Lucian Throne paced the polished marble floor outside the operating room, his footsteps echoing through the sterile hospital corridor. Back and forth. Back and forth. His mind churned with memories, regrets, and the suffocating weight of what was about to come.
"Lucian, you need to sit down," Lyrl said from the bench, his voice low and careful.
He had never seen Lucian like this. In all their years together, Lucian had been an impenetrable fortress—his emotions masked so thoroughly, so expertly, that Lyrl had often wondered if the man possessed any at all. But now, watching his boss pace like a caged animal, Lyrl understood: the fortress was crumbling.
Lucian sat on the waiting bench, though his mind was elsewhere. The hospital buzzed around them—nurses in pastel scrubs rushing between rooms, doctors with clipboards murmuring in hushed tones, the constant beeping of machines bleeding through the walls. Chaos dressed in calm.
He wore a white short-sleeved shirt that stretched across his shoulders, the fabric doing nothing to conceal the muscular arms beneath. His gaze drifted to his forearm, where a small tattoo marked his skin—not ink chosen for aesthetics, but a permanent preservation of something far more precious. A child's teeth marks. A scar that had begun to fade with age, so he'd traced it, tattooed it, locked it into his flesh like a prayer he never wanted to forget.
His fingers brushed against the tattoo, and suddenly he was seven years old again.
Mrs. Set had brought her daughter to work that day. Daycare was closed, and Star—small for her age but radiating something fierce—trailed behind her mother like a storm waiting to break. Lucian had been a bully then, the kind of boy who found power in making smaller children cry. He'd spotted Star clutching a fluffy giraffe—Fuffy, she called it—and saw an easy target.
He'd snatched it from her hands, holding it high above his head, expecting tears, expecting the usual crumpled face of defeat.
Instead, Star lunged.
Her teeth sank into his forearm with the ferocity of something wild. He screamed. Blood welled up, hot and red, dripping onto the floor as Star held on, her small jaw locked, her eyes blazing. She didn't let go until an adult pried her off. They rushed him to the hospital room, stitched him up, and for years after, Star carried guilt in her tiny chest like a stone.
But Lucian never blamed her. How could he? That bite was the first time anyone had ever stood up to him. The first time someone looked at his cruelty and answered with fire instead of fear. He'd loved her from that moment—loved the girl who refused to break, even when she was smaller, even when she should have been afraid.
Now, Lyrl watched as Lucian smiled—a rare, unguarded thing—while his fingers traced the tattoo. The scar that had almost disappeared, now immortalized.
"Mr. Throne."
Lucian's head snapped up. A doctor stood in the doorway, her expression caught somewhere between clinical detachment and genuine bewilderment.
"She's asking for you." The doctor hesitated, glancing back at the chart in her hands. "Her vitals are nearly null. She's barely functioning. Honestly, we don't understand how she's conscious at all. It's... it feels like a miracle. You should hurry."
Lucian nodded once, sharp and controlled, and rose from the bench. He walked toward the room without looking back at Lyrl.
Inside, the machines hummed their mechanical lullabies. The woman in the bed looked ancient—fifty years old by birth, but illness had carved decades into her face. Her skin was pale, almost translucent, stretched thin over fragile bones. Wrinkles mapped the geography of suffering across her features. But when Lucian entered, she smiled.
That smile shattered something inside him.
"Mom," he said, dropping to his knees beside the bed. His eyes burned. He blinked furiously, but the tears gathered anyway, defiant and inevitable.
"That's my beautiful boy," she whispered. Her voice was gone—just breath and intention, a ghost of sound. Her hand trembled as she raised it, palm coming to rest against his cheek. The touch was featherlight, barely there, but he felt it in his bones.
"I'm awake," she said, as if waking from a nap rather than a year-long coma.
Lucian couldn't speak. The words lodged in his throat, sharp as glass.
The cancer had been terminal from the start. They'd known. They'd always known. But when she slipped into the coma a year ago, when the doctors told him she would never wake, that the machines were the only thing keeping her heart from stopping—he couldn't let her go. Not without saying goodbye. Not without her hearing his voice one last time.
So he'd paid. More money than anyone should have to spend to keep a dying woman tethered to the living world. And today, inexplicably, miraculously, she had opened her eyes.
This woman—this cleaning woman who had scraped together a life on a Summit Height Medical salary—had found him in a baby basket when he was one day old. She had raised him alone, poured every ounce of her small paycheck into giving him something resembling a childhood. She was the only parent he had ever known.
Lucian swallowed hard. The tears spilled over, hot trails down his cheeks, and he didn't wipe them away.
"Mom," he began, his voice cracking. He steadied himself. "I need to thank you. For everything. Everything you did for me." He let out a shaky breath. "I wish you didn't have to go."
Her fingers tightened weakly around his hand.
He laughed—a wet, broken sound. "I bought the mansion. The one you liked, just by the junction in Summit. Custom built in Central Crestfall. I wish you could see it in person, but..." He fumbled for his phone, pulling up photos, scrolling through images of a house she would never set foot in. "I have pictures. Look."
She looked. Her eyes moved slowly across the screen, and her smile never faded.
"I'm proud of you, Lucy," she said. The nickname—the one only she was allowed to use—hit him like a physical blow. "I love you."
"Mom—"
"I will be watching over you." Her voice was fading, each word costing her something. "I will always be here when you need me. Around you. Everywhere. I'm not going anywhere."
She tried to shift in the bed, and Lucian moved closer instinctively, taking her hand in both of his. Her grip was so weak. He could feel her pulse fluttering beneath the paper-thin skin of her wrist.
Then her expression shifted. Her eyes, clouded with age and illness, sharpened with something urgent.
"If you ever find your biological family," she said, each word a labor, "not everything you see is true."
Lucian frowned. They had never talked about his birth family. He had never wanted to. They were strangers. Irrelevant. She was his mother. She had always been his mother.
"I love you," she whispered. Her eyes were fixed on his face, drinking him in like a woman dying of thirst. "And I'm... not... going... anywhere... Lucy."
Her hand went still.
The machines sang their steady, monotonous note—a flatline that seemed to stretch into eternity. But Lucian didn't let go. He held her hand, felt the warmth already beginning to fade, and sat in the silence that followed.
He had expected this. For a year, he had braced himself for the moment her heart would stop. But somehow, sitting here now, he felt lighter than he had since she first slipped away. He had said goodbye. He had held her hand while she said goodbye back.
That was more than most people got.
"I love you too," he said finally, his voice steady now. He pressed a kiss to her lifeless hand, then leaned forward and kissed her forehead. Gently, with infinite tenderness, he closed her eyes.
When he walked out of the room, Lyrl rose from the bench, question written across his face. Lucian didn't stop walking.
***
The Tomas residence was a prison disguised as a home.
Saturday meant Tomas and Frieda were both present, their presence a knife twisting slowly in Loise's chest. For three days, she had slept on the cold, empty floor. Tomas wouldn't even allow her to sleep in Star's room. The room that still smelled faintly of her daughter—vanilla and something floral, now fading into the stale air of neglect.
The abuse had doubled since Frieda moved in. As if Tomas needed permission to be cruel, and Frieda had handed it to him on a silver platter.
"Are you just going to daydream all day?" Frieda's voice cut through the silence like a razor. She stood in the doorway, a glass of juice in her manicured hand, her expression deceptively pleasant. "Mop the living room. My kids will be here soon."
Loise moved toward the mop, her body aching, her stomach hollow. Three days without food. Three days of scrubbing floors on an empty stomach, of swallowing her pride along with her hunger.
She had just finished mopping when she heard the glass shatter.
Orange juice splashed across the freshly cleaned floor, painting it in sticky, gleaming pools. Shards of glass glittered in the light. Loise stared at the mess, then at Frieda—who was now clutching her cheek, her face twisted into an expression of theatrical outrage.
"What's going on here?" Tomas appeared in the doorway, his eyes immediately going to Frieda, his body already moving toward her.
"Babe..." Frieda's voice wobbled, a child's imitation of hurt. "I just told her to mop cleanly, and she slapped me. The juice slipped out of my hand when she hit me."
Tomas didn't hesitate. He didn't ask questions. He didn't look at Loise's face, at her confusion, at her trembling hands.
His palm connected with her cheek with enough force to send her sprawling.
She slipped on the wet floor—her feet finding no purchase—and came down hard. Her face slammed against the floor where glass had scattered. She felt the shards bite into her skin, sharp and hot, embedding themselves in her cheek, her forehead, her lips. Blood welled up, warm and metallic, dripping onto the floor she had just cleaned.
She wanted to scream. The pain was blinding, a constellation of fire across her face. But she swallowed it. Swallowed everything. She had learned long ago that screaming only made it worse.
"You obey Frieda on everything she says." Tomas's voice was ice. "She's the madam of this house now."
Frieda sniffled delicately. "She'll just slap me again when you leave, babe. Or worse. She shouldn't stay here. She's dangerous."
"Stand up," Tomas commanded.
Loise couldn't move. Her body wouldn't obey. The glass in her face pulsed with every heartbeat, and the world swam in and out of focus.
Tomas grabbed her hair.
She felt strands rip from her scalp—felt them tear away at the roots—and a small, strangled sound escaped her throat. He yanked her upright and slammed her against the wall. The impact knocked the breath from her lungs.
"Is what Frieda says true?" His face was inches from hers, his breath hot and sour. "Do you insult her? Beat her?"
He pinned her against the wall, and she was so light now—three days without food had stripped away any weight she had left—that he barely needed to exert force.
"I'm asking you a question!" His roar filled the room, rattled the windows.
Loise said nothing.
She thought of Star. Three days ago, her daughter had come with divorce papers, had offered her freedom on a silver platter. And Loise had turned her away. She had chosen this. She had chosen Tomas, chosen the familiar pain over the terrifying unknown, chosen the devil she knew.
She wished she could go back in time. She wished she could wrap her arms around her daughter and never let go. She wished she could undo every terrible choice that had led to this moment.
Tears poured down her face, mingling with the blood, stinging the cuts.
"Babe... leave her." Frieda's voice was honey and poison.
Tomas let go abruptly, and Loise crumpled against the wall, too weak to hold herself upright.
"I'll handle her later." Tomas's anger was already cooling, redirected. "Get me a coke from the tuckshop. I'm thirsty."
He pressed a kiss to Frieda's cheek—gentle, affectionate—and walked out the door.
The moment it closed behind him, Frieda's expression transformed.
The mask of hurt fell away, replaced by something pure and predatory. Her grin was the grin of a wolf who had cornered its prey and was savoring the anticipation.
"See how I control him?" She took a step toward Loise, then another. Her heels clicked against the floor like a countdown. "That's how it's done."
Loise pressed herself against the wall, wanting to disappear into it, to become part of the plaster and paint.
"I just don't know why he keeps you here." Frieda tilted her head, genuinely curious. "He clearly hates you. He clearly doesn't love Star. So why are you still in my home?"
Loise remained silent.
Frieda reached out, her fingers catching Loise's chin, tilting her face up. Her touch was surprisingly gentle, almost intimate.
"I've been trying everything to get rid of you." She spoke conversationally, as if discussing the weather. "The salty food didn't work—he just banned you from cooking. The stealing accusation didn't work. He just... doesn't believe you'd steal from him. And now I told him you slapped me, insulted me..." She laughed softly. "And still, nothing. Why do you think that is, Loise?"
Loise stared at her. At the woman who had been her friend for nine years. Who had confided in her about her relationships, asked for advice, shared secrets. Who had been sleeping with Tomas the entire time.
"Do you know how I can make him send you away?" Frieda's voice was almost kind. "I'm asking for advice. You were always so good at giving me advice about my man. You just didn't know my man was your husband."
She laughed then—a high, unhinged sound that echoed off the walls.
"Where is Star?" Loise's voice emerged as a rasp, broken and desperate. "It's been three days. Where is she?"
Frieda's laughter stopped. She stared at Loise with something approaching confusion.
"I told you. She was raped. Gang-raped to death." She said it the way someone might announce a flat tire—inconvenient, but not particularly distressing. "Do you want to see her body?"
Loise's blood ran cold.
"I can make a call right now." Frieda pulled out her phone, scrolling through contacts. "I'll have my men dig her up. You can see for yourself."
She dialed. The call went to voicemail.
"I'll leave a message," Frieda said pleasantly. "They can have her exhumed by tonight. Would that help? Would seeing your daughter's rotting corpse finally convince you?"
Loise's hand flew to her mouth, muffling the sob that tore through her. She didn't believe Star was dead. She couldn't. But the details Frieda had given her—what Star was wearing three days ago, the description of the kidnapping, the cold precision of her lies—they were too specific. Too carefully crafted.
She thought of her daughter coming to rescue her. Thought of the divorce papers clutched in Star's hands, the hope in her eyes. Thought of the door closing in her daughter's face, the rejection, the betrayal.
She had sent her away. She had chosen Tomas, chosen this, chosen everything that was happening right now.
And somewhere out there, her daughter was suffering for it.
***
Noon sunlight spilled across the park benches, painting long shadows across the grass. Lucian's car idled at the curb, and he sat on a bench beside a woman who wore dark glasses and a scarf wrapped around her face.
Loise.
He knew she didn't want to be recognized. The bruises, the cuts, the hollowed-out look in her eyes—she was hiding from more than just strangers.
"Mrs. Set," Lucian said, keeping his voice low, his gaze fixed on the fountain across the path. They looked like strangers sharing a bench, nothing more. "Who are we hiding from?"
"Did you find anything about Star?" Her voice was barely audible.
"Nothing yet." He scrolled through his phone, thumb moving idly across the screen. "But my men are looking. Tirelessly. They'll find her. I promise."
She exhaled, a sound that might have been relief or grief or both.
"Just listen," she said. "Don't interrupt."
He didn't.
"I don't know how long I'm going to stay." Her hands were clasped in her lap, knuckles white. "But I believe my Star is out there somewhere. She's strong. I know she is. And if you find her—" Her voice cracked. She steadied it. "If you find her, protect her. I know you're the right one for her. Protect her from the awful things in this world. Do you hear me?"
Lucian's jaw tightened. "What's going to happen to you, Mrs. Set?"
"I asked if you hear me."
"I hear you." He stopped scrolling, though he didn't look at her. "But you'll have to tell her that yourself."
He stood up.
"I don't know how Star ended up with weak, abusive parents." The words came out harder than he intended, edged with a fury he couldn't fully suppress. "She believes in you. And you want to what? Leave her? How would she live knowing you abandoned her?"
He didn't wait for an answer. He walked to his car, got in, and drove away without looking back.
The bench felt suddenly empty. Loise sat alone for a moment, staring at the spot where he had been.
"Mmm." The voice came from behind her, silky and satisfied. "So you meet secretly with Lucian Throne. The man who broke my man's arm."
Loise's blood turned to ice.
"Tomas is going to want to hear this."
Frieda stepped into view, her smile sharp as a blade, her phone already in her hand.
Loise closed her eyes. There was nowhere left to run.