The Heir Who Returned

Chapter 3

"How could you let the little boy go?" he roared. "Can't you handle one simple job? Chase and clean." Mr. Enzo — my father's enemy — shouted, his voice bouncing off the walls of the cramped office.

"Sir, I didn't know, please spare me," the man said, struggling against the grip of the two guards flanking him.

"You are just so useless." Mr. Enzo slammed his palm against the desk, sending a stack of papers sliding to the floor. "If you don't find him, I won't spare you" He said, breathing hard, forcing his voice back under control. It was worse, somehow, when he was calm. "Get out of my sight."

"Yes, boss," the man said, as he hurriedly left, not daring to look back.

Mr. Enzo turned to the row of armed men standing silently by the door, their heads bowing down slightly so they wouldn't meet the gaze of Enzo. "He's just a little boy. There's no way he'll run that far." He said walking back and forth the entire room. "Find that boy within two days or consider yourself dead."

"Yes sir," the nearest one answered immediately, snapping to attention.

Mr. Enzo waved a hand, dismissing them all, and sat in his chair once the room had emptied. A boy — nine years old, unarmed, alone in an unfamiliar territory — had slipped through the fingers of a dozen trained men. It should have been impossible. He thought, growing more certain by the hour that Ethan Titan was still out there somewhere, breathing, a loose thread that could unravel everything Enzo had spent years building against his father.

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*Back at the Titan family mansion.*

The grand sitting room, usually so composed, so carefully arranged, had become something closer to a battlefield. Vases of fresh rose sat untouched on marble side tables.

"Where is my son?" Mrs. Sophia Titan, Ethan's mother, cried, pacing in front of the tall windows, her hands twisting a handkerchief with fear. "Find my son, please. If anything happens to him, I will never forgive you," she said, turning on her husband with an accusation sharpened by two sleepless nights.

"Please, calm down. I'll find our son," Mr. Titan said, though the calm in his voice was thinner than it had been that morning. He stood near the fireplace, arms crossed, a man visibly fraying at the edges beneath an expensive suit. "I have every available team searching. Every contact I have is working on this. We will find him."

"You said that yesterday," Mrs. Sophia snapped, though the anger dissolved almost instantly into something closer to grief. She pressed the handkerchief to her mouth, her shoulders shaking.

In their midst, seated in the corner armchair with her legs elegantly crossed, was Mrs. Vanessa — Mr. Titan's second wife. She had always wanted Ethan gone, and wanted her own son to inherit the Titan Group properties without any obstacle or rival. But her son was illegitimate, born of an affair that had nearly cost Mr. Titan marriage, and as long as Ethan existed, her son would always be second, always be the shadow heir waiting in the wings. Now, with Ethan missing, a door she had long assumed sealed shut had swung quietly open.

She watched the scene with no real pity, though her face wore the correct expression for it — brows drawn, lips pressed thin, the picture of shared sorrow. She had practiced this face for years, ever since she'd first understood that grief, worn convincingly, was its own kind of armor.

"Such a tragedy," Mrs. Vanessa said smoothly, dabbing at dry eyes with a handkerchief that never once touched a tear. "I'm sure the search teams will find him eventually. Boys wander off and sometimes they don't want to be found."

Mrs. Sophia's head snapped up, her grief momentarily eclipsed by disbelief. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing at all." Mrs. Vanessa's lips curled into the faintest, coldest smile, the kind that never reached her eyes. "Only that some children simply aren't suited to carry on the family's legacy. Perhaps, in time, the company will finally be in more capable hands."

"Enough, Vanessa." Mr. Titan's voice cracked through the room like a whip, sharper than either woman had heard from him in years. He pressed a hand to his temple, exhausted down to the bone. "I don't have time for this. I'm going to the headquarters to coordinate with the search teams myself. I want updates every hour, from everyone." He turned to Mrs. Sophia, his expression softening only slightly, the way a man does when he has nothing left to offer but a promise. "I will find him. I swear it."

He strode out, his footsteps echoing down the long marble hall until the front door closed behind him with a heavy, final sound, leaving the two women alone with the weight of everything unsaid between them.

The moment the door clicked shut, Mrs. Vanessa's mask slipped entirely. The soft, sorrowful lines of her face rearranged themselves into something colder, sharper. She rose from her seat without hurry and crossed the room slowly, deliberately, her heels sinking into the plush carpet, until she stood directly over Mrs. Sophia, who hadn't moved from the couch, her hands still trembling in her lap.

"Let's not pretend anymore, shall we?" Mrs. Vanessa said, her voice dropping to something low and venomous, meant for no one but Sophia. "You and I both know that boy was never going to survive out there. Alone, hunted. And when they finally give up looking for him, my son will be the only heir left standing." She leaned closer, close enough that Mrs. Sophia could smell her expensive perfume, harsh and sharp. "There's nothing you can do about it. There never was."

"You wouldn't dare," Mrs. Sophia whispered, her voice breaking despite herself, though even as she said it, she wasn't certain it was true.

"Wouldn't I?" Mrs. Vanessa straightened, smoothing the front of her dress with the same careless elegance she did everything, as though the conversation had been about nothing more consequential than the weather. "Grieve if you like. Cry all you want. It changes nothing." She turned toward the door, pausing only to glance back over her shoulder, her smile thin and merciless. "In a few months, this house won't even remember there was ever another son."

She swept out of the room without waiting for a reply, her heels clicking a slow, unhurried rhythm down the hall, leaving Mrs. Sophia alone in the sudden, ringing silence.

She sat there long after the sound had faded, staring at nothing, her mind circling back again and again to the certainty in Vanessa's voice — a certainty that had nothing to do with hope, and everything to do with knowing.

Mrs. Vanessa pulled out her phone, a slow, wicked smile curling across her lips. "Hello," she said softly. "Make sure the boy is never found”.