Chapter 6 - The Architect of Vengeance
"You think you know your family's history, Julian?" Lucas said, ignoring the firearm entirely as he took slow, deliberate steps across the shattered glass. "Your father didn't just hide me away. He trained me. He paid for my boarding schools, my military contracts, my syndicate ties. He told me every day that the man who abandoned my mother was a coward sitting in high towers, waiting to be toppled."
"My father lied to you!" Julian shouted, step by step moving Clara further behind him. "I never knew! Eleanor never told me about you—not until this very night!"
"It doesn't matter what you knew," Lucas retorted, pulling a heavy silver thumb drive from his pocket and tossing it onto the mahogany desk. It landed with a dull clatter. "That drive contains every off-the-books shipment your late father authorized through the Blackwood docks. Human trafficking, untaxed armaments, bribery records that implicate the entire regional magistrate. The Vance name is finished."
Clara stepped out from behind Julian, her voice ringing clear despite the howling wind outside. "And what about mother?"
Lucas stopped, his eyes locking onto Clara. For the first time, a fracture appeared in his hardened facade.
"She died alone, Lucas," Clara said, tears streaming freely now. "She died coughing up blood in a rented room with no heat. You talk about vengeance, you talk about destroying empires, but where were you when she needed bread? Where were you when she cried your name in her delirium?"
Lucas’s jaw clenched. The muscles in his throat tightened visibly. "I was bound by an NDA enforced by armed guards until the day your father died, Clara. I couldn't reach her without killing the men who watched me."
"And now you come here to destroy the only person who can make this right?" Clara challenged, stepping closer to her long-lost brother. "Look at him. He didn't know. The same man who lied to you lied to him."
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Lucas stared at Clara, his breath coming faster. Julian watched the boy's hand drift toward the holster inside his coat.
"It's too late," Lucas whispered, his voice dropping into a register of genuine regret. "The authorities aren't coming to arrest Victoria for embezzlement. They're coming with federal marshals to seize this entire estate. The leak is already out. In thirty minutes, Blackwood Manor will be surrounded by men who want us all erased."
