- thirty three - third person
Alexander Lancaster looked like he had it all.
The mansion doors swung open like the gates to a goddamn palace, swallowing him whole. Crystal chandeliers glittered overhead, floors so polished they reflected the storm in his eyes. But none of it touched him.
Not the money.
Not the silence.
Not even the perfectly posed woman waiting at the top of the staircase.
He didn’t speak. Just walked past her like a ghost in his own home, a sketchbook clutched in his hand like a lifeline. His knuckles were white around it. His jaw tighter than ever.
He hadn’t let go of it since he found it.
Ink lines and pencil strokes—his smirk, his glare, the cigarette between his fingers. He couldn't fanthom how she could've seen him that way. Like he was something beautiful.
He sat down in the living room, elbows on his knees, sketchbook open in his lap. Around him stretched decadence. Gold frames, velvet couches, expensive silence.
All of it cold.
He didn’t notice.
All he saw was her.
Her side of the room, empty. Her sketchbook, full. Her absence, louder than his heartbeat. And under all of it, under the weight of guilt and silence and polished marble, was a name he didn’t dare say out loud.
He didn’t need to.
It was written in every part of him.
Alex Lancaster was unraveling.
Not in some dramatic, tear-streaked way. Not even loudly. Just… quietly. Silently. The kind of heartbreak that ruins men from the inside out.
There was no text. No goodbye note. No warning. Just a stripped bed and that one drawing left behind like a funeral offering.
And then there was the fifteen-year-old girl in a coma. The one who bought from him. The reason the cops had slammed cold cuffs around his wrists.
He looked down at his inked hands.
What the fuck had he done?
. . .
He’s barely taken a seat in one of the cold, spotless lounges when she appears.
“Darling,” his mother says, voice warm and syrupy. “You must be exhausted. Come, sit properly. Let me look at you.”
He already is sitting, but he doesn’t move. Just slouches deeper into the couch, forearm over one knee, fingers still drumming the spine of Dana’s sketchbook.
“You’ve lost weight,” she adds, stepping forward like she might touch his face. She doesn’t. She’s never been the touching type.
Alex quirks a brow. “That’s what you’re opening with? After jail?”
“You were barely in there twenty-four hours. Don’t be dramatic.”
“Right,” he mutters, “just long enough to watch my life blow up.”
She offers a smile that would look good in a magazine spread. “You made a mistake. It happens. But we have people for this. The lawyers are already working on your statement.”
He scoffs. “Of course they are.”
“I’ve spoken with the university. They’ll keep your file clean—conditional on your behavior, of course. Your father has a spot ready for you to intern. We’ll put this behind us.”
“Behind me?” His voice sharpens. “You think I give a shit about school or his stupid company?”
She sits now, legs crossed, one hand delicately draped over her lap. “I think you’re tired. Confused. You’ve been… influenced.”
His laugh is humorless. “Say her name.”
She blinks, lips twitching just once. “That girl—”
“Dana,” he snaps.
“—was never going to last, Alexander. She wasn’t one of us.”
“No, she was better.”
The temperature shifts. Her smile fades just slightly. “Let’s not pretend this is about her. You were selling drugs to children.”
That punches the air out of him. He looks away. The sketchbook trembles a little in his hand.
“She was fifteen,” his mother says softly, now turning on the concerned parent voice. “Do you understand the severity of what you’ve done?”
“I know exactly what I did,” Alex grits out.
Silence. Heavy. Judging.
And then her voice again: “Come on, Alex. Let us take care of you. Let us fix this.”
He looks at her then—really looks. Not at the pearls, not the perfect posture. But the rot underneath. The emptiness in her eyes. The way everything is about image and nothing is about him, her only child.
He stands slowly. “I’ve had enough of you, Mother.”
She blinks.
“I’ve been keeping up with you out of love,” he says, low and steady. “But I’m done pretending.”
He steps back, the sketchbook clutched like armor. “I’m dropping out of business. I’m going to study philosophy.”
A pause. Just long enough to see the horror bloom on her face.
“And I don’t want anything to do with Dad’s company. Or this house. Or you.”
Her lips part, but he cuts her off with a look.
“Don’t call me,” he finishes. “Don’t try to fix it. You never wanted me—you wanted a version of me that doesn’t exist.”
. . .
The knock isn’t loud.
Just enough to pull Alex out of the haze he’s been stewing in, still slouched in the corner of the room like he’s part of the decay.
It's been days.
The sketchbook lies open on his lap, turned to that same page.
Another knock. Sharp. Persistent.
He drags himself up and cracks the door open.
Kyle.
No expression, no words—just a fist slamming straight into Alex’s jaw.
Alex staggers back, head snapping to the side. It takes a second to register the pain.
Then he laughs. Low. Unhinged.
“You done?” he mutters, wiping the blood from his lip.
Kyle doesn’t answer. Just stalks into the room and tosses a bag onto the floor—Dana’s. Her old one, the beige one with the faded straps.
“You ever go near my sister again,” Kyle says, voice low and shaking with rage, “I’ll make sure you don’t walk away from it.”
Alex’s jaw ticks. “You her guard dog now?”
“I’m her brother, asshole,” Kyle snaps. “And I’m the one who had to drive three hours just to watch her break.”
His voice cracks. That’s what shatters it.
“She didn’t sleep. She didn’t eat. She wouldn’t talk to anyone. She just kept saying she was stupid for loving you.”
Alex freezes.
And for a second, there’s nothing in him—no comeback, no mask, no pride. Just the crushing weight of those words. Stupid for loving you.
Kyle’s chest is heaving now. “She’s finally breathing again. She’s with Mom. So don’t screw that up.”
Alex just looks at him. Eyes dark. Flat.
Then—he swings.
Kyle crashes back against the doorframe with a groan. “You—fucking psycho—”
“I’m not the one who showed up throwing punches,” Alex mutters, shaking out his hand, his voice hoarse.
Kyle glares at him through the blood. “You’re not good for her.”
He storms out before Alex can reply.
The door slams. The bag sits forgotten on the floor.
But Alex... he just stands there. Breathing hard.
Kyle never said where she went.
But he said she’s okay. And said she’s with her mom.
And now Alex knows.
He knows exactly where she is.
And the storm in his chest turns electric.
“I’m coming, baby,” he murmurs, like a promise.
Not to win her back.
Not to make her forgive him.
But because she deserves to know.
To know what she means to him.
To know that he’d walk through hell for her, even if she never lets him in again.
Because love, to him, means showing up—even when you’re the villain in the story. And God knows, he loves her. He loves her in a way that burns in his chest, that consumes him whole.
And love, to him, also means he’s going to respect her decision, even if it breaks him. He’ll carry the weight of it.
If she turns him away,
then at least she’ll know he came.
That he tried.
That she was always worth the fight.
. . .
Excited for the next chapter? Only 2 chapters left, maybe. Do you think there's gonna be a happy ending?
Also, I kinda miss Lord Muffin.