The news of Robert Hayes's arrest and his final, screamed insinuation
had not just rippled through the city's power structure; for Julian Cohen, it
was a depth charge. The whispers in the club, the sidelong glances at a charity
gala the next evening, the sudden, overly cautious tone of the board—they were
all nails in a coffin he hadn't known he was occupying.
He could no longer stand the pristine silence of the family penthouse,
the ghost of his mother Eleanor's perfume in the air, a scent attached to a
title, not a truth. He needed answers, and there was only one source, however
poisoned.
He found his father, Arthur Cohen, not in the corporate office, but in
the private study of the old Cohen estate, a manor of stone and suppressed
history. Rain lashed the leaded windows, casting wavering shadows across the
walls lined with leather-bound books that were bought by the yard. Arthur stood
at the fireplace, a crystal glass in hand, the very picture of established,
unshakeable power. He didn't turn as Julian entered.
"You've been avoiding my calls," Julian said, his voice strained, all
pretence of languid grace stripped away.
"You've been emotional," Arthur replied, his tone cool, assessing. "The
market dislikes emotion. I was giving you time to compose yourself."
"Compose myself?" Julian let out a short, bitter laugh. "While Robert
Hayes broadcasts his madness to the world and ties our name to it? While he
screams about mothers and secrets for every camera to hear?"
Arthur finally turned. In the firelight, his face was all sharp planes
and calculated calm. "Robert Hayes is a rabid dog finally being put down. His
barks are meaningless. Our statement has been issued. The matter is closed."
"It's not closed!" Julian's control snapped. He took two sharp steps
forward. "He said, 'Ask Julian who his real mother is.' A specific, targeted
lie. Why would he say that? What possible leverage could he think that gives
him?"
A flicker of something—impatience? weariness?—passed through Arthur's
eyes. "The man is psychotic. He deals in personal wounds. He knows the story of
your mother's… difficulty conceiving. He aimed for a soft spot. It's what he
does."
For years, Julian had accepted that story. The private struggles, the
miracle of his birth, the narrative of his parents' enduring love triumphing
over adversity. It had shaped him, made him feel chosen, destined to steward
the legacy they'd built.
Now, it tasted like ash.
"I've had our legal team run a preliminary check," Julian said, the lie
coming smoothly. He had done no such thing; the very idea felt like a betrayal.
But he needed to provoke a reaction. "To be prepared for any slander. The
records… there are inconsistencies, Father."
The word 'Father' hung between them, heavy and suddenly questionable.
Arthur's composure didn't break, but it solidified, turning to ice. He
set his glass down with a precise click. "You overstep, Julian. You are letting
an enemy dictate your actions, shake your foundation. This is weakness."
"My foundation?" Julian's voice dropped to a venomous whisper. "Or
yours? What are you so afraid I'll find?"
The silence that followed was deafening, filled only with the crackle of
the fire and the drumming rain. Arthur studied his son, his heir, as if
reappraising an asset that had suddenly developed a critical flaw.
"You want the truth?" Arthur said finally, his voice devoid of all
warmth. It was the tone he used to dismiss failing executives. "The truth is a
luxury. It is often messy, inconvenient, and destructive to the things that
matter—stability, legacy, power. Your mother and I gave you a name, a future, a
kingdom. That is the only truth you require."
It was a confirmation in its very evasion. A stone settled in Julian's
gut, cold and immovable. "So it is a lie. All of it."
Arthur's jaw tightened. "We gave you everything."
"Who is my mother?"
The question, raw and direct, seemed to strike the older man like a
physical blow, though he didn't flinch. His eyes, the same shade of cool grey
as Julian's, became shards of flint. "A woman who made a choice. A wise choice,
for which she was generously compensated. She has no claim on you, and you have
no business with her. She is irrelevant to what you are."
"And my father?" Julian pressed, the word tasting even more bitter. "Are
you also 'irrelevant' to what I am?"
The pause this time was infinitesimal, but Julian caught it. The
calculated mask slipped for a fraction of a second, revealing a deep,
well-hidden well of something—not guilt, but a fierce, possessive pride.
"Your blood is Cohen blood," Arthur stated, as if that were the entirety
of the answer. "It is my blood. That is what matters. The rest is… detail."
My blood. Not I am your father.
My blood.
The final, awful puzzle piece clicked into place. Steven. His charming,
reckless, vanished uncle. Steven, whose initials were on the Kore Tech files.
Steven, who worked in the shadows with Robert.
"Steven," Julian breathed, the name a curse. "He's my… biological
father."
Arthur didn't deny it. He simply watched as the understanding dismantled
his son piece by piece. "Steven was impulsive. He lacked discipline. He created
problems. I solved them. I took his… indiscretion… and I sculpted it into a
successor. I made you. You are my creation, Julian. Far more than you ever were
his."
The horror of it was breathtaking. He was not a son. He was a
transaction. A problem solved. A living, breathing monument to his uncle's
recklessness and his father's cold, calculated control. His entire life—the
expectations, the grooming, the weight of the legacy—was a patronage, a
benevolent dictatorship of the bloodline.
"All these years… the stories about Mother's struggles…" Julian felt
unmoored, seasick.
"Were necessary to protect the integrity of the family," Arthur
finished, his tone implying the conversation was nearing its end. "You have
benefited from that protection every single day of your life. Do not mistake
the container for the thing itself. You are a Cohen. That is your power. That
is your truth. Anything else is sentimental clutter."
He turned back to the fire, dismissing him. "The woman in Switzerland is
comfortable. She is silent. She will remain so. You will not seek her. You will
put this childish crisis behind you and remember who you are. Who we are."
The woman in Switzerland. So there was a location. A place where the
ghost was kept.
Julian stood there, in the opulent room that now felt like a museum of
his own fraud, watching the implacable back of the man who had orchestrated his
existence. Love had never been part of the equation. It was all ownership.
Legacy as a vault, not a torch.
The cold that filled Julian was not the chill of the rain outside, but
something deeper, born of a foundational truth freezing over. He had no
parents. He had a patron and a ghost. And a cousin, he now realised with
dizzying clarity, who was digging straight toward the epicentre of it all.
He said nothing more. He turned and walked out of the study, his
footsteps silent on the thick rug. The handsome, loyal son was gone. In his
place walked a man unmade, armed with a new, terrible truth and a single,
burning directive: if the only identity he had was a lie, he would find the
truth for himself, even if it burned the Cohen legacy to the ground.
As he passed a side table, his eye caught a faded, silver-framed
photograph of Arthur and Steven, young and smiling, arms slung around each
other's shoulders. He picked it up, looked at the face of the man who was his
biological father—the ghost, the rogue, the hidden poison in the family line.
Then, with deliberate calm, he turned the frame over, opened the clasps,
and slid the photograph into his inner pocket. He left the empty frame on the
table, a perfect, gleaming symbol of the void now at the heart of everything.
The war was no longer just against Elara Thorne. It was against the very
story that had created him. And he intended to win.