Rise to Power: The Miraculous Liam Regan.

Chapter 8

She said as she hurried away, her light footsteps fading into the corridor.

Liam blinked, still disoriented, and slowly stepped outside. The fresh air hit him like a quiet relief sharp, cold, real. The small porch overlooked a narrow strip of road lined with dust and broken stone. And there, beside a worn wooden table, stood a familiar figure.

The sight caught Liam completely off guard.

“Mr. Thiago…” he whispered.

The old man turned toward him with the same weary calm he had always carried. His beard was white, his hands buried deep in the pockets of a faded mining jacket. He looked exactly as he did at the worksite tired but solid, like stone that refused to crumble.

Liam took a hesitant step forward. He couldn’t believe it.

Mr. Thiago the oldest miner in their team, the man who had once called him “kid” without malice had somehow found him. He must have saved him, taken him from the roadside, patched him up, brought him here… Before Liam could say the words aloud, Mr. Thiago raised a hand gently.

“I didn’t save you, boy,” he said, voice low and steady. “When I passed by the main road yesterday, I saw you lying there. You weren’t bleeding. You weren’t hurt. You were just… asleep. Perfectly fine, so I thought you passed out from of the work.”

He shrugged. “So I brought you home. Thought you needed rest more than anything.”

Liam’s brow furrowed deeply. That couldn’t be right. He remembered the strikes, the blood, the crushing pain as the car hit him. He had felt his body breaking apart.

“How could that be possible?” he muttered to himself.

At that moment Mr. Thiago gave a slow shake of his head. “Maybe,” he said quietly, “some generous stranger passed by and gave you strong medicine to recover your lost strength while you were unconscious. Either way, thank God you’re still alive.”

Liam could only nod at Mr. Thiago’s words, that had to be the explanation.

There was no other way to make sense of it.

What happened at the office hadn’t been a nightmare. It hadn’t been some cruel illusion born from pain and desperation. Emily had truly betrayed him. She had wanted his land from the very beginning, every smile and promise carefully wrapped around that single goal. The truth sat heavy in his chest, cold and undeniable.

Thiago glanced toward the doorway and gently waved his hand. “Go on now,” he said to his little girl. “Go play outside.”

She nodded obediently and skipped away, her laughter briefly cutting through the heaviness in the air.

Without saying anymore words Thiago then lowered himself onto a wooden chair across from Liam. His posture was slow, tired, but his eyes were sharp filled with concern rather than pity.

“We heard everything,” he said quietly. “Word spreads fast among miners. Emily was after your land from the start. That office fight, the way you were thrown out it all makes sense now.”

Liam clenched his fists.

Thiago continued, “We’ve talked among ourselves. The team. We’re putting together a donation. You won’t be sleeping on the streets. We can raise enough so you can rent a small place, at least until things settle down.”

The moment the words left Thiago’s mouth, Liam stood up abruptly. His chair scraped against the floor.

“No,” he said, voice shaking but firm.

Thiago looked up in surprise.

“I won’t lose that house,” Liam went on, his eyes burning with stubborn resolve. “That land is the only thing my family owns. My ancestors built that house with their own hands. We’ve lived there for generations.”

His chest rose and fell as emotions surged through him.

“How could I be the one to shatter my family tree?” he said hoarsely. “How could I be the one who leaves nothing behind nothing for my descendants when the time comes, in a god‑forsaken life like this.”

Mr. Thiago sat quietly for a long moment, his weathered hands clasped together. He fully understood what Liam meant the grief and pride tangled into one but understanding didn’t make the truth any easier to deliver. He took a slow breath before speaking again.

“Liam,” he said gently, “there’s nothing more you can do now. You’ll have to start over, and be smart about it.”

Liam’s head snapped toward him. “Over my dead body!” he snarled, the words trembling with rage. “Start over? When I already have a home?”

Thiago’s eyes dropped. He looked pained, as though the weight of the words he carried might crush them both.

“Liam…” he said softly, “your house… it’s gone.”

Liam’s face froze.

“It was demolished last night,” Thiago continued, his voice barely above a whisper.

For several seconds, no sound escaped Liam’s mouth. Then his breath caught sharply, and fear began to claw up his throat. His mind filled with flashes of memories his father’s portrait hanging in the hallway, his mother’s old clay vase, the ancient family tree tablet carved by his great‑grandfather’s hands, their graves.

“All of it…” he whispered. “Gone?”

Thiago reached out, trying to calm him. “Liam, please. Think before you—”

But Liam was already rushing toward the door.

“Liam!” Thiago shouted, standing abruptly. “Don’t do anything foolish!”

However Liam didn’t even look back. He was already sprinting down the dusty road, driven not by reason but by the desperate pull of loss.

The streets blurred past him as he ran narrow alleys, rusted fences, faint lights from the factory district. In just a few blocks, the familiar outline of his neighborhood came into view.

Only, it wasn’t his neighborhood anymore.

What once stood tall and proud was now an open stretch of broken ground. His home his family’s home had been completely demolished. Rubble and dust were all that remained, scattered under the morning light.

A large warning board stood in front, with bold letters that read: [NO ENTRY.]

Liam didn’t care.

He stepped over the sign and walked straight into the ruin, his shoes crunching against shattered tiles. Then his knees buckled, and he fell hard onto the debris. His eyes flooded as he looked around no photographs, no heirlooms, no graves, or trace of the life that once held his family together. Everything had been erased, as if the Reagans had never existed.

Then he pressed his palms against the dirt, trembling. The thought came unbidden: for someone like him an E‑level citizen it would take a lifetime, maybe fifty years of backbreaking work, to build what had just been stolen in a single night.