49. CHAPTER 46
Orion
The day my father died was the day I found out my wife was carrying my child.
It felt like a cruel punchline. The universe, clearly amused. Legacy closing its fist around my throat and opening its palm at the same time. One heartbeat stopped in the east wing while another began in the center of my world, and I was barely breathing under the sheer atmospheric pressure of it.
I stood in the hallway between our bedrooms, the cold air of the manor seeped into my bones, and I realized then that I was a bridge. A bridge between a man who was already a memory and a life that didn't even have a name yet.
He went in his sleep.
Dr. Gérard called at 4AM, his voice calm in a way that told me everything before he said the words.
I’d sat with my father the night before, in the half-light of his wing—machines humming, the faint hiss of oxygen, the scent of antiseptic and old aftershave.
He’d had one of his clearer evenings: his eyes following me, and his fingers clenching weakly around mine.
There was at least a trace of awareness there.
I’d known deep down.
Not because of anything grand. Just the way his gaze held mine a fraction longer than usual. The way his fingers, usually slack, held mine a little firmly, as if to say enough. The peace in it gutted me more than the fear I’d been nursing since he fell ill.
He was finally handing me the keys to a kingdom he no longer wanted, and I was terrified of how well they fit my hand.
By the time I got to the wing, I felt numb.
He looked smaller somehow. Emptied of the force that had always made the room feel arranged around him.
The lines of pain had left his face. His mouth was in a neutral line, his features composed into a calm I hadn’t seen on him in months, or ever before.
I stood there for a long moment, looking at the body that had once seemed too large for sickness, too stubborn for endings, and a part of me felt relieved.
That was the truth I had to swallow whole, and come to terms with.
I was relieved that he was no longer trapped in that bed.
That the struggle had finally ended, and he was finally at rest. The relief made the grief feel uglier, but it was there all the same.
I touched his hand one last time. It was cooler than it should have been. Still. Entirely absent of him.
My mother stood by the bed like a statue—her perfect posture in her silk robe tied too tight, her hair immaculate. But her face…showed the fracture. Her eyes were frantic, unfocused, as if she couldn’t quite place herself in a world where the man in that bed no longer breathed.
For the first time, I saw that there was a place in her that wasn’t stone-walled. A hollow place her ambition couldn't protect. She looked at me, and I saw my own future in the ruin of her expression—the cost of being the one left standing.
When they came for him, neither of us moved. It all still felt surreal.
I stepped back because there was nothing else to do.
My mother didn’t. She stood there with her hands clasped too tightly in front of her, watching as they disconnected the remaining lines and prepared to take him away.
The room no longer felt like his. Something about it felt strange and final. Everything had come to an end.
They straightened his body, drew the sheet up to his chest, then over his face. My mother made no sound, but when they lifted him from the bed onto the waiting cart, the muscles in her face gave way to a tiny collapse of whatever it was that had been holding her upright all this time.
I watched until they wheeled him through the doors and the last glimpse of white disappeared down the corridor.
After that, the silence that followed was a vacuum pulling the air from my lungs.
No rhythmic whir of the ventilators I’d gotten used to in the past months, no low murmurs from the nurses, no oxygen hissing in the background.
Just the two of us left inside a room that had already started forgetting him.
My mother sat down then, slowly, as if her body had finally remembered its limits. She stared at the empty bed and said nothing. I said nothing either. There was nothing useful to offer. No words of comfort was going to be enough here.
So I stood there beside her in the silence, feeling the grief settle around us. Taking it in despite my numbness.
A knock came at the door what felt like minutes—or years—later. Dr. Gérard stepped inside, his face lined with a sympathy I wasn’t used to.
“I’m very sorry, Orion,” he said sincerely.
“I’ll take care of the medical formalities.
” He paused, one hand resting briefly on the back of a chair, as though giving us a moment before he continued.
“There will be some documents for you to sign later today, nothing urgent right now. I’ll coordinate with your office about the transfer and the rest.”
I nodded because that was all I could manage.
Not long after, the machinery of my father’s life began to close in. My assistants. The family office. Legal. People who had served him for years, all stood waiting for instructions no one should have to give before sunrise.
We spoke about arrangements, phone calls, what announcements to make.
Heads of state. Other families. The press.
The board. The logistics of mourning. Every arrangement felt like a stone being laid in a wall, separating me from the son I used to be and cementing me as the man I had to become. Whether I was prepared or not.
At some point, I had the staff send up a tray of soup and took it to my mother—some stupid, practical instinct I’d never indulged in before.
We sat in the small sitting room off his room.
She didn’t eat much. She didn’t cry either.
She kept her hand around the bowl like she needed something warm to hold onto.
“You look like him,” she said suddenly, her eyes on my profile. “Especially when you’re tired.”
She tipped her chin forward. “The scowl between your brows—” She let out a small, fond laugh. “And the way you pull at the corner of your mouth with your teeth, just like he used to.”
She almost choked on used to, and my hands twitched with the urge to reach for her. It was the first time in my life I’ve seen her close to vulnerable. I wasn’t sure what to do with it.
Isabella burst in halfway through, panicked. “Monsieur Kade,” she gasped. “Madame…she fainted. In your wing.”
The bowl clattered from my mother’s hand, the sound of breaking porcelain sounded loudly in the room.
I was already moving, my legs carrying me toward our wing before my brain could even process the fear.
The air in the hallway felt too cold, the chill seeping into my chest. I’d spent the last hour documenting a death, and the sudden terror of losing her too was more than my composure could handle.
We called the doctor. Time blurred again while my mother and I waited for the doctor to examine her. My eyes trailed the white walls of the hallway, my mind racing, spiraling at the possibility of her being really sick. She was breathing just fine when I left her side this morning.
By the time I was allowed into our bedroom, my heart felt as if it had been scraped raw, beating with a frantic, uneven rhythm that I couldn't regulate. I’d spent months preparing to lose my father; I’d spent exactly zero seconds preparing to lose her.
Grief was already tearing through me, but the thought of losing her made it harder to breathe.
There weren’t enough words to quantify what I was feeling as I pushed through our room door.
I found her propped against the headboard, pillows behind her, hair mussed around her face, her skin a little too dull. She looked tired, but her eyes were wide open, searching for me with a clarity that pinned me to the spot. My heart felt lighter.
The doctor was just packing up his bag when I stepped in. He glanced between us and gave that measured, professional smile.
“Congratulations, Monsieur, Madame,” he said. “You’re expecting.”
My heart stopped for a second.
“I’d like her to rest for the next few days,” I heard him continue. “No stress, as much as the household can manage it. Given the… circumstances with the patriarch, it is a blessing of timing, I suppose.”
Blessing. The word sounded off as I struggled to balance my emotions.
My mind stalled. The words refused to settle into anything I could understand. For a moment, everything around me felt out of sequence, all too sudden and distant at once.
He’s dead, and you’re expecting.
I looked at her, and for the first time in my life, I had no plan.
My mind was drawn in opposite directions. I was still mourning my father, and in the same breath, I was hit with the sudden realisation that I was going to be a father myself.
I felt the crown settle on my head, heavy and suffocating, just as a tiny, invisible life reached out to claim a future I was still learning to navigate. Fear, joy, sorrow, anticipation—I felt every emotion at once, a tidal wave so intense I wasn't sure how to hold it without breaking.
Our gaze held. She looked beautiful even in the wreckage of the morning, fragile and exhausted. And still breathtaking.
She was having my baby. Our baby. I didn’t think it was possible to love her more than I already did, but in that moment, everything in me gravitated toward her. She lifted her arms in my direction, and I went to her like there was a magnet in my chest.
The doctor was still speaking, but his voice faded to background noise, drowned out by the roar of my pulse.
I lay down carefully, almost on her, braced on one arm so my weight didn’t touch her stomach. The door shut as the doctor slipped out, but our gaze stayed locked, as if we were the only two living souls left.