I couldn't stop staring at the photo.
It was grainy, black and white, the kind of thing that looked like it belonged in a dusty corporate scrapbook somewhere. But there was no mistaking the man on the left.
My father.
Younger. Sharper. Standing next to another man, tall, broad-shouldered, with eyes that looked… familiar.
I didn't know the other face. But the jacket he wore had the company logo stitched into it, back when it still had its old name.
Underneath, typed in small capital letters, was a single line:
PROPERTY OF VALE HOLDINGS – CEO TRANSITION FILE – 2003
My fingers went numb around the edges of the folder.
Behind me, Lucas and Mr. Doyle were still exchanging sharp pleasantries, but I couldn't hear them anymore. My ears had started to buzz.
I flipped the page.
Contracts. Handwritten notes. Half-redacted memos. All centred around something called "Initiative H."
And every few pages, my father's name appeared again.
Peter Hart.
Lucas was speaking now, his voice lower than before.
"Mia, maybe we should—"
"How long have you known?" I asked, still staring at the folder.
Lucas hesitated. "Known what?"
"That my dad worked here. That he wasn't just some mechanic with an old garage and a lot of stories. That he was part of… whatever this is."
He didn't answer right away.
Which told me enough.
I looked up.
And there it was again—that tension in his face. Hard to read, but not empty.
"I didn't know until recently," he said. "I swear."
"But you said you read my file."
"I did. Your current one. Not the buried history your father left behind."
I wanted to believe him. But something inside me—something sharp and self-preserving—held back.
"He never talked about any of this," I said. "Not once."
"Maybe he couldn't."
"Or maybe he didn't want me involved."
Lucas stepped closer, voice steady. "Then why did he keep every one of your award letters? Your college essays? Why did he mark up your thesis like it mattered?"
I blinked.
"What?"
"I found them in the company archive two weeks ago. All of it. Locked in a sealed box labelled under Initiative H. I wasn't sure what it meant—until now."
I stared at him.
And that's when Doyle said it.
"Because she's the fallback."
The air shifted.
My skin went cold.
Lucas turned, fast. "What did you just say?"
Doyle didn't flinch. "If Vale Holdings fails to meet succession metrics, leadership defaults to the bloodline with a prior stake."
He looked at me.
Straight through me.
"She's not just here because you brought her in."
He smiled.
"She was always part of the plan."
"I'm what?" I said, barely above a whisper.
Doyle didn't blink. "The fallback. Should anything compromise the heir's standing, power shifts to the next viable bloodline."
Lucas stepped in. "She's not part of your plans."
Doyle didn't even look at him. "She's in the archive, Mr. Vale. That makes her eligible."
My fingers curled tighter around the folder.
"I'm not part of anything," I said. "I didn't agree to this. I didn't even know."
"That doesn't change your place," Doyle replied like he was reciting company policy instead of rewriting my entire life. "Your father's connection runs deeper than you realize. And his silence doesn't erase that."
Lucas turned toward me now. "Mia—listen to me—none of this matters unless you want it to."
But it did matter.
It mattered because it explained the gaps in my father's life. The vague answers. The tightly locked drawers I wasn't allowed to touch as a kid. The way he flinched every time the word "Vale" came up on the news.
I looked down at the photo again.
He looked proud.
But scared, too.
And that scared me more than anything.
"If I'm this… fallback," I said slowly, "then what happens now?"
Doyle finally looked amused. "That depends on you. You can walk away. Deny it. Pretend none of this ever touched you."
"And if I don't?"
His smile widened.
"Then you don't work for the company anymore, Mia."
Lucas's voice cut in sharp. "She works for me."
But Doyle was already walking away.
And his parting words sent a chill down my spine:
"Not for long."
Lucas didn't speak right away.
He led me to his private office—the fifteenth floor, far from everyone else—and closed the door behind us with a quiet click. The glass windows made the room feel like a fishbowl, but the blinds were already drawn.
He didn't sit.
Neither did I.
I turned on him as soon as the door latched. "When were you going to tell me?"
His jaw flexed. "I wasn't."
"Why?"
"Because I didn't want you to run."
I laughed. Not because it was funny, but because it was unbelievable. "Run? Lucas, you dropped me into a game I didn't know I was playing. You made me the backup plan for a company I didn't even know my father touched. And you thought I'd just… stay?"
"No." His voice was tight now. Controlled, but raw underneath. "I thought if you knew too soon, it'd feel like manipulation. And I didn't want this to start that way."
"This?" I asked. "What is this to you?"
He looked at me then. Looked at me. The way he used to—before the change. Before the woods. Before the blood.
"This is me trying to do one thing right," he said quietly. "Bringing you here wasn't a setup. It was the only choice that made sense."
"For who?" I asked. "You? My father? Your company? Because it sure as hell wasn't for me."
Lucas stepped closer, but not enough to touch. Just enough for his voice to reach me without rising.
"You asked me once why I never forgot you," he said. "It wasn't just because of what happened that night. It's because even then, I knew you were something I wasn't supposed to survive."
I didn't breathe.
"I brought you here because I needed to know if you were still that person," he said. "And now you are. And now you're more."
"More what?"
"More than just a fallback."
I stared at him, pulse-pounding. "Then tell me the truth."
He hesitated.
"Mia—"
"Don't you dare hold back now?"
He closed the distance. And when he spoke again, it wasn't cold. It wasn't corporate. It was quiet.
Terrifying.
"The truth is… if you say yes, you won't just inherit a company."
He stepped closer.
"You'll inherit me."
I stared at him.
At his face.
At his voice, still hanging in the air like a held breath.
You'll inherit me.
He said it like a warning.
Like a promise.
Like he knew it would wreck something.
And maybe it already had.
I didn't move. I didn't blink. I didn't say anything for a long time.
Lucas just stood there, still and sharp and somehow vulnerable in a way I didn't think he was capable of anymore.
I hated that my first instinct wasn't to slap him or scream.
It was to reach for him.
That scared me more than anything else.
"Why now?" I asked finally, voice rougher than I wanted. "Why tell me this now?"
"Because I've run out of time to keep you at a distance," he said.
My laugh was bitter. "You should've thought of that before you handed me a folder full of lies."
"They weren't lies."
"No? Just truths you kept to yourself."
Lucas stepped back then. Just one step. Enough to break the tension, but not the gravity.
"I'm not asking you to forgive me," he said. "I'm asking you to decide if you want to keep running."
"I'm not the one who left," I said.
His jaw twitched, but he didn't argue.
I turned toward the window.
I didn't want him to see my hands shaking.
Didn't want him to see how badly I wanted to believe him.
Or how much of me already did.
I took a breath.
Let it out.
Then said, without turning around:
"Don't ask me for anything else right now."
"I won't," he said softly.
"But if you ever lie to me again…"
I didn't finish the sentence.
I didn't have to.
He just whispered, "Understood."
And I walked out of the room before I could fall into it.