"No matter how painful it is, you should be able to share it with me," Aurora whispered, cupping Mark's face in her hands. "The pain is still stuck in your heart whether you say it aloud or not. Why burden yourself by carrying it alone?"
Mark closed his eyes, and a long, heavy sigh escaped his lips. For a moment, silence stood between them thick and trembling with emotion. "Please," she urged gently, "tell me everything. Who knows… I might even be able to help." Another breath. This time slower. Deeper. His walls finally crumbled.
"Okay," he said, his voice almost a whisper. "Here we go."
****Twenty-Seven Years Ago…*****
"My mother was a maid…"
His voice sounded distant, like he was watching the scene unfold in a dream or a nightmare. "She worked at the Wilson mansion, desperate to make ends meet. She had her sick mother and a younger sister to feed. The job wasn't glamorous, but it kept food on the table."
"My father Henry Wilson was the first son of the Wilson family. He was the heir to the empire. My grandfather, Jackson Wilson, was a tyrant obsessed with power and legacy. He treated his children like pawns in his grand game of dominance."
"He married off his sons to women from powerful families not for love, but for business expansion. My father married a woman from the Reyes family, and my uncle Oliver married Aunt Stacy at least he was lucky enough to marry someone he genuinely loved."
Mark's jaw clenched.
"But my father wasn't that lucky. He never loved his wife. He loved my mother. A servant. "Their love was real but forbidden. My father was too afraid to stand up to his father. He feared losing his inheritance, his position. So instead of fighting for my mom… he hid her."
Aurora's heart shattered silently as she listened. When my mom found out she was pregnant with me, she told him. But instead of marrying her or acknowledging me, he continued to keep her in the shadows providing for her financially but never emotionally, never fully. Not even with his name."
Mark's eyes darkened as memories swam to the surface. "Things got worse when my stepmother his legal wife found out. She was furious. She learned the truth through Aunt Stacy, and she swore vengeance. She tried everything to make my mother lose me. She nearly succeeded."
"We stayed in the servant quarters of the mansion. I was born there. And that place… it never felt like home. Jeffrey my cousin used to sneak out of his room at night to play with me. He had to pretend he hated me during the day just to survive. We were like shadows in our own home."
"My stepmother couldn't bear children. And that became my father's excuse to tell my grandfather the truth. He thought it was the perfect opportunity to finally bring us out of hiding. He thought maybe I could be the rightful heir."
Mark scoffed bitterly. But Jackson Wilson didn't want a 'bastard' carrying the Wilson name. He made that very clear." We were thrown out in the dead of night. It was raining… God, it was raining so hard. I'll never forget that moment. I was six years old. I remember standing outside the mansion soaked and shivering. My father watched from the doorway. He didn't say a word. He didn't lift a finger." His voice cracked for the first time.
"Jeffrey was screaming. Begging his dad to do something. Uncle Oliver… he stood there, paralyzed. He couldn't speak. Grandpa slapped Jeffrey so hard, he fell to the ground."That was the last time I saw that mansion… as a child."
They were both crying now.
"We fled to my mother's hometown. We had nothing, Aurora. Nothing but our names."
He paused. Then continued in a hushed tone.
As if things weren't hard enough, my mother found out she was pregnant again. She cried for days. She tried so hard to be strong for me. But life kept breaking her. She gave birth to my sister, Tiwa."
Mark swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing painfully. "Three years later… my mother died. She left me alone. I was just a child with a baby girl to raise. And I did. I swore on my soul I would protect her. I worked odd jobs. I hustled. I starved so she could eat."
Aurora's lips trembled as she listened, her hand trembling in his. On Tiwa's sixteenth birthday, we found out our father was dead. And guess what? Everything was transferred to my Uncle Oliver. He reached out he wanted to help. He meant well. But I refused." Mark's voice grew hard again.
"Everything I own today, I earned with my own blood and sweat. I didn't need their pity then, and I don't want it now." He looked her directly in the eyes now, a storm behind his gaze.
"I built myself. From nothing. From mud and betrayal. Today, even my grandfather doesn't have the guts to look me in the eye." Aurora couldn't hold back her tears anymore. They spilled down her cheeks like rivers. She reached out and wrapped her arms around him, holding him tightly as if trying to ease decades of pain.
"Your grandfather… he's still alive?"
"Yes," Mark whispered. "Jackson Wilson. He lives at the family ranch on the countryside of Washington. Still ruling that legacy of his like some iron-hearted emperor."
"Mark…" Aurora whispered. "I'm so sorry."
"Don't be," he said with a weary smile. "Everything that happened made me who I am. But now… now I have something I never thought I would peace. And you. And that makes all the hell worth it."