wife, no children. The trust defaults to the next of kin. That means James.”

“I can’t let that happen.” Her heels resumed their sharp rhythm as she paced the corridor. “James will burn everything to the ground within a year. Less. He’ll bankrupt the estate and sell off the company to the highest bidder. You know exactly what he is.”

“I do,” Philip said carefully. “But without a direct heir or a revised will, there’s nothing we can do.”

“There must be something. A contingency clause, a last-minute override, anything.”

“Short of divine intervention?” He hesitated. “No.”

A beat of silence passed between them. Then, perhaps trying to ease the moment, he added dryly, “Unless you can convince someone to marry Daniel on his deathbed. Have him father a child before the machines are turned off.”

Cybil blinked.

Philip chuckled softly. “Kidding, of course. Poor taste. Sorry.”

She didn’t laugh. Her mind was already racing.

“Is that legally viable?” she asked slowly.

Philip sounded surprised. “In theory? Yes. If he were to marry and have a child, that child would become heir. Children take precedence. Though under these circumstances, it’s a stretch.”

Her eyes narrowed as her thoughts spiraled.

“Daniel had his sperm frozen last year before his surgery. As a precaution.”

A pause. “I believe so, yes. But Cybil, you’re not seriously—”

“Don’t dismiss me. Not yet.”

She ended the call, but her mind didn’t stop.

Leaning against the corridor wall, she took a long breath. It was insane, immoral, desperate.

But so was handing everything to James.

She returned to the waiting room. James was half-asleep now, slouched so low his legs sprawled in every direction.

She looked at him, truly looked. The boy who never grew up. Who had failed every test of character life had given him.

Over my dead body, she thought.