Chapter 5
My mother arrived the next morning.
Not from Palm Beach.
From Connecticut.
She had been staying twenty minutes from Blackthorne for a week.
Planning.
Waiting.
I understood immediately.
The magician’s show was chosen because my council meeting happened in the adjoining room.
Noise.
Guests.
Props.
Children moving everywhere.
A perfect disappearance.
Lucia entered my study wearing cream silk and the expression of a queen arriving late to her own meeting.
Then she saw Milo sitting on my lap.
Her face tightened.
“So Clara succeeded.”
Not relief.
Disappointment.
I stared.
“You knew she might interfere.”
“Teresa said she was sentimental.”
Clara stood beside the fireplace.
“My brother was crying.”
Lucia ignored her.
I did not.
“Answer her.”
My mother looked annoyed.
“Children cry.”
Clara stared.
“So?”
Simple.
Lucia turned toward me.
“This is why girls should not be included in serious plans.”
There it was.
Clara flinched.
I saw it.
“You used her as your witness.”
Lucia frowned.
“What?”
“You expected her to lie that Milo wandered away.”
Silence.
“So apparently she was mature enough to help cover a kidnapping but too female to question it.”
Victor looked away.
Even he saw the contradiction.
Lucia sat.
“We had no intention of harming Milo.”
“No.”
I nodded.
“You intended to reshape him.”
“Yes.”
Finally.
No shame.
“You are nearly forty, Julian.”
“I know.”
“You’ve refused to name an heir.”
“He is four.”
“You keep saying that like time stops.”
“No.”
I leaned forward.
“I keep saying it because adults keep speaking about the future while standing on his childhood.”
Her expression hardened.
“You were trained early.”
“Not at Blackthorne.”
“Because your father thought Luca was enough.”
That hurt.
Old family truth.
I had been the spare.
Luca the heir.
When he died, suddenly I became valuable.
Every expectation shifted overnight.
My mother saw my face.
“That is exactly why I will not let Milo remain unprepared.”
I understood.
Fear.
Her first chosen heir died.
Now she wanted to overprepare the next.
Explanation.
Not permission.
“You lost Luca.”
“Yes.”
“So did I.”
Silence.
May you like
I held her gaze.
“You don’t get to make Milo pay the tuition for our grief.”
