"Lucian is coming to my college?"
"Yes. Is there a problem with that?"
"What do you mean is there a problem? Mom, everything is wrong with it. He is a bum from the countryside. If people find out I'm related to him in any way, I'll be laughed at. Everyone in my clique will mock me."
Margie had barely finished when Margaret looked up from her seat.
"So your reputation matters more than your relationship with your brother? Your own blood? And you just called him a bum."
Margie took one step back without thinking.
The look in her mother's eyes had changed.
It was not loud.
That was what made it worse.
"If my son is a bum, then what does that make you?" Margaret asked quietly. "A waste?"
Margie's lips parted.
Margaret rose to her feet slowly, her face hard.
"Your brother should have been in this house with us from the start. He should have grown up here. He should have had the life that was his. But your father hid him. He lied. He twisted the truth and said the boy wandered off on his own. He robbed him of eighteen years."
Her voice stayed steady, but the hatred under it was plain.
"And you have hated us for that ever since you found out," Margie said. "That still doesn't change what he is. Lucian is still a bum, and I won't have him in the same room with me, much less in the same college."
Margaret stared at her daughter for a long moment.
"Then go and join your father."
Margie froze.
Margaret did not blink.
"My son will be treated exactly the same way you are treated. Not as some countryside boy. Not as something beneath you. He is my son. He is your brother. If you cannot accept that, then do me a favor and go wherever your father is. Let me and my son have peace for once."
Margie's face twisted.
"I hate you, Mom. I hate you so much."
Then she turned and stormed away.
Margaret stood still for a while after she left.
Then she let out a long breath and walked over to the glass wall of her office, looking down at the city below.
For a moment, all the strength in her posture seemed to fade.
"I failed him for eighteen years," she murmured. "I can't fail him again."
Back at the estate, Lucian stood by the balcony with both hands in his pockets.
A few months ago, he had been a boy in the countryside.
A farmer's son.
A nobody to the world.
Now he was here.
The son of one of the richest women alive.
The heir to a name people moved for.
The missing child.
The mistake no one could keep buried anymore.
He gave a small tired sigh.
Peace had become a very short thing.
He turned away from the balcony, headed downstairs, and stepped out toward his car.
He got in, started it, and drove out through the estate gates.
He had barely gone any distance before he braked hard.
Margie stood right in front of the car.
Lucian closed his eyes for a second.
Then he opened the door and stepped out.
"What is it now?" he asked, already annoyed.
Margie folded her arms.
"I want you to tell Mom that you don't want to come to my college."
Lucian gave her a look.
"Why?"
"Because I don't want you there."
He stared at her for a second, then let out a dry laugh.
"Come on. Why don't you want me at your school? It's just a school. And last I checked, it isn't under your name, which means I can go there if I want."
His mocking tone landed exactly where it should.
Margie's face changed at once.
"Ugh. I hate you so much," she snapped. "Why didn't you just stay hidden like you were? Why did you have to come into my life?"
Lucian looked at her for a while.
There was anger there, yes.
But there was also something else.
Something childish.
Something ugly that had been fed for too long.
"You're not a kid anymore, Margie," he said. "And as much as I hate to say it, you are my sister. There's nothing I can do to change that. So don't make me despise you. I actually want us to have some kind of relationship here. I want us to be a family. If you can't even see that, then I don't know what else to say to you."
Margie said nothing.
Her jaw tightened.
Lucian looked at her once more, then turned, got back into the car, and drove off.
She stood there in silence, biting her lip.
Then her face hardened.
"I can never consider you my brother, you bum."
She pulled out her phone and called someone.
"He has stepped out, Dad."
A voice answered from the other side.
"Good. I'll make sure he doesn't return to the estate."
Margie's expression softened instantly.
"Okay, Daddy."
The line ended.
Lucian drove on, unaware.
His hands rested lightly on the wheel.
His thoughts were elsewhere.
He had not asked for any of this.
Not the money.
Not the name.
Not the mansion.
Not the strange looks from staff who bowed too low.
Not the mother who looked at him with guilt hidden beneath strength.
Not the sister who looked at him like he had stolen her life.
He had only been brought here because Margaret refused to let him remain where he was.
And if there was one thing he had understood since coming here, it was that she was not a woman anyone easily refused.
He let out a quiet breath and kept driving.
The road was open.
His mind drifted.
He thought about the fields.
About waking early.
About rough hands and simple meals.
About a quiet life that had not looked like much from the outside, but had at least belonged to him.
He thought about how strange it was that wealth could make a person feel more trapped instead of less.
He thought about the college.
About stepping into a world filled with rich kids, polished smiles, fake respect, and whispers behind the back.
He thought about Margie's face.
The anger.
The disgust.
The refusal.
Then he laughed once under his breath.
"Family," he muttered. "What a mess."
A shape flashed in the rear mirror.
Bright.
Big.
Too fast.
Lucian's eyes widened.
The truck slammed into the back of his car.
The sound hit like a bomb.
The wheel ripped from his grip.
The whole car lurched forward and sideways at the same time.
His body slammed hard against the seat and belt.
Then the world flipped.
Glass burst.
Metal screamed.
His head snapped to the side.
The car rolled once.
Twice.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Everything became noise and force and pain.
Up and down stopped meaning anything.
The roof crushed in.
The side hit the road.
Then the world turned over again.
Lucian's breath was punched out of him.
He tasted blood.
His vision flashed white, then dark, then white again.
He heard something crack and could not tell if it was the car or his own bones.
The spinning finally stopped with a violent jolt that made the whole wreck shudder.
Then there was silence.
Not real silence.
There were sounds.
A hiss somewhere.
A weak crackle.
The slow ticking of something ruined.
But after all that chaos, it felt silent.
Lucian stayed there, hanging half against the belt, half crushed into the wreck.
For a few seconds, he could not even understand what had happened.
His ears rang.
His chest burned.
His left arm hurt so badly that it felt distant.
He blinked.
Blood ran down the side of his face and into his eye.
He tried to move.
Pain shot through him so hard that his mouth opened but no sound came out at first.
Then a broken groan slipped from his throat.
"Ah…"
His fingers twitched against twisted metal.
His right leg felt trapped.
His shoulder throbbed.
His ribs felt wrong.
He dragged in a breath and nearly blacked out from how much it hurt.
Then memory came back in pieces.
Margie.
The road.
The mirror.
The truck.
This was no accident.
That thought cleared his head more than the pain did.
Someone had tried to kill him.
No.
Someone was trying to finish it.
Through the cracked glass, he saw movement.
The truck had stopped some distance away.
A few figures were getting out.
Not rushing to help.
Walking.
Slowly.
Like men who already knew what they were here for.
Lucian's eyes narrowed through the blood.
Three.
No, four of them.
Big men.
Calm.
Too calm.
One of them pulled something from under his jacket.
Not a phone.
Not anything helpful.
A metal rod.
Another had a gun.
Lucian let out a weak laugh that ended in a cough.
Blood spilled from the corner of his mouth.
"Of course," he whispered.
The men approached the wreck.
One of them peered in from the shattered side.
"Still alive."
Another clicked his tongue.
"Rich boy is tougher than he looks."
Lucian's eyes moved toward him.
Even now, even like this, there was a sharpness in them that made the man frown.
The one with the gun stepped closer.
"Should've stayed hidden, kid."
Lucian wanted to say something clever.
Wanted to curse them.
Wanted to ask if his father had sent them.
But right now breathing was a job on its own.
He swallowed blood and managed only one weak line.
"So it was him."
The man smirked.
"That matters to you?"
Lucian stared at him.
The man raised the gun.
Then headlights appeared from a distance.
Fast.
Coming down the road.
The men looked back.
A car.
Then another behind it.
The one with the gun cursed under his breath.
"We've got company."
"Finish it," another snapped.
The gunman aimed again.
Lucian's eyes stayed on the barrel.
This was it then.
Not in some grand way.
Not after building anything.
Not after understanding any of this nonsense life that had been dumped on his head.
Just like this.
Dragged from one world into another, then crushed between them.
Before the man could fire, another set of lights cut across from the side, forcing the men back.
Brakes screamed.
Doors opened.
Voices shouted.
Everything blurred again in Lucian's hearing.
He could not tell who had arrived.
Security from the estate?
His mother's people?
Random passersby?
He did not know.
The men backed away fast.
One of them shouted, "Move!"
Another slammed the side of the wreck with his rod in frustration before running.
A gunshot rang out from somewhere beyond Lucian's fading vision.
Then another.
People were moving.
Yelling.
Orders.
Footsteps.
Lucian tried to hold on, but his body was starting to give up.
The adrenaline was draining.
Pain rushed in harder.
His eyes drifted.
A voice reached him.
"Lucian!"
A woman's voice.
Sharp.
Terrified.
Familiar.
His mother.
Maybe.
Or maybe he only wanted it to be.
Hands tried to reach him through the wreck.
People spoke all at once.
"Careful."
"He's trapped."
"Get that side open."
"He's losing blood."
"Stay with us."
Lucian wanted to laugh again.
Stay with us.
As if it were that simple.
He felt hands on him.
He felt the metal around him being pulled.
He felt something warm against his forehead.
The ringing in his ears got worse.
His vision dimmed at the edges.
Faces leaned over him, but they were hard to make out.
He could not focus.
He coughed again and more blood came up.
A hand held his face gently.
"Lucian, look at me."
That one was definitely Margaret.
Even through the haze, he knew.
There was something in her voice he had never heard clearly before.
Fear.
Real fear.
Not for a company.
Not for power.
Not for reputation.
For him.
He tried to speak.
It came out rough.
"…Mom?"
"I'm here," she said quickly. "I'm here. Don't close your eyes."
He almost smiled.
That was funny.
People always said that.
As if a person chose the dark when it came.
As if closing your eyes was some betrayal.
The wreck groaned as they forced part of it apart.
Pain flared through his body when they moved him even a little.
He clenched his teeth so hard his jaw hurt.
A raw cry escaped him anyway.
Margaret's hand tightened around his.
"It's okay. It's okay. Just hold on."
Lucian looked at her.
She really did look afraid.
For one strange second, that mattered to him.
More than the mansion.
More than the name.
More than all the things he never asked for.
She looked like a mother.
Not a powerful woman.
Not a ruler.
Just a mother who thought she was about to lose her son.
That made something twist in his chest harder than the pain did.
He wanted to tell her something.
That he didn't blame her as much as she blamed herself.
That he was trying.
That he never hated her.
That he was just tired.
But his mouth would not work right.
His thoughts were slowing down.
Voices came from farther away now.
The world felt like it was pulling back from him inch by inch.
His hand went weak in hers.
Margaret's face changed.
"No. No. Lucian."
He heard her, but it felt distant.
He looked past her for a second.
The sky above the road looked very far away.
Funny.
He had spent his whole life thinking death would be louder.
Or more dramatic.
Something worthy of the end.
But this…
This was ugly.
Messy.
Half-finished.
He felt cold.
Very cold.
And somewhere in the middle of all that noise and pain and fading light, one thought came quietly into his head.
So this is it?
After everything?
After being dragged from the countryside into a life that never felt like mine?
After finally meeting my mother?
After barely even starting?
Is this the way I'm going to die?
His eyes grew heavier.
The sounds around him stretched and blurred.
His lips moved one last time, though he didn't know if anyone heard it.
"If this is really how it ends… then what a stupid life…"
And the darkness came closer.