A Reason to Return

Victor's POV

The morning air in the Thornhill estate felt crisp and smug with silence. I sipped my coffee as the sun peeled over the hedges, brushing the world gold. Elena was already out in the gardens, making notes on the household inventory I’d asked her to crosscheck. She was efficient—surprisingly so. I had expected resistance from her, perhaps weakness. But she hadn’t cracked. Not yet.

My sons, however...

They hadn't come around.

Lucas and Damian—each successful in their own right, each proud and infuriatingly stubborn—had treated Elena’s presence as an insult. And while their anger had annoyed me at first, now it simply bored me.

It was time they came home.

I dialed them both. No assistants. No middlemen. My voice went directly into their ears.

“I want you both living here again,” I said flatly. “This house is big. You used to call it home. If you don't trust her, come and keep an eye on her yourselves.”

There was a pause. Lucas laughed, low and unbothered.

“I barely sleep, Father,” he replied. “And when I do, it’s not under your roof.”

Damian’s voice was more clipped. “I have a company to run, not babysit your assistant.”

I sighed. “Not everything is about her.”

But they knew it was.

I hung up without another word.

---

Elena’s POV

There was a strange tension in the mansion that day. Victor had been quieter than usual—watchful. I kept my head down, working through the estate’s medical appointments and meetings, labeling each folder with color-coded tabs. He liked structure. I gave him order.

But when I passed his study, I could hear the disappointment in his voice, even though I couldn’t make out the words. Something about sons. About not listening. About trust.

And for a brief moment, I felt a pang of guilt.

Not because I had done anything wrong.

But because I felt like the reason his sons were staying away.

---

Lucas’s POV

My name was on another billboard. A magazine cover. A trending tag on social media.

But nothing felt new.

Every woman that touched my arm at the gala last night, every camera flash that caught the smile I’d rehearsed in the mirror—it all felt... dull. Manufactured.

The moment that stuck with me, instead, was seeing her—the girl in our house. Elena. Standing behind my father with that notebook, eyes down, hands trembling slightly when we first confronted her.

I didn’t like her.

But I couldn’t forget her.

Still, I had no intention of crawling back to Thornhill just to watch over some assistant. No matter how annoyingly present she was in my mind.

Until the call came.

---

Damian’s POV

I was finishing a board meeting when the alert buzzed on my phone.

A house security breach.

I dismissed the rest of the team. My fingers moved faster than my mind as I accessed the footage. It was late—past midnight. There was movement in the east wing of the Thornhill estate. A shadow. A flicker of someone slipping past the library corridor.

Then a scream.

My jaw clenched. I recognized the voice. It was Elena.

I paused the video and stared at the frozen image of her face—wide-eyed, afraid, caught in the camera's grainy grasp.

My next move was unconscious.

I grabbed my keys and called Lucas.

---

Lucas’s POV

“I saw it too,” I told Damian as I pulled out of the underground garage. “I’m already halfway there.”

Damian was quiet for a moment. “This doesn’t mean we trust her.”

“Of course not,” I muttered.

But it was a lie.

I didn’t know if I trusted her.

I didn’t know if I wanted to protect her.

I didn’t even know why I was already speeding through city streets like a madman to get to her.

All I knew was this: something had shifted.

And whether it was because of the fear in her scream, or the rage in my gut—I wasn’t staying away anymore.

---

Elena’s POV

I didn’t mean to scream.

But the lights had gone out, and for one horrible second, I thought someone was following me. The library door creaked shut behind me with more force than I remembered, and the sound—echoing in the silence—made me lose my grip on the books in my arms.

Then something moved.

I ran.

By the time Victor found me, I was curled on the floor near the staircase, clutching my wrist.

“It was probably just the wind,” I whispered, humiliated.

But he looked at me with concern I didn’t expect. “You shouldn’t be alone in this house anymore.”

---

Victor’s POV

I didn’t call the boys again. I didn’t have to.

I knew them.

And I knew exactly what fear could do to the men who thought they’d buried all their emotions in success.

They’d come.

Not for me.