Chapter 2 The awakening

Two weeks pass before anyone dares to say the word hope.

The hospital room feels like a place time forgot. Machines hum in low, steady beats. The blinds never move. The walls always look the same dull color, no matter how much sunlight spills in.

Alasdair Whitmore lies quiet beneath stiff white sheets. The green line on the monitor rises and falls, the only sign his body hasn’t given up. His face looks thinner, older, like the accident scraped years off him.

In the corner, a young man sleeps on a narrow couch. Michael’s head rests on his folded jacket. His injured arm hangs off the edge, wrapped in bandages that need changing but he won’t bother to ask. He hasn’t bothered with much lately. He comes every day because leaving feels wrong.

No one asked him to stay. But he stays anyway.

The morning is quiet, the kind of quiet that makes every breath sound too loud.

Then Alasdair coughs.

It’s small, barely there, but it cuts through the room like a shout. Another cough follows, rougher. Michael jerks awake so fast he bangs his knee into the coffee table. Pain shoots up his leg but he barely notices.

The old man’s eyes crack open.

For a moment he looks lost, blinking hard, like the world came back too suddenly. The ceiling. The lights. The machines. The faint smell of disinfectant.

Then his gaze drifts sideways.

He sees the stranger on the couch and frowns. “Who the hell…,” he croaks, voice thin and dry.

Michael is already halfway up, tripping over his own feet. “You’re awake,” he blurts, too loud, too relieved. “Just…don’t get up, okay? I’ll get a nurse…”

“Stop.” Alasdair lifts a weak hand, but his eyes are sharp, annoyed. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine,” Michael fires back, but lowers his voice. “You’ve been unconscious for two weeks. Everyone thought you weren’t…” He doesn’t finish.

The old man shifts, inhaling slowly like it hurts. “Two weeks?”

Michael nods. “Doctors said surviving the surgery was already a miracle.”

Alasdair’s gaze lingers on him, studying him with a confusion that slowly turns into recognition. “You stayed?”

Michael shrugs like it’s nothing. “Someone had to.”

There’s no pride in his voice. No expectation. He’s just stating a fact.

But the old man hears something else, loyalty. The kind he hasn’t seen in decades.

“What day is it?” Alasdair asks.

“Monday.”

The chairman lifts a trembling hand, searching blindly for something. “My phone.”

Michael hands it over. It feels too heavy in Alasdair’s hand. But he still dials.

“Liam,” he says when the line connects.

His assistant sounds breathless. “Sir? Sir, is that you? Are you awake?”

“I’m leaving today.”

“But the doctors…”

“I said I’m leaving,” Alasdair snaps, then coughs again, which ruins the dramatic effect a little. “Have the car ready.”

He ends the call before the assistant can argue.

Michael stares. “You can barely lift your head.”

Alasdair smirks faintly. “A lion doesn’t heal by lying down.”

An hour later, the room erupts into movement. Nurses rush in. Orderlies unplug machines. Charts are signed. Papers are shoved into hands. Michael sits on the couch, still half-asleep from stress, watching as the old man forces himself upright with sheer willpower.

When the room is finally empty, Alasdair opens a drawer. He takes out a slim wallet and pulls a card from it, sliding it across the table toward Michael.

Gold letters gleam under fluorescent lights:

WHITMORE GROUP PRIVATE LINE

“You saved my life,” Alasdair says quietly. “I don’t say thank you twice.”

Michael turns the card in his fingers. “I’ll, uh… keep it in case I ever need a job.”

Alasdair chuckles. “You will.”

~~~

The Mansion Hours Later

The Whitmore mansion glows like a palace dipped in champagne. Tall windows spill warm light onto the driveway. Staff stand stiffly in rows as the limousine pulls in behind the ambulance.

It should feel like a homecoming.

It doesn’t.

Inside, chaos blasts through the halls.

Music thunders from the living room, something loud and sugary with heavy bass. “Candyman” vibrates the marble floor. Girls dance in glittering tops and platform heels. Drinks slosh. Someone’s filming on a phone.

The house doesn’t look like it’s waiting for news about a dying chairman.

It looks like it’s celebrating something no one asked permission for.

At the center of the chaos is Daphne Whitmore.

Barefoot. Silk camisole. Sequined shorts. Hair in messy pink-tipped space buns. Her laughter rings through the room as she spins, tipsy and glowing.

Her best friend, Lila, films her from the couch. “Work it, queen!”

Daphne blows a kiss. The chandelier throws light across her shoulders as she twists again.

Then a voice slices through the music like a blade.

“Is this what recovery sounds like in my house?”

The song cuts.

Everyone freezes.

Daphne turns, breath catching. Her mouth falls open.

“Grandpa?”

Alasdair stands in the doorway with a cane, pale but alive, eyes sharp despite the exhaustion. His presence swallows the room whole.

She runs to him and wraps her arms around his shoulders with surprising gentleness. “You’re awake,” she breathes, stunned. “Oh my God, you’re alive.”

He chuckles softly. “You sound disappointed.”

“Are you kidding?” she says quickly. “I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat. I was traumatized!”

“Traumatized,” he repeats, raising a brow.

“Yes! You promised me a million dollars before… all that. You can’t bail on me.”

Lila chokes on her drink, laughing.

Alasdair shakes his head as she pulls him to the sofa. The house smells like perfume, alcohol, and something burnt. Glitter dusts the floor. One of the girls is quietly scooting her heels under the table.

It hits him suddenly, the contrast. The noisy, messy house. The girl who cares too little. The stranger who cared too much.

For a second, he misses the quiet hospital room.

Daphne rests her head lightly against his shoulder. “Don’t scare me like that again.”

He pats her hand. “I’ll try. But life doesn’t take orders.”

Before she can reply, Liam leans in, voice trembling. “Sir… I just received word. Young Master George was seen in S City.”

The cane slips from Alasdair’s hand.

Everything inside him stops.

“What?” His voice is barely there. “George…?”

Liam nods. “Yes, sir.”

Pain hits him fast. His breath catches. His chest tightens.

“Grandpa!” Daphne yells as he slumps forward. “Somebody help…!”

Outside, the wind slips through the half-open door, brushing past Daphne’s hair, cold and sudden, like a w

arning.

A ghost of a name hangs in the air,

George.

A name this house was never supposed to hear again.

A name that means danger is already on its way.