The Return of the Almighty Dragon Jackal

Chapter Four: Reading the will

BACK AT THE ROGER'S ESTATE

The reading of the will was scheduled swiftly.

Andrew hadn’t spoken much since the funeral. His hands trembled every time he touched Richard’s still-unmoving fingers. He tried to remain strong, but inside, he was unraveling. Not just from grief—but from a growing suspicion that wouldn’t let go.

He had barely finished drying his soaked clothes when Olivia summoned him to the drawing room.

“They’re about to read the will,” she said with a smirk. “Try not to embarrass yourself.”

He followed her in silence.

The room was filled with polished mahogany, oil paintings of ancestors who would’ve turned in their graves if they could witness what was about to happen. At the head of the long table sat a lawyer in a grey suit, a thin man with darting eyes and a briefcase too clean for mourning. Carina sat across from him, draped in black lace, fingers gloved, lips painted red—like a widow straight out of a noir novel. Olivia perched at her side, smug, relaxed, chewing gum.

Andrew sat alone, a few seats away, his heart pounding in his ears.

The lawyer cleared his throat. “Per the instructions left behind by the deceased, Roger, I will now read the contents of his last will and testament…”

Andrew leaned forward, eyes locked on the man.

The lawyer opened a document and began.

“To my beloved wife, Carina, and my cherished daughter, Olivia, I bequeath all holdings under my name—including the estate, the company shares, the personal assets, and properties domestic and abroad. As for my estranged son, Andrew…”

Andrew’s breath caught in his throat.

“…I leave my deepest regrets and a sincere hope that he may someday find peace.”

Silence.

Thunder rumbled beyond the window.

Andrew sat motionless. As if a guillotine had just dropped on his soul.

His vision blurred. He looked at the lawyer, then at Carina, whose lips were curled in quiet triumph. Olivia couldn’t even hide her laugh. It slipped from her like a cruel perfume.

“No,” Andrew whispered, standing. “That’s not possible. My father would never..”

“The will is legitimate,” the lawyer cut in, snapping the document shut. “Signed and sealed with a witness.”

“No,” Andrew repeated, louder this time. “My father… he found me. He was planning to bring me back into the company. He cared for Richard. He—he would never just give everything away to them!”

Carina rose slowly. “Maybe he changed his mind after realizing how much trouble you’d bring back.”

Andrew stared at her, stunned.

“You’re lying,” he said. “This is a lie.”

Carina stepped closer, her voice a whisper only he could hear. “Who do you think they’ll believe, Andrew? A boy who vanished for fifteen years? Or the woman who stood by his side every day until the end?”

Olivia clapped mockingly. “Bravo, Andrew. Your little drama performance deserves an Oscar.”

Andrew’s fists clenched so tightly his knuckles cracked. The betrayal burned through his veins like fire. He felt like a stranger in the house he was born in. A ghost haunting walls that once echoed with his mother’s lullabies.

Roger’s voice, now silenced forever, had been twisted into a dagger.

And Carina had plunged it straight into his chest.

The lawyer gathered his things and left, mumbling condolences that felt like spit on a grave. Olivia was already talking about what room she’d renovate first. Carina sipped wine from a crystal glass, eyes gleaming with poisonous satisfaction.

Andrew staggered from the room, breath shallow, fury rising. He rushed outside, the storm having subsided into a grey drizzle. He collapsed onto the cold stone steps of the porch, choking back a scream. Grief. Rage. Confusion. They tore at him all at once.

“Why, Father?” he whispered to the sky. “Why did you trust her?”

But deep in his heart, he knew the truth.

“No, I trust you, father. This is nothing but a lie and a scheme. I can remember you saying you were preparing something to secure our future- mine and Richard’s.”

“Everything will come to light, I trust” he comforted himself.

---

THE HOUSE THAT TURNED AGAINST HIM

That night, the estate felt poisoned.

The staff stopped meeting Andrew’s gaze. Old employees vanished. New ones—hired by Carina—moved like shadows through the halls. The cook was replaced. The gardener disappeared. Even the security team shifted.

It was no longer his home.

Every corner whispered danger.

Carina moved through the halls like a queen scorned, dripping venom with every smirk. Olivia threw tantrums, breaking plates, mocking Richard’s condition, and demanding that Andrew sleep in the servant quarters.

But Andrew didn’t bend.

He took care of Richard himself. Bathed him. Fed him. Sat beside him each night, whispering stories from their childhood. Telling him about the mountain. The monk. Their father. Everything he’d missed.

Sometimes he swore Richard’s fingers twitched.

---

THE FIRE IN THE WALLS

One night, he found Richard’s IV tampered with. The herbal formula had been replaced with a clear, unknown fluid.

He nearly broke the nurse’s arm.

Carina claimed ignorance, Olivia feigned innocence, and the staff said nothing.

So Andrew began keeping a blade beneath his pillow. Locked the doors. Slept in shifts. And every night, he stared into the darkness and whispered to his brother:

“Hang on. I’ll get us out of this.”

But each day felt like a chess game with ghosts.

And then… came the envelope.

---

THE FINAL MOMENT

It arrived unmarked. Slipped beneath his door.

Inside: a single photograph.

Roger’s car—days before the crash—parked outside an old warehouse on the edge of the city.

Beneath it, scribbled in red ink:

"Accidents don’t make appointments."

Andrew stared at it for a long time. His hands trembling, his breath shallow.

The crash wasn’t random.

It was a message.

Someone killed his father.

And whoever they were, they weren’t finished..

___

The days after Roger’s will announcement crawled by like shadows stretching across the walls of a hollow mansion. Silence took on a sound of its own. Even with staff drifting through the halls and the occasional clatter of silverware from the kitchen, the estate felt as though it had swallowed its own heart. Richard remained comatose, a fragile figure tangled in wires and soft beeps at St. Monique’s Medical Center, where sterile air carried the weight of prayers unanswered.

Andrew visited daily. Sometimes twice. Sometimes in the middle of the night when sleep betrayed him.

And it was there, between corridors bathed in pale fluorescent light, that he met her.

Charlotte Rivers.

She was a nurse—new to the hospital, but the way she moved, with effortless grace and quiet command, made it seem like she had always belonged there. Her uniform was always crisp, her dark hair usually pinned up with a pencil stuck between the strands. But it was her eyes that stopped him cold. Not because they were beautiful—though they were—but because they looked at him without pity.

She didn’t see him as a broken boy or the heir to a shattered empire. She saw him. Just him.

Their first conversation happened by accident. He had spilled his coffee in the hallway outside Richard’s room, his hands trembling after hearing the same empty update from the doctor.

Charlotte appeared from around the corner, crouched with a napkin before he could even speak.

“You okay?” she asked softly, offering him a tissue, her tone calm but not clinical.

He forced a tight smile. “Yeah. Just tired.”

She glanced at his hospital ID badge with Richard’s name printed beneath it and nodded in understanding. “Room 312. You’re here a lot.”

“Every day,” he said.

She didn’t say that’s sweet or that’s hard. Instead, she looked him in the eye and said, “That kind of loyalty is rare.”

---

That was how it began.

In stolen moments and quiet exchanges—morning greetings that turned into midday conversations, which eventually bled into twilight walks through the hospital garden. Charlotte had a way of turning the sterile, hopeless air of St. Monique’s into something bearable.

When Andrew couldn’t find the words, Charlotte would just sit with him. When the grief made it hard to breathe, she’d take him to the rooftop and let him scream into the wind. She didn’t fix him. She didn’t try to. She simply stood beside him.

Once, she walked into Richard’s room to find Andrew asleep with his head beside his brother’s hand. She didn’t wake him. She pulled a blanket over him and turned down the lights. When he awoke and realized what she’d done, he asked her why.

“Because,” she said with a soft shrug, “someone should take care of you, too.”

____

They started meeting outside the hospital on her off days. Cheap coffee. Old bookstores. Once, a picnic in a quiet park beneath a sky threatening rain.

He told her about Richard. About his mother. About his love for painting, long buried under layers of pain.

But he never mentioned Carina.

Not yet.

He was afraid speaking the truth aloud would make it more real. And Charlotte—she was the one untouched piece of his life. The only part that didn’t feel like a lie.

One evening, as the sun dipped low and cast streaks of gold across her face, Charlotte said, “Whatever happens, Andrew… don’t let the world turn your heart to stone.”

He stared at her for a long time. “You’re the only reason it hasn’t.”