Vincent's POV
I had imagined many reasons Aurelia might call me.
An emergency.
A new discovery.
An argument she wanted to finish.
I had not imagined walking into Heavenly Drinks and seeing my own face staring back at me.
For several seconds, I couldn't breathe.
The man stood a few feet away.
He looked older than the photographs I remembered.
Thinner.
More guarded.
But the shape of his face, the eyes, the familiar tilt of his head—
There was no mistaking him.
"Raze?"
His expression broke.
"Hello, Vincent."
I took a step forward.
Then stopped.
My mind was trying to reject what my eyes had already understood.
"You were dead."
He lowered his gaze.
"No."
I shook my head.
"No. I was told you were dead."
He looked up at me.
"I know what Father told you."
The word Father made something cold settle inside me.
Aurelia stood beside us, silent, watching me struggle to comprehend the impossible.
I looked at Raze again.
"Where have you been?"
He exhaled.
"Trying to survive the life he decided I wasn't allowed to have."
We moved to a quieter place to talk.
Aurelia stayed with us.
I was grateful she did.
I wasn't certain I could have trusted myself to hear the story alone.
Raze explained that our father had always considered him weak.
Because he couldn't defend himself against bullies.
Too sensitive.
Too hesitant.
Too unwilling to become the kind of man our father wanted.
When Raze began resisting the future chosen for him, our father turned against him.
The details came slowly.
There had been threats.
Manipulation.
An incident that left Raze vulnerable and allowed our father to make others believe he was gone.
Raze survived.
But he had been separated from the life he knew, and the people who could have helped him had been given a story that made searching seem pointless.
"Why didn't you come back?" I asked.
His expression tightened.
"Because I thought he'd finish what he'd started."
I stared at him.
"You could have contacted me."
"I was afraid."
The answer silenced me.
He looked down.
"I thought he would use you to get to me. And I thought that if I stayed away, at least one of us could live without looking over his shoulder."
I felt anger rise in me.
Not at him.
At the man who had made my brother believe that disappearing was the only way to protect himself.
"Do you have evidence?"
Raze looked at me.
"Some."
I leaned forward.
"Then we'll find the rest."
He blinked.
"Vincent—"
"No."
My voice was sharper than I intended.
"You spent years believing you had to do this alone. You don't."
Aurelia placed her hand over mine.
I looked at her.
She gave me a small nod.
And I realised that, for the first time in years, I had something I had never allowed myself to hope for.
My brother was alive.
Raze's POV
I had imagined meeting Vincent again a thousand times.
In some versions, he hated me.
In others, he demanded to know why I had abandoned him.
In the worst ones, he looked at me as though I were a stranger wearing a familiar face.
I hadn't prepared for him to look as though he wanted to hold me and hit me at the same time.
It was almost comforting.
"You look terrible," he said eventually.
I laughed.
"So do you."
He shook his head.
"Unbelievable."
For the first time in years, the sound of his voice felt familiar rather than painful.
We spoke for hours.
About what had happened.
About what we remembered.
About the years we had lost.
Then he asked the question I had been dreading.
"Why Ava?"
I looked at Aurelia.
She waited patiently.
"I met her while I was keeping my identity hidden. I didn't tell her everything at first. I wanted to be someone separate from my family, someone who could decide what his life meant without Father controlling it."
I swallowed.
"But I fell in love with her."
Vincent's expression softened slightly.
"And you promised to marry her?"
I nodded.
"Yes."
Aurelia exhaled.
"That explains why she believed she was speaking to Vincent."
"I never intended to make her think I was my brother," I said. "But I understand how it happened. I should have told her the truth much sooner."
Vincent leaned back.
"You need to speak to her."
"I know."
"And you need to tell her everything."
"I know."
He studied me for a moment.
Then he shook his head.
"You always were terrible at making things easy."
I laughed.
"You used to say that about me."
"Because it was true."
For a moment, we looked at each other.
Then he reached across the table and gripped my shoulder.
I froze.
He pulled me into an embrace.
And all the years I had spent convincing myself that staying away was the only way to protect him seemed to collapse at once.
He held me tightly.
I held him back.
Neither of us spoke.
We didn't need to.
My brother was alive.
And I was finally home.
Vincent's POV
The evidence against our father was worse than I had expected.
Raze had preserved what he could, but there were gaps. Years of silence, missing records, and people who had been too afraid to speak had left us with a truth that was difficult to prove.
So we worked.
Raze and I reconstructed the timeline, identified corroborating records, and found people who could verify the events he had described. Aurelia helped us organise the material, separate fact from suspicion, and identify the leads that required independent confirmation.
We didn't rush to make accusations we couldn't support.
We built the case carefully.
Piece by piece.
And with every new discovery, my hatred for the man who had raised me grew.
Our father hadn't simply abandoned Raze.
He had made him believe that his own existence was a mistake. He had convinced him that being different meant being weak, that needing love was a flaw, and that disappearing from his family's life was preferable to being seen as a disappointment.
And while Raze had been living with those beliefs, I had spent years mourning a brother I thought I would never see again.
I had grieved for him.
I had wondered whether I could have done something differently.
I had blamed myself for a loss I had never caused.
All because our father had decided that one son was worth keeping and the other wasn't.
When the authorities finally acted, I stood beside Raze as they approached our father.
For the first time, there was nowhere left for him to hide.
He looked at the officers, then at the documents in their hands. His expression shifted from disbelief to anger, and finally to something I had never expected to see on his face.
Fear.
Then his eyes found mine.
"Vincent."
I said nothing.
"Vincent, listen to me."
I almost laughed.
After everything he had done, he still spoke as though he had the right to demand my attention.
"Don't," I said coldly.
His jaw tightened. "You don't understand the full situation."
"Then explain it."
He opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
For years, I had imagined confronting him. I had imagined asking him why he had treated his own children as though they were possessions he could discard when they disappointed him.
Now that he stood in front of me, I realised I no longer needed his answers.
I had seen the evidence.
I had heard Raze's account.
And I had finally understood that there was no explanation that could make what he had done acceptable.
"You tried to destroy my brother," I said. My voice remained steady, even as something inside me threatened to break. "Your own son. You made him believe he was unworthy of being loved, and then you let me spend years believing he was dead."
"Vincent—"
"No. You will listen to me for once in your life."
The words came out sharper than I intended, but I didn't take them back.
"Do you have any idea what it was like to lose him? Do you know how many times I wondered whether I could have saved him? How many times I went over the past, searching for something I should have noticed?"
My throat tightened.
"And all that time, you knew what you had done."
For the first time, our father looked away.
I stepped closer.
"You took years from me. Years I could have spent with my brother. You took those years from him, too. And for what? Because he wasn't the son you wanted?"
His face crumpled.
"I was trying to protect this family."
"Don't you dare use that word."
My voice rose, and the officers beside him exchanged a glance.
"Family is not something you protect by destroying the people in it. You don't get to call cruelty protection just because admitting the truth would make you look like a monster."
He stared at me, his eyes beginning to fill.
"I made mistakes."
"Mistakes?" I repeated.
The word tasted bitter.
"A mistake is forgetting a birthday. A mistake is saying something you regret. What you did was a choice. And you kept choosing it, again and again, while your sons paid the price."
His breathing became uneven.
"I am your father."
"And I was your son."
Silence.
I watched the words reach him. Watched him struggle to find a defence that would put him back in control.
For once, there wasn't one.
"I never wanted this," he whispered.
"Neither did we."
His gaze moved towards Raze.
Something changed in his expression when he saw both of us standing there together. Perhaps it was the first time he had understood that we were no longer children he could separate, frighten, or manipulate into obedience.
We were brothers.
And he had failed to destroy that.
"Raze," he said, his voice breaking. "Please."
Raze had been silent throughout the confrontation. His face was pale, but his eyes never left the man before him.
"Please, son. I know I have done terrible things. I know I cannot undo them, but you have to understand—"
"Understand what?" Raze asked quietly. "That you thought I was too weak to deserve a place in your family?"
Our father's lips trembled.
"No. No, that isn't—"
"Then what was it?"
Raze took a step forward.
"Because I have spent years asking myself that question. I thought there was something wrong with me. I thought if I had been stronger, smarter, more like Vincent, perhaps you would have wanted me."
My hands curled into fists.
Raze swallowed hard.
"Do you know what the worst part was? I kept defending you in my head. Even when I hated you, I found reasons to believe you must have had some reason. Because accepting that my own father could do this to me was harder than believing I deserved it."
Our father began to cry.
Not the quiet, dignified tears of a man mourning what he had lost.
He broke down in front of us.
"I'm sorry," he said. "Raze, I'm so sorry. Vincent, please. I know I have failed you both. Please, you have to forgive me."
He tried to move towards us, but the officers held him back.
"Please," he repeated, looking from one son to the other. "I am still your father."
I felt something inside me go completely still.
"You keep saying that as though it excuses you."
He shook his head desperately.
"I can make this right."
"No, you can't."
The answer came without hesitation.
"You cannot give Raze back the years he spent believing he was unwanted. You cannot give me back the years I spent mourning him. You cannot undo what you did to this family by crying in front of us now."
"Vincent, please. I beg you."
I stared at him.
Once, those words might have mattered to me. Once, I might have given anything to hear him admit that he had been wrong, that he had hurt us, that we had deserved better.
But now, standing before the man who had caused so much pain, I understood something I wished I had learned years ago.
His regret did not make him safe.
His tears did not make him innocent.
And his apology did not make us obligated to forgive him.
"You are going to jail," I told him. "And for the record, you tried to take my own brother away from me. That is not cool."
The words sounded almost absurdly ordinary against the weight of everything between us.
Yet I meant every one of them.
"You don't get to walk away from what you've done. You don't get to cry your way out of the consequences. If you're truly sorry, then face what you did. Tell the truth. Accept the punishment. Stop asking the people you hurt to make you feel better about yourself."
He lowered his head.
For the first time, he had nothing left to say.
Then I saw movement behind us.
My mother had been standing near the entrance, listening.
I hadn't noticed her at first. I was too consumed by the confrontation, too focused on the man who had turned our lives into something we were still trying to repair.
But now I saw her face.
She was staring at Raze as though she were seeing a ghost.
"Raze?" she whispered.
He turned.
"Mom."
One word.
That was all it took.
Her hand flew to her mouth. The colour drained from her face, and she staggered backwards as though the floor had shifted beneath her.
"Mom!"
I rushed towards her, but Aurelia reached her first. She caught my mother's arm and wrapped one hand around her shoulders, holding her upright as her knees threatened to give way.
"Mom," Aurelia said gently. "Breathe. You're all right. We've got you."
My mother could barely hear her.
Her eyes remained fixed on Raze.
"You're alive," she whispered. "My son is alive."
Raze moved towards her, his own composure finally cracking.
"Mom, I'm here."
She shook her head, tears spilling freely now.
"No. No, I—" Her voice broke. "I buried you in my heart. Do you understand? I spent years trying to accept that you were gone."
Raze stopped in front of her.
"I know."
"How could you be gone?" she cried. "How could you be standing here now after all these years?"
Aurelia held her more firmly as my mother pressed a hand against her chest, struggling to take in everything she had just learned.
Then her gaze shifted to my father.
The man she had loved.
The man she had built a family with.
The man who had kept the truth from her.
"What did you do?" she whispered.
He looked at her, his face wet with tears.
"Please, listen to me."
She flinched.
It was a small movement, but I saw it.
So did he.
"What did you do to our sons?" she demanded.
Her voice was trembling, but the question rang through the room.
He tried to approach her.
The officers stopped him.
"I never wanted you to find out this way," he pleaded.
My mother's expression changed.
For one terrible second, she looked as though she might collapse again.
Then Aurelia helped her straighten.
"You didn't want me to find out?" she repeated. "That is what you are worried about?"
He had no answer.
"You let me mourn my child. You let me believe my son was gone while you knew the truth." Her voice broke, and she gripped Aurelia's hand. "I trusted you with my children."
He bowed his head.
"I am sorry."
She looked at him for a long moment, tears streaming down her face.
"I don't know who you are anymore."
Those words seemed to hurt him more than anything Vincent or Raze had said.
He began pleading again, desperately asking her to remember their life together, their marriage, the years they had shared. He begged her not to turn against him, not to let one terrible truth erase everything they had been.
But my mother only shook her head.
"You don't get to use our memories to hide what you did."
I looked away.
I couldn't bear to watch her grieve the man she thought she had married while standing in front of the man he had actually become.
Aurelia stayed beside her, one arm around her shoulders, murmuring reassurances whenever her breathing faltered. She didn't try to explain away the truth or tell her to forgive him. She simply stayed.
And somehow, that mattered more than any words could have.
The officers began leading our father away.
He turned back one last time.
"Vincent! Raze! Please!"
Raze's eyes shone with tears, but he didn't move.
I stood beside him.
Our father searched our faces, looking for something—anything—that might tell him he hadn't lost us completely.
Perhaps he expected anger to fade.
Perhaps he believed that, given enough time, we would remember the good moments and decide that they outweighed the bad.
But I had spent too many years carrying pain that wasn't mine to excuse.
"You should have loved us better," I said.
He stopped struggling.
For a moment, he looked at me like a father who had finally understood what he had lost.
Then the officers took him away.
And I let them.
I didn't follow him.
I didn't call after him.
I didn't offer him the comfort of a final reassurance.
I turned towards my brother instead.
Raze was watching the doorway, his expression unreadable.
I stepped beside him and pulled him into an embrace.
He held on tightly.
"I'm sorry," I whispered. "I'm sorry you had to go through all of that alone."
He shook his head against my shoulder.
"You didn't know."
"Still."
He drew back enough to look at me.
For the first time that day, his expression softened.
"I'm glad you're here, Vincent."
I swallowed the ache in my throat.
"I'm glad you're alive."
Behind us, Aurelia was still holding my mother. When our eyes met, she gave me a small, reassuring nod.
And I realised that the truth had not brought our family back to what it had been.
It had shattered what remained of the illusion.
But perhaps that was necessary.
Because whatever came next, Raze would no longer have to wonder whether he deserved to belong. My mother would no longer have to live inside a lie. And I would no longer have to carry the guilt of a loss that had never been mine to prevent.
Our father had begged us to forgive him.
Maybe one day, we would decide what forgiveness meant to us.
But that decision would be ours.
Not his.
For now, I had my brother beside me.
Aurelia was waiting for me.
And for the first time in years, I could imagine a future that belonged to us—not to the man who had tried to control it.