The Return Of Adrian Raines

5. Welcome Home

The entire police department was left shocked and confused as the rich and beautiful Lily Foster was bowing to a nobody like Daniel.

Even Daniel himself had the same thought in his mind. He had no idea who could be happening, but then he recalled the phone call he had received earlier and realized the woman's voice was the same as the one who spoke to him on the phone.

Could it be possible that Lily Foster had really called him?

“Well, what the hell are you standing around for?” She yelled, scaring even Daniel as her voice suddenly sounded sharp. “I want him out of there in the next second!”

“Y--yes ma'am!”

No one could go against her words unless they wanted to lose their jobs.

Within the next second, Daniel was released from the cell. Still surprised, he just stood still as Lily's gaze swept over his profile.

“Mr Raines, I promise to sort everything out.”

Daniel thought he hadn't heard her right. “Mr… Raines?” Surely that was a mistake. “Listen miss, I think you have me confused with someone else. I'm Daniel Shaw.”

Her stern expression was immediately replaced with a soft smile as she turned to him. “I'll explain everything to you later.” Just like that, her cold expression returned as she spoke to the officers. “Would any of you mind telling me why our young master was locked up like a criminal?”

“Well ma'am, his landlord asked us to detain him as he was unable to meet up with the payment for his rent.” One officer explained timidly.

“Leave the landlord's details with one of my boys and they'll handle him. The young master will be leaving with me now.”

“Of course ma'am.” The police responded with a deep bow.

She turned to the security who had received the details of the landlord. “I want that building to be in our young master's name before the end of the day.” She ordered.

“Yes ma'am.” He bowed and walked out.

Daniel stood there, completely dumbfounded, only watching as the scene played out like he was watching a movie.

“Sir, this way please.” Lily said to him.

He let out a dry chuckle, all the respect was starting to make him uncomfortable. “Please, just call me Daniel.”

She smiled and nodded. “Of course, sir.”

Seated inside the luxurious car, Daniel felt conflicted. On one hand, he felt happy that someone had fought for him for the first time in his entire life.

On the other hand, following a woman he didn't know to somewhere he had never been, filled him with unease.

When the car pulled to a stop, Daniel couldn't hide his shock. The engine's hum faded into silence, and for a moment he just sat there, hand frozen on the door handle, staring through the tinted window like the glass itself might be lying to him.

It felt like he was no longer on earth.

The mansion stood in front of him, enormous and pale gold in the afternoon light, so beautiful it seemed like a mistake… like something had been misfiled, and he'd been delivered to the wrong life by accident. Twin rows of manicured hedges lined a driveway wide enough to be a road. Somewhere beyond the iron gates, a fountain caught the sun and threw it back in scattered white sparks.

"We're here," Lily said gently, already stepping out to open his door.

Daniel had only ever seen something like this on television, the kind of house they showed in documentaries about people whose money didn't fit in bank accounts, only in numbers on a screen. And yet, as he stepped out onto gravel that crunched too perfectly under his shoes, a strange feeling settled at the back of his mind. Not awe. Not quite recognition either. Something closer to déjà vu, thin and slippery, gone the moment he tried to hold onto it.

The place was staggering in scale, gardeners crouched over flowerbeds that needed no improvement, a man in a dark suit polishing the brass door handles that already gleamed, someone else sweeping a walkway that didn't have a single leaf on it. Hands everywhere, tending to a perfection Daniel couldn't understand the need for.

Stepping inside didn't make it easier to digest. If anything, the inside made the outside look modest.

White marble floors stretched out beneath a ceiling that seemed to hover somewhere near the clouds, veined with gold trim that caught the light from a chandelier the size of a small car. Everything gleamed. Everything smelled faintly of something expensive he couldn't name — beeswax, maybe, or fresh flowers flown in from somewhere that wasn't here. The air itself felt cleaner, thinner, like it had been filtered through money.

In the living room — a space so large it could have swallowed his old apartment twice over — a middle-aged man sat waiting.

Even seated, wealth radiated off him in an intimidating way. His beard and hair were combed into a careful, elegant grey, not a single strand out of place. When his eyes lifted and found Daniel's, they were a striking emerald, and something in them cracked open — joy, raw and immediate, the kind that doesn't know how to hide itself.

He was looking at Daniel like he was looking at a ghost he'd prayed would come back.

"Mr. Robert Raines," Lily said, bowing her head. "We have brought him."

Robert rose slowly, as though afraid sudden movement might scare the moment away. His smile, when it came, was brighter than every light fixture in that gleaming room combined.

"Welcome home, my son."

The words hit Daniel somewhere he didn't have a name for.