Chapter 50 #2
If I am not there when you read this, don't spend your life waiting for me. Live. Laugh. Be angry. Love again if you ever want to. And if our child is with you when you read this, tell them about me.
Don't tell them I am a monster. Don't tell them I am a hero either. Tell them I am simply a man who loves their mother more than his own life.
Protect our child. And when they ask whether I loved them before I ever met them, tell them—I did.
I love you, Tessa. More than I ever know how to say.
—Lucius
The letter falls from her fingers, fluttering onto the Oriental rug.
Tessa covers her mouth with both hands, the air trapping itself in her throat as the sheer weight of his final words crushes her chest.
For several organisational seconds, she cannot breathe.
Then, the dam breaks entirely. She presses the parchment tightly against her heart and bends forward, hot, thick tears spilling over her knuckles as she weeps into the quiet of the room.
Eventually, through the haze of her sorrow, she looks down at her stomach.
Her tears continue to fall, but her voice carries a sudden, unyielding strength, barely a whisper against the quiet.
"I'll do it." She rests her palm over her stomach, a faint, protective smile breaking through her grief.
"I'll raise our baby. And I'll tell them everything. I'll tell them you loved us."
A few days later, a strange, profound peace settles over the ancestral mansion as the entire family gathers in the central hall.
Victor stands near the hearth, the amber flames casting long shadows across his face, while Olivia sits close beside him.
Kai relaxes on the sofa with his laptop closed for once, his eyes tracing the ceiling.
Kael leans quietly against the window frame, staring out into the overcast afternoon, while Alex sits at the main table, meticulously indexing a stack of old ledger documents.
Tessa watches them from the armchair, the letter safely tucked into her breast pocket.
The heavy silence fractures when Grandma walks into the centre of the room. She stops, her sharp gaze sweeping across every man present before she delivers a single sentence that makes everyone look up instantly. "There's one more room."
Alex frowns, setting his pen down with a quiet click. "What?"
Grandma doesn't bother to explain. She simply turns and walks towards the massive, floor-to-ceiling bookshelf flanking the northern wall.
Her fingers trace the spines until she reaches a specific cluster, shifting three leather-bound books in a precise sequence.
She reaches into the empty gap and presses a concealed mechanical release.
A heavy, metallic click echoes through the room. The entire wooden unit groans, shifting outward on hidden tracks. Everyone freezes in place. Behind the heavy oak panelling lies a narrow, stone staircase descending into pitch-black darkness.
Kai stands up slowly, staring at the opening in disbelief. "You've got to be kidding me."
Grandma turns back to look at him, her face an unreadable mask. "I've been waiting a long time to show you all this."
Victor steps away from the fireplace, his eyes narrowing as he peers into the shadows of the shaft. "What is down there, Grandma?"
"Your family's true history," she replies flatly, gesturing for them to follow.
They descend into the earth. The stone staircase seems completely endless, the damp, cool air wrapping around their ankles as they head deeper beneath the mansion's foundations.
At the absolute bottom, a massive, vault-like steel door waits for them, rusted at the edges but entirely secure.
Alex steps forward, locating the ancient mechanical lock, and throws the heavy deadbolts.
The door swings open to reveal an enormous, subterranean chamber.
A thick layer of dust covers every surface, catching the glare of the flashlights.
Old, industrial shelves stretch across the concrete walls, packed with hundreds of tightly bound files, yellowed photographs, old ledgers, and architectural blueprints.
Countless boxes are stacked in perfect rows, filled to the brim with ancestral Blackwood records.
But it is the far wall that draws their collective gaze.
A massive, hand-drawn map of the world covers the entire brick face, with hundreds of locations marked aggressively in crimson ink across entirely different continents.
Europe, Asia, America, Africa, the Middle East—an intricate, sprawling web of lines connecting various territories.
Kai walks closer to the display, his digital expertise failing to comprehend the sheer scale of what he is seeing. "This isn't just a family archive, Alex."
Alex pulls open one of the nearest files, his eyes widening as he skims the contents. "No. It isn't."
Victor’s jaw tightens as he looks at the global markings. "This is an international network. A shadow syndicate." Grandma remains standing by the door, watching them in absolute silence.
Tessa walks along the edge of a lower shelf, her fingers brushing against an old, silver-framed photograph.
She wipes away the dust to find Don Blackwood standing proudly in the centre of the frame.
But he isn't alone. There are several other powerful, dangerous-looking men flanking him—men none of them recognize, carrying titles that don't belong to any known American family.
Meanwhile, Alex moves deeper into the archives, his hands filtering through a wooden lockbox.
His fingers brush against a small, leather-bound volume.
A diary. It is old, dyed a deep black, with cracked and peeling leather along the spine.
He flips open the heavy cover. The very first page contains only a single, stark sentence.
Alex reads the script silently, and the change in his face is instantaneous. His eyes go wide, and the blood drains from his lips. Victor notices the sudden shift immediately, his body going rigid. "What is it, Alex?"
Alex doesn't answer, his hands trembling slightly as he turns the diary towards the light. Written across the first page in sharp, bold ink are the words: If you're reading this... Lucius is dead.
Nobody speaks. The room grows completely freezing as Alex begins turning the pages, his eyes devouring the ink.
Page after page, his expression becomes increasingly disturbed, a mask of pure horror settling into his features.
The diary contains names they have never heard, precise dates of old executions, massive financial transactions, hidden photographs of political figures, and lethal secrets—things about Don Blackwood's real legacy, things about Lucius’s hidden moves,
and dark truths about the family bloodline that should never have existed in the first place.
Finally, Alex reaches the final page of the journal.
His hand stops dead in the air, his fingers locking around the parchment.
He reads the concluding passage once. Then he reads it again, his breathing turning into a shallow, panicked rasp.
The remaining colour completely drains from his face, leaving him looking like a corpse.
Victor steps closer, his voice dropping into a dangerous, commanding growl. "What happened? Alex, talk to me."
Alex doesn't answer.
"Alex!"
Still, a dead silence hangs over the lawyer. Victor steps right into his space, his hand reaching out to grab the edge of the book. "What did you find down there?"
Alex slowly, deliberately closes the black diary, a loud snap echoing through the concrete vault.
His hands are shaking uncontrollably as he lifts his eyes to look at Victor, and then shifts his gaze to the shocked faces of Kai, Kael, and finally Tessa.
He swallows hard, his throat dry as he whispers a single, broken phrase. "No... This can't be..."
Victor’s expression hardens into a terrifying mask of pure iron. "What?"
Alex looks down at the black leather in his hands, his lips sealing tight.
He says absolutely nothing more. The name written across that final, bleeding page remains completely hidden from the room.
The devastating truth remains unread in the dark.
And somewhere deep beneath the heavy stones of the Blackwood mansion, a final, lethal secret survives the death of Lucius Blackwood—a secret powerful enough to change everything they thought they fought for.
Lucius is dead.
But his story is not over.
TO BE CONTINUED...