CHAPTER THREE: THE SLAVE'S WELCOME

LUCIAN

Shamelessly, no one came.

I stood at the arrivals gate for eleven minutes, hands in my pockets, the chrysanthemums dangling from my left hand.

“Sir,” Jordan said, he wasn't with any luggage anymore, as he had packed them in the car. “The car is waiting.”

“I noticed.”

“Should I call the penthouse? Ask if there’s been a delay?”

I didn’t answer. My gaze was fixed on the automatic doors, watching them slide open and shut for a family of four, a businessman with a rolling carry-on. But no one in a Frost livery.

Nothing.

“No,” I said finally. “Don’t call. Let’s go.”

The automatic doors opened onto the parking structure. The car was a black sedan with tinted windows. I knew it's from the frost family. My father’s taste, not mine.

I would have chosen something louder, something that announced itself before it arrived, but the sedan had been arranged weeks ago and I hadn’t cared enough to change it.

“Keys,” I said, holding out my hand.

Jordan blinked. “Sir?”

“I’ll drive.”

“But you haven’t driven in—” He stopped himself.

And I also understood, I didn't bother to argue because he was right. I definitely don't know how to drive.

I slid into the passenger seat, while he got in the driver's seat and started the engine, speeding off to the highway.

“Jordan.”

“Yes, sir?”

“What do you think about a father who doesn’t care about his son?”

The question hung in the air between us, heavier than I’d intended. Jordan was quiet for a long moment, and when I glanced at him, his expression was pinched with the effort of finding the right answer.

“I don’t think Master Adrian doesn’t care about you,” he said carefully. “If it’s because no one came to the airport—there might be issues at the penthouse. Something unexpected. Your father is a busy man.”

“Fair.”

The word came out flatter than I’d intended, but Jordan seemed to relax slightly, as if my agreement had absolved him of whatever he’d been bracing for. I let him have the relief.

We drove in silence for another ten minutes before he made the turn onto the familiar road. The estate’s perimeter wall that had been there since before I was born, and my chest tightened with something I refused to name. Nostalgia.

The gatehouse appeared ahead, its lights glowing warm against the darkness, and he slowed the sedan in anticipation of the security check.

The gates swung open before we reached them, and he drove in at one go.

“Did you see that?” I asked Jordan, my voice dangerously calm.

“The gates, sir?”

“They opened before we stopped. Before they checked the vehicle. Before they verified who was inside.” I stared at the gatehouse as we passed, catching a glimpse of the group of guards standing around. “That’s unacceptable.”

“I’ll make a note, sir.”

“You’ll do more than make a note.” I replied as he accelerated through the gates and up the long drive. “Tomorrow morning, I want a full review of the security protocols. Every guard on this estate is going to relearn what it means to protect a Frost.”

“Understood.”

Ahead, the penthouse rose slowly to view, but something was different. Something about the exterior caught my eye and held it, a detail I couldn’t immediately place.

Then I saw it.

The color. The building had been repainted—deep blue and white, crisp and contemporary, the kind of palette that belonged on a Mediterranean villa in a design magazine. Not the gray and butter-yellow I remembered. The gray and butter-yellow that had been my favorite, that I’d chosen myself for a reason.

“When did they paint it?” I asked, though I didn’t expect Jordan to know.

“I’m not sure, sir. The renovation was completed last year, I believe.”

“I didn’t authorize a renovation.”

Jordan said nothing. There was nothing to say.

The car pulled up in front of the water fountain. And from the car i could see figures stood assembled near the entrance. They are men in dark suits, their postures rigid with military precision. A welcome party, after all. Just not at the airport.

Jordan scrambled out of the driver's seat and rushed to open my door, his earlier exhaustion forgotten in the presence of an audience. I stepped out into the cool night air, not without grabbing my chrysanthemums d in my hand, while I surveyed the assembled group with the same scrutiny I’d apply to a balance sheet.

The men were my father’s security detail, most of them familiar . I scanned their faces one by one, looking for the sharp angles of my father’s silhouette, but he wasn’t among them.

And then I saw him.

He stood slightly apart from the others, positioned at the center of the receiving line as if he had every right to be there.

Very tall and lean. An athletic frame that filled out a tailored gray suit. His posture was straight without being rigid, his hands clasped loosely behind his back, and even in the dim light from the portico I could see the calm certainty in his expression.

He looked like a man who owned the ground he stood on, and the realization made something hot and sharp twist behind my ribs.

“Why the fuck is the slave allowed to greet me?”

The words left my mouth before I could stop them, and I didn’t try. Let them land. Let him hear them.

Ceal—because it was him, it had to be him, the boy from the foyer grown into this stranger—didn’t flinch. His expression didn’t waver. He stepped forward, closing the distance between us with measured strides, his eyes never leaving mine. When he stopped, he was close enough that I could smell his cologne, something clean and expensive that I hadn’t expected, and his hand extended toward me with a confidence that bordered on insult.

A handshake!!?

He was offering me a handshake, like we were equals. Like we were colleagues.

“Welcome back, Lucian Frost.”

His voice was smooth and controlled. There was no tremor in it. No hesitation or even aan ounce of respect.

And there were so many things wrong with this moment that my brain struggled to catalog them all.

Why was he wearing a suit? A well-fitted suit, at that, with a pocket square and cufflinks that glinted in the light. Why was he looking at me like that, with something that might have been amusement flickering at the corners of his mouth? Why was he addressing me by my full name, as if we’d been introduced at a charity gala instead of a childhood spent in the same house, him on one side of the third floor and me on the other, an ocean of silence between us?

And why, did he look like that? Like the years had sculpted him into something I couldn’t look away from.

The anger surged before I could examine it, and I welcomed the anger. It was easier than the alternative.

I shoved the chrysanthemums into his open palm, the stems scratching against his skin, and watched his fingers close around them slowly.

“I hope you DIE." I spat.

But his smile didn’t fade. If anything, it sharpened at the edges, a blade disguised as a greeting.

“Thank you for the flowers,” he said, and his voice didn’t waver. “I’ll put them in water.”