Chapter 1: The Weight of Three Crowns
Chapter 1: The Weight of Three Crowns
"They're four," Elena said. Her voice didn't tremble. It was flat, hard, and colder than the October wind howling outside the bistro's windows.
Sebastian couldn't take his eyes off them. The restaurant around him dissolved into a blur of meaningless background noise.
The boy in the booth: He had Sebastian’s exact, piercing gaze—the fierce, unyielding intensity that had terrified boardrooms across Europe and Asia. He was clutching a plastic dinosaur like a scepter.
The boy in the stroller: He had the Thorne jawline, sharp even in toddlerhood, but he was quietly observant, tracking Sebastian’s movements with a chillingly familiar analytical focus.
The little girl: She possessed Elena’s soft mouth, but when she blinked, her eyes revealed the exact, unusual amber flecks that Sebastian saw in his own mirror every morning.
Three of them. Triplets. A matching set of his own soul, multiplied and hidden away in a lower Manhattan bistro while he sat in a glass tower buying up the world.
"Four," Sebastian repeated, the word tasting like ash. He looked at Elena, taking in the defensive stance, the knuckles turning white on the stroller handle. "Four years old, Elena. Which means you were pregnant when you signed the papers. When you left."
"When you traded me for your mother’s approval," Elena corrected sharply, her voice dropping into a fierce whisper so the children wouldn't catch the venom in it. "Don't rewrite history, Sebastian. You sent your lawyer. You sent the bank statements. You told me exactly how much my absence was worth to the Thorne family."
May you like
Sebastian froze, his mind racing through the fog of a five-year-old trauma. "I didn't send you anything but my signature because you demanded it. You ghosted me, Elena. Your phone was disconnected. Your apartment was cleared out. I came home to an empty house and a courier holding a divorce decree."
Elena let out a short, bitter laugh that cut deeper than any corporate knife. "Is that the story Margaret fed you? Fascinating. But I don't have time for a billionaire's revisionist history. Leo, Chloe, Mateo—get your coats. We're leaving."
