50. Christopher
50
Christopher
L ucy stands at the head of the Blackwell Innovations boardroom table, commanding the attention of my entire executive team and key board members. Not with bluster or intimidation, but with a quiet, focused confidence that’s fucking captivating.
She’s outlining the Hammond I’ll ensure I’m back. But this detour feels non-negotiable now.
This visit... it will be something I haven’t done in… twenty years? More?
Victor navigates us out of the city at speeds that would make a traffic cop weep, following my curt instruction to ‘make good time’. Fucking speeding tickets are irrelevant; I’ll pay whatever fine they throw at us. It’s pocket change. Elijah and Maya follow in the SUV behind us.
My focus is fixed on the destination: the quiet, unassuming suburban town in Connecticut where she built her new life. New husband, placid garden, book club meetings... that sort of life. A world away from the Blackwell battlefield.
As we pull up to the neat colonial house, I call Elijah and tell him to wait in the SUV.
I won’t be needing him here.
She opens the door herself. Older, softer, lines of worry and time are etched around the familiar blue eyes. She looks shocked to see me, then a wave of complex emotions washes over her face. Fear, hope, regret.
“Christopher,” she breathes out, her hand fluttering to her throat.
“Mother,” I reply, the word feeling stiff, foreign.
The conversation inside is awkward at first. Stilted questions about her life, my work. Polite non-answers. Then, hesitantly, she starts to talk about the past. Not excuses, not justifications, but… explanations.
“He was suffocating, Christopher,” she says, her voice trembling slightly as she stares into her teacup. “Mark… he needed absolute control. Over the business, the house, me… even you. Every decision, every opinion had to be his.” She looks up, tears glistening in her eyes. “I felt… erased. Powerless. And I saw him doing the same to you, even then. Molding you into his image, crushing anything soft or vulnerable. I was too... afraid, too beaten down, to stop him then. I’m so sorry I didn’t fight harder for you while I was there. And I’m so sorry that I—”
She takes a shaky breath, the memory clearly painful. “Leaving… escaping him… was necessary for my own survival. But leaving you? Christopher, I fought. After I left him, I tried to get custody, tried desperately to take you with me.” Her voice breaks, tears tracing paths down her cheeks. “But Mark… the money, the lawyers… he had an army. They buried me in court. Painted me as unstable, emotional, unfit. Everything he accused me of being in private, he made the court believe. He had too much power, too many connections.” She looks down at her hands twisting in her lap. “I lost, Christopher. The courts sided with him. Completely.”
She looks back up at me, her eyes filled with decades of anguish. “So yes, I ran from him. I had to, to survive. But leaving you behind wasn’t a choice I made easily; it was a fight I lost. And knowing I was leaving you with him, in that environment, after failing to get you out… God, I regret that loss, that failure, every single day.” Her voice drops to a whisper. “I felt so weak, so defeated. And I left you in the line of fire.”
Her confession doesn’t magically heal decades of resentment. Doesn’t erase the feeling of being left behind. But it… shifts the perspective. It wasn’t just weakness in loving . It was weakness in fighting him .
She fled the tyrant, but left his heir captive. It reframes my father’s bitterness, his obsession with control, his fear of emotional ‘weakness.’ It all seems tangled up in his own failure, his inability to hold onto her, twisted into a toxic lesson he inflicted on me.
Understanding doesn’t excuse, but it… loosens the knot slightly.
We talk for another hour. More tears. More regrets. There’s no easy resolution between us.
But when I finally leave, something feels different. Lighter.
A piece of the past, viewed through a different lens, has lost some of its power over me.
On the drive back to the city, the quiet hum of the engine is a backdrop to my thoughts. Healing old wounds, building a new future. Lucy. Her saying yes to moving in.
Her trust.
Her love.
A decision crystallizes, clear and decisive. A symbol, and statement of intent.
I make a call, not to Tatiana, but to the discreet family office that manages the Blackwell trusts and legacy assets, including the contents of a certain bank vault.
“The sapphire ring,” I instruct the portfolio manager. “My grandmother’s engagement ring. I need it brought to the penthouse this evening. No record required beyond standard asset transfer.”
A piece of family history worth preserving, worth repurposing for a new future.
Our future.
That evening, while waiting for Lucy to arrive at the penthouse, I stand by the window, looking out at the glittering city below. She’s moving a few things in tonight, the first small step towards making this place ours.
As I stare out at the city, I can’t help but feel that my relationship to it, the power and wealth it represents, feels different somehow.
I was once determined to conquer it, to surpass my father, to prove to myself through ruthless acquisition that I was better than him. The Executioner. I built an empire, achieved every metric of success he ever valued. And felt… completely and utterly empty.
Then Lucy Hammond walked into my life, armed with stubborn integrity, infuriating optimism, and a belief in something more than just the bottom line. She challenged me. Drove me fucking insane sometimes. Saw through the bullshit. And somehow, cracked open the fortress I’d built around myself.
Now? The empire feels less like a monument to my ambition and more like… a tool. Resources to build something lasting. Something meaningful.
The Executioner is gone. Replaced by… someone else. Someone capable of vulnerability. Someone who understands that true strength isn’t about control, but about connection. Someone who is finally ready, completely ready, for the future he’s holding in his hand, concealed within a small velvet box.
The elevator chimes softly, announcing her arrival. I turn as the doors slide open .
Lucy steps out, smiling, her eyes bright with anticipation.
My breath catches.
Home.
She feels so much like fucking home.
Peace settles over me.
A deep, quiet certainty I’ve never known before.
The past is reconciled. The future is waiting.
And for the first time in my goddamn life, I’m not afraid of it.
There’s just one last thing I need to do...