Heir Above All

Elysium Zero

The gates of Elysium Zero opened without a sound, sliding apart on tracks buried so well into the stone walls that Oscar couldn't see the mechanism moving them. The car Alfred had arranged carried them down a private road lined with trees on both sides, and it took almost two full minutes before the mansion itself came into view.

Oscar had seen large houses before. He had lived in one, technically, for three years. But the Hall Villa was technically a small home compared to this. Elysium Zero rose across the top of a low hill like a structure built for a king rather than a family, wings spreading out on either side of a central hall with windows taller than the front door of most houses Oscar had ever entered.

He didn't say anything as the car stopped. He'd promised himself, somewhere over the hills during the flight, that he wouldn't let his face show more than it had to.

Two people were waiting at the top of the entrance steps.

The first was an older man, tall and composed, dressed in a black suit similar to Alfred's but cut slightly differently, the way a uniform would vary between departments of the same company. He bowed as Oscar approached.

"Young Master," he said. "My name is Harrison. I have the honor of serving as head butler of Elysium Zero."

"Oscar," Oscar said, then caught himself. "Or… Young Master, I suppose, if that's what everyone's going to call me."

"It is customary," Harrison said, without a trace of humor, though something in his eyes suggested he found the correction amusing anyway.

The second person was a woman, younger than Harrison, maybe close to Oscar's own age, dressed in a tailored gray suit that looked more fit for a boardroom rather than on the steps of a private estate. She stepped forward and offered a short, professional nod rather than a bow.

"Evelyn," she said. "I've been assigned as your executive secretary. I'll be managing your schedule, your correspondence, and anything else that needs managing until you're settled enough to manage it yourself."

"That's a lot of things to manage for someone who found out he had a grandfather two hours ago," Oscar said.

"Then it's fortunate I started early," Evelyn said, without missing a beat.

Alfred allowed himself the smallest smile at that, the first Oscar had seen from him all day.

"Elysium Zero was acquired two weeks ago," Alfred said, as they began walking up the steps. "On your grandfather's final instruction, before his passing. None have never been here, Young Master, because until two weeks ago, this house didn't belong to the family at all. Everything inside it has been prepared with you in mind, and no one else."

Oscar walked through the front doors and said nothing for a long moment.

The entrance hall alone could have swallowed the entire first floor of the Hall Villa. A staircase curved up on either side toward a landing lit by a chandelier that looked like it belonged in a museum rather than a house. Original paintings hung along the walls, spaced with the kind of care that suggested someone had chosen each one deliberately rather than simply filling space. Through an archway to the left, Oscar caught a glimpse of a room lined floor to ceiling with books.

He kept walking. He didn't ask questions about the paintings, or the chandelier, or the size of the staircase. He'd learned a long time ago, in a house that was never really his, that showing too much reaction only invited people to enjoy watching him react.

Harrison guided them through room after room – a dining hall with a table long enough to seat forty, a private theater, an indoor pool with glass walls looking out over manicured gardens, a garage visible through one window that held more cars than Oscar had ever seen in one place outside of a showroom. Evelyn walked a half-step behind him the entire time, occasionally noting something on a tablet, never commenting on the scale of any of it, as if this level of luxury were simply the baseline she operated from.

Oscar kept his expression even through all of it. Inside, something in him kept waiting for someone to tell him it was a mistake, that he'd wandered into the wrong tour, the wrong life, and any minute now someone would politely correct the error and send him back outside the gates.

No one did.

"I should clarify something," Alfred said, as they reached the end of the tour, standing now in a quiet hallway near the back of the house. "Elysium Zero is beautiful, and it is yours. But I don't want you mistaking it for more than it is. This is only your residence, Young Master. It is not any of the seats of the Hudson Family's power. It is not where decisions are made, or where the family's true weight is kept. It is simply where you will live."

"If this isn't one the family's seats of power," Oscar said slowly, "then what is?"

Alfred didn't answer right away. Instead, he led Oscar and Evelyn down a final corridor, past a set of doors guarded by no one visible, until they reached a wall that looked, at first glance, like nothing more than smooth gray stone.

Alfred pressed his palm against a section of it, and the wall shifted, sliding open to reveal a vault door taller than Oscar, its surface a dull, heavy steel with no visible handle or keypad.

"This is not the headquarters either," Alfred said quietly. "But it is where your grandfather kept what he considered most important. Not money. Not property. Something he wanted only you to have, when the time came."

Oscar stood in front of the vault, feeling, for the first time all day, something closer to fear than disbelief.

"Young Master," Alfred said. "It's time you inherited what your grandfather left behind for you.”