The Two Paths Of Jude And Dave

Shattered Reflections

Chapter Three: Shattered Reflections

The boardroom of Twins Pure Beverages had never felt colder.

The walls, once alive with the hum of new ideas and laughter, now echoed with whispers and the sound of tension thick enough to choke on. Jude sat at the long table, head bowed, hands clasped, staring at a printed document that shouldn’t have existed — the official notice of investigation. His daughter’s name was there, clear as daylight: Mia Walker.

Possession. Distribution. Cocaine.

The company’s PR department had tried to keep it quiet, but secrets had a way of finding the light — especially when reporters smelled blood.

Dave stood by the window, staring out at the skyline, his reflection sharp and rigid. “We can fix this,” he said softly, but his voice didn’t sound convinced.

Jude didn’t look up. “No, Dave. This isn’t about fixing. This is about facing it.”

“She’s your daughter, Jude. You don’t just throw that away.”

“And you think I want to?” Jude’s voice cracked like thunder. “You think I wanted to see her name in a police report? You think I raised her for this?”

The silence that followed was heavy — years of brotherhood and buried pain pressing down.

Dave turned. “You’re blaming yourself again. That’s what you always do.”

Jude finally looked up, eyes red, tired. “Because maybe I should.”

Mia Walker had been her father’s joy once — a bright-eyed girl who ran around the factory floor with pigtails and a clipboard pretending to manage the workers. She loved numbers, details, the sound of the conveyor belts.

But when she hit her late teens, something shifted. The world wasn’t enough anymore. The attention of being “the boss’s daughter” wasn’t fun — it was suffocating. And when she got older, people stopped seeing her; they only saw the name.

The first time she tried cocaine, it wasn’t rebellion. It was escape.

By the time Jude found out, it was too late — she wasn’t just using; she was dealing.

Not for the money, but for control. For power in a world where she felt like her life had already been written.

Dave’s son, Nathan, wasn’t much better.

He had just turned twenty-one and was already infamous for fights, fast cars, and tabloid headlines. The heir of Twins Beverages caught in yet another bar brawl. The Walker legacy on the edge.

Dave had spent years trying to steer him right — mentoring, private schools, even military camps — but Nathan’s rebellion only deepened.

He saw his father as a man who lived to impress, who had built an empire but lost his fire.

“You’re all talk about dreams, Dad,” Nathan spat one night, storming out of their mansion. “You tell everyone to chase theirs, but you don’t even live yours anymore. You’re just keeping the machine running.”

That night, he didn’t come home.

He was found three days later, drunk, his car wrapped around a streetlight, the company logo still on the windshield decal.

The fallout hit hard.

The media called it “The Twin Collapse.” Two brothers — once symbols of unity and success — now facing scandal from both sides of their bloodline. Investors threatened to pull out. The board demanded answers.

But inside, it wasn’t just the company breaking apart — it was the family.

Jude and Dave, who had once rebuilt their lives from the ashes of a broken home, now stood in the ruins of their own making.

Jude blamed himself for Mia.

Dave blamed himself for Nathan.

And, in a quiet, aching way, they blamed each other too.

It was late — close to midnight — when Dave came to Jude’s house. The rain hadn’t stopped all evening, the same kind of heavy, slow rain that had fallen the day their parents were buried.

Jude opened the door wordlessly, stepping aside to let him in. The house smelled faintly of coffee and old wood. In the corner, a single lamp cast a golden halo around stacks of unopened mail and unread papers.

“Have you heard from her?” Dave asked.

“She’s in rehab,” Jude said flatly. “Court ordered.”

Dave nodded, eyes lowering. “Nathan’s in county lockup. DUI. Reckless endangerment.”

Jude exhaled, dragging a hand over his face. “It’s happening again, Dave.”

“What is?”

“The cycle,” Jude said quietly. “We worked so damn hard to escape Dad’s shadow, but look at us. Our kids are becoming him. Wild. Lost. Angry.”

Dave sat down heavily on the couch. “Maybe that’s just life. Maybe every generation breaks something new.”

“No.” Jude shook his head. “Mom didn’t raise us to believe that.”

They sat in silence, the kind of silence that carried years of laughter, fights, victories, and regrets.

Finally, Dave whispered, “Do you ever think about what she’d say if she saw us now?”

Jude smiled faintly, eyes glassy. “She’d tell us to stop blaming ourselves and fix it. Like she always did.”

The next morning, Jude visited Mia.

She looked smaller than he remembered — pale, thin, wearing the kind of tired that sleep couldn’t cure. The rehab center smelled of disinfectant and lavender. When she saw him, she smiled weakly.

“Dad,” she whispered.

Jude didn’t speak at first. He just held her hand. It was cold, trembling.

“I’m sorry,” she said, tears filling her eyes. “I didn’t mean for it to get this far. I just… wanted to feel something. To matter.”

Jude’s throat tightened. “You’ve always mattered, Mia. You just stopped believing it.”

She cried then — soft, broken sobs that filled the quiet room. And for the first time in years, Jude didn’t feel anger or shame. He just felt love. Heavy, unconditional, painful love.

Across town, Dave was doing the same — visiting Nathan in jail.

The boy looked defiant, but his eyes betrayed exhaustion. When Dave entered the holding room, Nathan barely looked up.

“You came,” he said bitterly.

“Of course I did,” Dave replied. “You’re my son.”

Nathan snorted. “Yeah, your failure of a son. That’s what everyone’s saying.”

Dave sat across from him. “I don’t care what they say. You think I haven’t failed? You think I haven’t been angry like you?”

Nathan looked up for the first time, confusion flickering across his face.

“I know what it’s like to feel like you’re never enough,” Dave said, voice trembling. “Our father made me believe that for years. I just learned to turn that anger into something else. You still can too.”

Nathan’s jaw tightened. “Why do you still care?”

Dave smiled faintly. “Because that’s what real fathers do.”

That night, the twins met again — not in the boardroom, not in their homes, but at the small graveyard where their parents rested.

The rain had stopped. The air was clear and cool. The city lights shimmered in the distance.

They stood side by side, hands in pockets, staring at the two headstones.

Jude broke the silence first. “We thought we were breaking the curse, Dave.”

Dave’s voice was soft. “Maybe we were never meant to break it alone.”

Jude looked at him. “You think they’ll change?”

“They will,” Dave said. “If we keep showing up. If we love them the way Mom loved us.”

Jude nodded slowly, tears glinting in his eyes. “Then we start over.”

They didn’t know what the next day would bring — whether the company would survive, whether the headlines would fade, whether their children would truly heal.

But in that quiet cemetery, with the wind whispering through the trees, the brothers made a silent promise:

The legacy would not end in ruin.

Not again.

And though their reflections were shattered, they would still find a way to piece them together — one fragment of forgiveness at a time.

the next chapter will summarise the whole story and redefine peace