Chapter 108: ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHT

NICHOLAS’S POV

Two days had passed since I had finally regained my strength, and I started to feel more like my old self again.

There were no doctors coming and going which was perfect for me.

I was finally able to walk around without feeling like my legs would give out beneath me. This was great. The brothers had relaxed and weren’t as worried, but I still caught them giving me worried glances as though they thought I would suddenly collapse or something.

That morning, all four of them were in the gym.

I had been invited, of course.

Not by choice. Adrian had spent a ridiculous amount of time telling me that a little bit of exercise would be good for a faster recovery, while I glared at him from the comfort of my bed. After everything my body had gone through, I wanted to enjoy the luxury of doing absolutely nothing.

So I told him I wasn’t interested and he left.

So while they were downstairs working out, I was stretched across the couch in the sitting room with the television playing something I wasn’t even watching.

I was halfway through scrolling mindlessly through my phone when I heard a knock at the door.

I frowned and sat up.

The guard usually announced himself before coming anywhere near the door, especially because Adrian had made it very clear that nobody was supposed to enter the penthouse without permission. I glanced toward the hallway before getting up and walking over to check.

When I opened the door, nobody was standing there.

I looked down the hallway.

Weird. It was also empty.

For a moment, I wondered if I had imagined the knock, but then I noticed something lying on the floor directly in front of the door.

A small envelope.

I bent down and picked it up, immediately feeling suspicious.

There was no name written on the front.

My first thought was to take it downstairs to Adrian. This was his penthouse, after all, and considering everything that had happened recently, any strange message delivered to the door should probably go straight to him. I turned the envelope over, intending to hand it to him when he came upstairs.

Then I noticed the writing at the bottom.

My name was written there boldly.

Nicholas.

I stared at it for several seconds. My fingers tightened around the envelope as I looked down the hallway again, suddenly wondering who had managed to leave it there without being noticed.

I closed the door and returned to the couch.

The envelope was thin meaning there wasn’t much inside. When I opened it, I expected to find a letter, but instead there was only another small piece of paper folded neatly inside.

I unfolded it and read the few lines scribbled on it.

"I know who your father was."

I stopped breathing for a second. What the hell?

My eyes moved down quickly, reading the rest. "I also know how he died."

That was it.

There was no other message apart from that. I read the two sentences again, then a third time, hoping I had somehow misunderstood them.

I lowered the paper slowly. "My father?" The words came out quietly, almost like I was talking to myself.

I had barely known anything about my biological father my entire life. Whenever I had asked my mother about him while growing up, she had never given me much information. The only thing she had ever really told me was that he had died protecting us.

Saving us.

That was all I had known about him.

She hadn’t wanted to talk about it and I just guessed that it was a painful event for her. Just the simple fact that he had died and that his death had somehow been connected to protecting my mother and me. 𝘧𝓇ℯℴ𝓂

I had eventually stopped asking.

There had been too many other things happening in my life for me to keep digging into a man I had never even gotten the chance to know.

But now someone had deliberately left a letter at my door claiming they knew exactly who he was and how he had died.

Why?

And, more importantly, what did they know that my mother had never told me?

I looked toward the hallway again. The brothers were still downstairs.

I folded the paper carefully and slipped it back into the envelope just as I heard the elevator doors open.

I immediately shoved the envelope beneath the cushion beside me.

A few seconds later, the brothers appeared.

Cassian was the first one through the doorway, wiping sweat from his forehead with a towel while Roman followed behind him. Elijah came next, still complaining about something that had apparently happened in the gym, and Adrian walked in last.

"You should have come down," Elijah said as soon as he saw me. "You missed Roman getting destroyed."

Roman shot him an annoyed look. "I wasn’t destroyed."

"You were." Elijah laughed, throwing his head back.

Adrian walked past them without even looking back. "Oh please, you were doing it wrong."

That immediately started another argument between them.

I couldn’t help laughing.

For a few minutes, I managed to forget about the letter.

They talked about their workout, argued over who had done better, and complained about how sore they were going to be later. Cassian dropped onto the couch beside me and complained that Adrian had apparently decided they needed to train like professional fighters, while Elijah insisted he had performed better than all of them.

I laughed along with them, responding whenever they dragged me into the conversation.

But my mind wasn’t really there.

Every few minutes, I could feel the envelope beneath the cushion beside me.

They knew who my father was and they also knew how he died.

Those words kept returning to me no matter how hard I tried to focus on the conversation.

Eventually, I couldn’t take it anymore.

I waited until everyone became distracted with another argument before slipping the envelope from beneath the cushion and quietly heading upstairs.

Once I reached the upper floor, I stopped outside my bedroom.

I stared at my phone for several seconds. There was only one person I could ask.

My mother.

I pressed her name and started the call.

It kept ringing and for a while, I thought she wasn’t going to pick. I almost ended it when she finally answered. "Nicholas?"

"Mom."

Her voice immediately made me relax a little, but I still looked down the hallway before speaking. "Is Mr Blackthorne there?"

There was a short pause. "No. He isn’t. Why?"

I exhaled quietly. "Are you somewhere private?"

"I’m outside his office. I stepped out a few minutes ago. What’s wrong?"

"Nothing is wrong." I forced the words out.

I wasn’t sure whether that was a lie or not. I walked into my room and closed the door behind me.

My hand remained on the envelope as I sat down on the edge of my bed. "Mom, I need to ask you something."

Her voice changed immediately. "What is it?"

"It’s about my father."

She immediately went silent. I closed my eyes briefly because that silence alone told me I had asked the right question.

"You’ve never really told me much about him," I continued. "Whenever I’ve asked, you’ve always just said he died saving us. That’s all you’ve ever said."

"Nicholas—"

"I need the truth." I cut her off, hoping she could sense the urgency in it.

I just needed her to understand that I wasn’t asking because I wanted sentiments or the vague shit I was used to bearing. I wanted to know what had actually happened.

"Someone told me they know who dad was and how he died. So I need to know, mom. What are they talking about?"

My mother’s breathing changed and I noticed it immediately. "Mom?"

She didn’t answer.

"Did you hear me?"

"Yes." Her voice was different now, it sounded almost frightened and scared. Like it was something I was never supposed to ask.

I looked down at the envelope in my hand. "Then tell me," I said. "Who was my father, and what really happened to him?"