The Bruise

I didn't wait for Miller to finish. I bolted from my office, the glass doors hissing shut behind me. I bypassed the elevator bank, knowing the men from Macau were already ascending, and sprinted down the executive corridor toward Lucas’s suite.

He wasn't in his chair. He was standing by his window, staring at the street below with a rigid, frantic energy. When I burst in, he didn't mock me. He didn't smile. He looked at me with the raw, naked fear of a cornered animal.

"They're here, aren't they?" he whispered.

"Miller is down," I said, my breath coming in ragged gasps. "Who are they, Lucas? And don't give me the family line. Give me the truth."

"Debt collectors," he said, his voice cracking. "Arthur was my collateral. As long as he was alive and running the show, they were patient. Now... now I'm just a liability."

The heavy double doors at the end of the hall thudded. Someone was kicking them. Hard.

"We need to get out of here," I said.

I grabbed his arm, but he didn't move. He was paralyzed. I realized then that Lucas wasn't the shark. He was the bait Arthur had used to keep the syndicates at bay. He had been a prisoner in a different kind of cell for years.

"The service stairs," I said, dragging him toward the back of the suite.

We ducked into the stairwell just as the office doors splintered. I didn't look back. I led him down four flights, my heart pounding against my ribs like a trapped bird, before slipping into the shadows of the fourth-floor maintenance level.

I pulled out my phone. I needed an ally, and I only had one left who knew how to handle the Hawthornes' dirty laundry.

I called Julian.

He answered on the first ring. "Elena? I was just about to—"

"Julian, listen to me. I'm at the office. Two men—gambling syndicate from Macau—are in the building looking for Lucas. Miller is hurt. I need you to get the kids to Tess’s house. Now."

"Macau?" Julian’s voice was shaking, but not with surprise. It was with a sickening, familiar terror. "They found him already? Arthur told me we had months."

"You knew?" I hissed, the betrayal fresh and sharp. "You knew he was in debt to these people?"

"I was trying to pay them off, El! That’s what ClearView was for! I wasn't just maintaining a family; I was buying protection!"

He stopped, his breathing heavy over the line. I could hear the sound of a glass breaking in the background.

"Julian?"

"I can't talk," he whispered. "Elena, Lucas isn't just a manipulator. He’s... he’s a target. And if you’re with him, so are you."

I looked at Lucas. He was huddled against a rack of server cables, his expensive suit jacket discarded on the floor. He had unbuttoned his shirt, his chest heaving.

"Look at this," Lucas croaked, pointing to his side.

I stepped closer. Across his ribs, a massive, dark bruise bloomed like a storm cloud. It wasn't fresh; it was yellowing at the edges, a map of a brutal, systematic beating. One rib was clearly displaced, jutting at a sick angle beneath the skin.

"They did this in Zurich," Lucas said, his eyes welling with tears. "Because I was a week late. Arthur watched. He told them to hit the spots the tailor could hide."

He looked at me, and I saw the boy on the swing again—not an heir, but a victim.

"Julian didn't pay them for brotherly love, Elena," Lucas said, his voice trembling. "He paid them so they wouldn't kill me in front of the board."

The door to the maintenance level creaked. Footsteps. Heavy, deliberate, and moving toward us.

Julian’s voice came through the phone, sharp and urgent. "Elena, get away from him! If they find you with him, they'll take you too!"

I didn't hang up. I didn't move.

Julian grabbed my wrist.

"You don't understand, El," he sobbed into the phone. "He didn't come for the company. He came to bleed it dry."