Chapter 15: Julian's Plea
The dream of his mother dissolved into the gray pre-dawn light of the penthouse. Lucas woke not with a start, but with a slow, deepening certainty. The ghost of her voice—trust your heart, not your fear—lingered like a scent in the air, mixing with the clean linen and Arthur’s sleeping alpha musk. He lay still, one hand on the solid curve of his stomach, feeling the predicable, gentle hiccup of the baby inside. A reminder of what was at stake. What he was fighting for.
It wasn’t just about him anymore. It wasn’t even just about Arthur.
The letter from Julian, its edges still crisp, felt like it was burning a hole in the bedside table drawer. Begging for forgiveness.Manipulated by her. Never meant for this. Lucas stared at the ceiling, tracing the meticulous lines of the architectural beams. His brother had been a weapon, aimed and fired by a more calculated hand.Cassandra. His stepmother. The woman who had perfected the art of chilly indifference over outright cruelty.
Arthur stirred beside him, his arm tightening instinctively around Lucas’s waist before he even opened his eyes. “You’re thinking too loud,” he grumbled, his voice sleep-roughened.
“I need to see her.”
Arthur’s eyes snapped open, all sleepiness vanishing. The steel-gray turned flinty. “Absolutely not.”
“Not in person,” Lucas clarified, turning to face him. The morning light caught the flecks of gold in his hazel eyes, made them look hard. “But I need to hear her voice. I need to… test the theory.”
“The ‘theory’ that your sociopathic brother is telling the truth?” Arthur pushed himself up, running a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair. “Lucas, it’s a trap. Even from jail, he’s trying to manipulate you. To get to me.”
“I know that.” Lucas sat up, the silk sheets pooling around his hips. His slender frame was now unmistakably altered by the pregnancy, a soft, firm swell that changed his center of gravity, his sense of self. “But what if part of it is true? I need to know what she did. For my own… closure. Before the baby comes. I can’t have this poison hanging over us.”
Arthur studied him, his gaze tracking the determined set of Lucas’s jaw, the slight tremble in his hands that betrayed his fear. He saw the iron will, not the fragility. He let out a long, controlled breath. “You want to call her.”
“Yes.”
“Today.”
“Yes.”
Arthur was silent for a full minute. The city began to blush with sunrise outside the vast windows, painting the cold marble and black leather in tones of rose and amber. “Then we do it on speaker. With me here. And we record it. Every word.”
Lucas nodded, a knot in his chest loosening. “Okay.”
“And afterward,” Arthur said, swinging his legs out of bed, his powerful back to Lucas, “we burn that fucking letter.”
Breakfast was a tense, quiet affair. Lucas picked at a fruit salad, his stomach churning. Arthur drank black coffee, scrolling through emails on a tablet, but his attention was a tangible force in the room, fixed entirely on Lucas. The penthouse hummed with a different energy today—not of sanctuary, but of a war room.
At precisely 9 AM, Arthur placed a sleek, secure-looking phone on the glass dining table between them. “The number is already inputted. It’s a clean line, untraceable back to this address. The recording is active.” He reached across, his hand covering Lucas’s.“You lead. I’m just… furniture.”
Lucas managed a weak smile. “Very intimidating furniture.”
He took a deep breath, hit the dial button, and put the call on speaker.
It rang three times.
“Cassandra Evens.” Her voice was exactly as he remembered: polished, crisp, devoid of warmth. The voice that had corrected his table manners, criticized his choice of friends, and pointedly ignored his achievements.
“Stepmother. It’s Lucas.”
A pause. So slight, but he heard it. The rustle of fabric, perhaps her setting down a pen. “Lucas.This is a surprise. Your father mentioned you’ve been… unavailable.”
“I have been.” Lucas kept his voice flat, clinical. He was a doctor diagnosing a symptom. “I received a letter from Julian.”
Another pause, longer this time. “I see. I assume he’s seeking leniency. Making up stories.”
“He says you orchestrated everything. The party.The drug. Setting me up with Declan.” Lucas dropped the names like stones into a still pond, watching for ripples in her silence.
Cassandra’s laugh was short, sharp, a dry crackle over the line. “Oh, Lucas. Really? You’re entertaining the ramblings of a boy facing twenty years in a federal penitentiary? He’s desperate. He’ll say anything.”
“He said you wanted me out of the way. To secure the family holdings for yourself and your… bloodline.” He couldn’t bring himself to say ‘your son.’
“My, my.” Her tone shifted, growing colder, more analytical. “He has been creative. Tell me, does your new… protector… believe these fairy tales? The great Arthur Blackwood, felled by a pregnant omega’s tears and a convict’s lies?”
Arthur’s jaw tightened, but he remained silent, a statue of simmering rage.
“I just want the truth,” Lucas said, his voice gaining strength. “Did you do it?”
“The truth is irrelevant, Lucas. What matters is consequence.Julian faced his. You are living with yours.” Her words were needles, precisely placed. “A child out of wedlock. A relationship born of scandal. Medical school must be quite challenging in your condition. Tell me, does the Harvard board know about your… arrangement?”
Lucas felt the blow, but it didn’t land as it once would have. He felt Arthur’s hand squeeze his, a grounding pressure. “My education is none of your concern. And my child is not a ‘consequence.’ He’s a blessing.”
“How very modern of you.” He could almost see her dismissive wave. “Was there anything else? I have a board meeting.”
“Yes.” Lucas leaned forward, his voice dropping. “I know you were behind it. I may not be able to prove it in a court of law, but I know. And that knowledge is mine. You don’t get to live in my head anymore. You don’t get to make me afraid. You’re just a sad, calculating woman who tried to break me. And you failed.”
The silence on the other end was total, absolute. He heard the faintest intake of breath.
When she spoke again, all pretense of civility was gone. The venom was pure, undisguised. “You always were an arrogant little thing. Thinking you were so much better than us. Well, enjoy your billionaire’s bed, Lucas. See how long it lasts when a newer, shinier toy catches his eye. And do give my regards to your… what does one call him? Brother-in-law? Step-grandfather?” The line went dead.
Lucas sat back, trembling. The harsh words echoed in the silent, sunlit room.
Arthur reached over and ended the recording. His face was a mask of cold fury. “She’s dead,” he said, the words simple, final.
“No.” Lucas shook his head, drawing a shaky breath. “No, she’s not. That’s not what I need.” He looked at Arthur, his eyes clear now, all doubt burned away by the clean, hot anger. “I needed to hear it. I needed to know the monster’s face. Now I do.”
“She threatened you. She threatened our family.”
“She implied. She’s too smart to outright threaten.” Lucas stood, wincing slightly as he adjusted to his changing balance. He walked to the window, looking out at the waking city. “But she confirmed it, Arthur.In her way. She didn’t deny it. She just attacked the messenger and belittled the message.” He turned, a strange, peaceful resolve settling over his features. “She has no power here. Not anymore.”
Arthur watched him, the omega who looked like a gust of wind could break him, standing defiant before the skyline. He saw not a victim, but a victor. “What do you want to do?”
Lucas walked back to the table, picked up the secure phone, and handed it to Arthur. “Keep the recording. Just in case. And… have your lawyers look into her finances.Quietly. If she orchestrated it, there will be a money trail. A payoff to someone. Something.”
A slow, proud smile spread across Arthur’s face. “Now you’re thinking like a Blackwood.”
“I’m thinking like a doctor,” Lucas corrected, a faint smile touching his own lips. “Diagnose the disease. Then contain it.” He placed his hand on his belly, feeling a robust kick, a punctuation mark to his decision. “I have more important things to build.”
Arthur rose, crossing the space to pull Lucas into his arms, careful of the swell between them. He kissed his temple. “She’s wrong, you know. You’re not a toy. And this is not an arrangement.”
“I know,” Lucas murmured into his chest, the last of the tension seeping away. “But she’s right about one thing.”
“What?”
Lucas looked up, a glint of his old, quick wit in his eyes. “The brother-in-law, step-grandfather thing is really weird. We need a better story.”
Arthur barked out a laugh, the sound rich and unexpected in the formal room. He held his omega—his fighter, his lover, the mother of his child—and knew, with a certainty that dwarfed any boardroom conquest, that every broken path had led them here.To this moment. To this unshakable us.