The Lost Heir: Trials of an Empire Reclaimed

Chapter 036

Moonlight slanted through broken windows of the abandoned warehouse, casting fractured beams across the cracked concrete floor.

The two black jeeps skidded to a halt on the gravel outside. A ragged chain-link fence, its barbed wire twisted and rusted, marked the property’s perimeter.

Inside, moonlight revealed peeling paint, graffiti-scrawled walls, and the skeletal shells of long-abandoned machinery.

Two masked men yanked Silas Lancaster from the rear seat of one jeep. He slumped between them, still groggy from the blow to his neck.

They dragged him across the littered floor, the soles of his dress shoes scraping against shattered glass. The warehouse doors groaned as they pushed him into the main chamber.

A third man grabbed Silas’s arms and forced him into a scarred metal chair bolted to the ground. His legs dangled, wrists pulled tight behind the chair’s narrow backrest.

The cold metal bit into his skin through his suit.

“Wake him,” the first kidnapper growled.

They poured a bucket of icy water over Silas’s face. He gasped, shivering as the water sluiced through his hair and down his suit jacket. His eyes snapped open, pupils dilated in the dim light.

Silas blinked wildly. “Where am I?” he rasped, voice cracking.

One of the masked men stepped forward, shifting the oxygen tank at his belt. “You’re in Meridian Warehouse—north dock,” he replied, voice muffled by the mask.

Silas’s heart thundered. “Let me go,” he croaked. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

The warehouse door creaked again, and the leader of the group emerged from the shadows. Taller than the others, he wore a mask with a single vertical scar painted in blood-red.

In his hand, he held a slender metal teaser—a cruel tool of torture that crackled with electricity.

“You’ve caused enough chaos, heir,” the leader said, voice calm and chilling. He pressed the teaser’s tip against Silas’s chin. “Confess: you’re a fraud. An imposter.”

Silas’s jaw clenched as a jolt of electricity seared through his skin. He whimpered but forced himself to whisper, “I’m not.”

The leader’s lips curved in a mockery of a smile. “We’ll see about that.” He pressed the teaser to Silas’s side, eliciting a grunt of pain. Sparks danced against Silas’s pale shirt.

“Confess,” the leader repeated, voice colder than the night air. “Say it.”

Silas gasped for breath, sweat mingling with the ousted water. “I… am… Silas Lancaster,” he forced out, voice trembling, “heir… to the Lancasters.”

The leader recoiled the teaser and motioned to his men. Two masked figures seized Silas’s arms, yanking him forward.

The leader leaned in close, whispering in a voice as soft as falling silk. “You still don’t get it. You’re not welcome. You lie. You take what’s not yours.” He straightened and raised the teaser again. “This time—”

Silas’s hands tightened around the arms of the chair, knuckles whitening. “I am the heir,” he managed, voice thick with rage and pain. “I’ve earned this. I won’t disappear.”

With a swift motion, the leader pressed the teaser to Silas’s shoulder, and he screamed, head thrown back against the chair.

The electricity danced across his skin, leaving blackened scorch marks on his crisp shirt.

The leader finally withdrew the teaser. Silas sagged, body trembling, sweat and tears mingling on his cheeks.

The other masked men held him upright, breathing heavily in the cold air.

The leader studied Silas, expression impassive. He circled the chair as if inspecting prey. “You have forty-eight hours,” he said, voice deadly calm.

“Forty-eight hours to step down. To disappear without a trace. Or we’ll eliminate you—and your so called family’s empire will crumble with your corpse.”

Silas’s breath caught in his throat. He stared into the masked eyes of the leader, defiance flashing despite the pain. “I’ll never—” he began, voice breaking.

The leader slid the teaser across Silas’s cheek, tracing the line of his jaw. “Save your bravery,” he said softly. “I’ll be back.”

With that, the masked men turned and filed out of the warehouse, their footsteps echoing like thunder reverberating off the walls.

The warehouse door creaked shut, plunging Silas into near-total darkness. Only the silver sliver of moonlight through the broken windows illuminated his pale, perspiring face.

Silas sagged forward, pain radiating through his shoulder and jaw. His mind raced: forty-eight hours. How could he rally help?

His company? The authorities? The patriarch? He struggled against his bonds, but the chair’s chains held fast.

A single shaft of moonlight illuminated the scorch mark on his shirt. He closed his eyes, fighting nausea. His body trembled, but his spirit burned brighter with defiance.

He was Silas Lancaster—fraud or not, imposter or heir—and he would not vanish into that night.

As Surges of pain continued to ripple through him, Silas tested his bonds once more, mind already racing through escape plans, allies to call, strategies to employ.

The warehouse lay silent save for the distant drip of water from the fractured ceiling.

Time stretched. Silas’s breaths came shallow but determined. “Forty-eight hours,” he thought, adrenaline coiling in his chest. He would outlast them.

He would fight. And he would prove, beyond any doubt, that he was the rightful heir of the Lancaster legacy.

In the oppressive night, bound to a chair in an abandoned warehouse, Silas Lancaster vowed his next move as he managed to free himself—and the reckoning that would follow.