Chapter 2: They Were Already Gone

Lena's POV

Glew ended the call and turned to me, his voice tight with urgency. "Miss, Mr. Richard and Mrs. Elizabeth were in a car accident on their way here. They're being rushed to St. Mary's Hospital right now — it's critical."

My mind went completely blank.

"...What?"

"There's no time. Please, come with me — now."

He was already moving toward the Bentley, his footsteps quick and uneven. I followed on instinct, stumbling into the back seat as though my legs had stopped belonging to me.

The car cut through the rain at speed. I sat in the darkness of the rear cabin with my fingers twisted together in my lap, my thoughts reduced to a single loop I couldn't escape: I haven't even met them yet.

I had been left at the orphanage door the day I was born. For twenty-five years, I had carried the quiet, unspoken belief that no one had wanted me. And then, without warning, someone had told me that my biological parents had been searching for me for all of those years — every one of them. Now, on the very night they were driving to find me, they were fighting for their lives.

The burn behind my eyes became unbearable. Tears blurred the rain-streaked window until the streetlights dissolved into smears of pale gold. I thought, with a bitterness I had no words for, that the universe had a particular cruelty reserved just for me.

The Bentley stopped at the entrance to St. Mary's, and Glew led me at a near-run through the emergency hall. The operating room doors were sealed shut, the red light above them burning steadily: Surgery in Progress.

I stood outside those doors and shook.

Glew said something low and reassuring at my side. I didn't hear a word of it. I kept my eyes fixed on the red light as though, if I stared hard enough, I could hold time still by sheer force of will.

I don't know how long I stood there. Eventually, the light went dark, and the attending surgeon pushed through the doors. I read his face before he spoke — the exhaustion in it, and something worse than exhaustion.

"Doctor," I managed, my voice barely holding together. "My parents — how are they?"

He looked at me with something close to pity. "Both patients sustained severe internal injuries with extensive blood loss. We did everything we could." He paused. "You should go in and say goodbye."

The floor seemed to tilt. I lurched forward — and then a hand shot out and seized my arm, wrenching me back so hard I nearly fell.

"Stop right there."

The voice was sharp and cold, like a blade dragged across glass.

I turned. A middle-aged woman in a dark violet suit stood blocking my path, two black-clad bodyguards flanking her with their arms crossed, their eyes moving over me with open contempt.

"So you're the little stray they dug up." Her gaze raked me from head to foot. "I knew it the moment I heard. Nothing but bad luck on two legs. You just showed up, and already you've gotten my brother Richard and his wife killed."

"I didn't—" The denial came out before I could stop it, thin and helpless. I knew, even as I said it, that this woman — my father's older sister, my aunt Lauren wasn't interested in anything I had to say.

Glew stepped forward and placed himself between us. "Miss Lauren," he said carefully, "this young lady is Richard's and Elizabeth's biological daughter, confirmed by DNA. After everything the master searched for — surely he would want to see her, even now, at the end—"

"See her?" Lauren's voice cracked upward. "If she hadn't appeared out of nowhere, Richard would never have driven back in the middle of the night. He'd still be alive. She brought this on all of us." She turned sharply. "She doesn't set one foot through that door. Get her out of here."

The two bodyguards moved without hesitation. Each one took an arm, and I felt myself being dragged backward, my heels scraping the floor.

I fought them with everything I had. I screamed toward the closed doors, my voice breaking apart on each word. "Let me in. Please — let me see them—"

It made no difference. I was going nowhere.

Lauren watched with a cold smile curling her mouth. "A girl raised in an orphanage," she said, her tone dropping into something deliberate and cutting, "does not walk through the doors of the Lambert family. Let me be very clear with you—"

"Would someone mind telling me what's going on here?"

The voice came from behind her — unhurried, measured, and carrying the particular quiet authority of someone who had never needed to raise it.

Lauren stopped mid-sentence. She turned, and the moment she registered who had spoken, her expression shifted entirely. She straightened, and when she spoke again, her voice had taken on a careful, almost solicitous tone. "Mr. Jack. I didn't expect to see you here. Has Mr. Julian sent you for something?"

I looked past her, and recognition stopped me cold. It was Jack — Julian Anderson's personal aide, the father of Elliott Anderson. What was he doing here? Had something happened with Elliott? My thoughts scattered uselessly before I could follow them anywhere.

Jack had already crossed the distance between us. He stood now in front of Lauren and me, his expression composed, his gold-rimmed glasses catching the corridor light. "I heard about Mr. and Mrs. Lambert's accident," he said. "I came to pay my respects." He let a brief pause settle before his gaze moved to me. "I didn't expect to walk into this."

Lauren's jaw tightened. She produced a short, hollow laugh. "It's a private family matter. I'll have it sorted in a moment—"

"A private family matter." Jack's voice remained entirely pleasant. "If I understood correctly, this young woman is Richard's and Elizabeth's biological daughter — confirmed. You're preventing a daughter from seeing her parents in their final moments." He tilted his head slightly. "That doesn't seem quite right to me."

Lauren's expression cycled through several things in quick succession before settling on something approximating graciousness. "You're too kind to concern yourself, Mr. Jack. I was only worried about the shock being too much for the girl — but of course, since you've raised it..." She flicked a glance at the bodyguards.

The hands on my arms released.

I ran.

But I was too late. The moment I stepped through the door, the monitor let out a single, flat tone — one long, unbroken note that meant everything was already over.

They were lying side by side on the surgical table, perfectly still. The man had strong, deep-set features — a high brow, a sharp jaw — handsome even now, even through the gray pallor of what had been done to him. The woman's face was very pale, her lips shaped like mine, her brow furrowed as though she had died mid-thought, mid-worry, with something left undone. Their hands were still joined between the two tables, fingers interlaced, holding on even at the end.

I don't know when I started crying. By the time I was aware of it, the tears had already gone past the point of control.

I wanted to say something. I shaped the words in my mouth — Mom. Dad. — but they never made it out. They dissolved somewhere in my throat, because I understood, with a clarity that was almost unbearable, that it no longer mattered what I said. They couldn't hear me. They would never hear me.

I sank to my knees beside the bed. I pressed my forehead against the cold metal railing and wept without sound, my shoulders shaking with the effort of holding myself together and failing completely.

A hand came to rest gently on my shoulder. Glew had followed me in. He crouched beside me and pressed a clean handkerchief into my hands, his own voice thick with grief he was working hard to contain. "Miss," he said quietly. "The master and the mistress — they wouldn't want to see you suffer this way."

He reached into his jacket and drew out a deep blue envelope. "The master left this before they departed. A will. He said that if anything were to happen — all assets in his and the mistress's names, the real estate holdings, the trust funds, the equity in three listed companies — everything passes to you."

I stared at the envelope without seeing it. None of it meant anything to me. Not one word of it.

And then, from the doorway behind me, Lauren's voice cut through the room again.