"This is all yours," Francis's mother said, standing in the middle of Skyward's main atrium, craning her neck up toward the glass ceiling three stories above them, her voice carrying something between disbelief and quiet, overwhelming pride."Most of it," Francis said, guiding her slowly through the space, her steps still careful despite how thoroughly she'd recovered over the past month. "Though I'd say it belongs to considerably more people than just me, at this point. Thousands of employees, a board, shareholders who bet on something before anyone else believed in it.""You built the foundation," she said, waving off his modesty with the same brisk certainty she'd always used to correct him as a boy. "I remember those nights, Francis. You'd forget to eat, forget to sleep, so lost in whatever you were building that the rest of the world simply stopped existing for you.""I remember them too," Francis said, something warm settling into his chest at the memory despite everything that

"Sit down, Francis," his mother said, her voice carrying a weight he'd rarely heard from her, even during the worst of the last few months. "I think it's finally time I told you the truth."Francis lowered himself into the chair beside her hospital bed, the same room she'd occupied weeks ago now serving as her regular checkup space, though the gravity in her expression tonight felt considerably heavier than any medical update."Naomi found something," he said carefully. "A man on the wedding guest list. Reginald Hartley. His birth records show a name change from Cole, and a birth date that lines up with when you first came to this city."His mother's hands folded tightly in her lap, something old and long-buried finally surfacing behind her composed expression. "Your father didn't die, Francis. I've let you believe that for thirty years, and I owe you considerably more honesty than I've given you so far."Francis said nothing, letting the silence stretch, though something cold and unf

"You look radiant," Eliza said, adjusting Chelsy's veil one final time backstage, her voice carrying more emotion than her usual composed delivery typically allowed. "I never imagined I'd feel this proud watching you marry someone I once threatened with a bank card across a table.""Times change," Chelsy said, something warm and amused in her voice despite the nervous energy radiating off her. "So do mothers, apparently."Out in the ballroom, four hundred guests filled the space in careful, elegant rows, the city's business elite gathered exactly as Eliza had intended, watching and waiting for a ceremony that had already generated considerable buzz across every society page in the city.Francis stood near the front, Chris Jones serving as his best man, Naomi seated in the front row despite her usual insistence on staying professionally invisible during major events. He scanned the crowd once, searching despite himself for a face he'd only seen in old photographs, wondering if Reginald

"You look rested," Reginald said, rising from the small cafe table the moment Francis and Chelsy walked in, the week's promised explanation clearly weighing on him despite his attempt at a light greeting. "The honeymoon suited you both.""It did," Francis said, pulling out a chair for Chelsy before taking his own seat across from his father, still adjusting to how naturally that word had begun settling into his vocabulary after only a week. "Though I imagine you didn't ask us here to discuss the weather in the Maldives."Reginald's brief smile faded, something considerably heavier replacing it. "No. I promised you the truth, and I intend to keep that promise, however uncomfortable it turns out to be."Chelsy reached for Francis's hand under the table, quiet support offered without needing to be asked, and Francis found himself grateful for it as his father began."In my twenties," Reginald said, "I was desperate. Broke, ambitious, convinced I had an idea worth building if only someone

"He's fine," Reginald said the moment Francis burst through the front door of the modest house, though his voice carried a tightness that undercut the reassurance considerably. "Shaken, but fine. Please, both of you, come in before the neighbors gather any more of an audience than they already have."Francis crossed the small living room fast, taking in the shattered front window, glass still scattered across the floor despite someone's attempt to sweep the worst of it aside, a brick sitting heavy on the carpet where it had apparently landed after crashing through."When did this happen," Francis asked, already pulling out his phone to call Naomi."An hour ago," Reginald said. "I was in the kitchen. Didn't see anyone, simply heard the glass shatter and found this waiting when I came to investigate." He gestured to a folded note sitting on the coffee table, considerably more unsettling for its calm, businesslike tone than any explicit threat could have managed.Francis picked it up, re