Chapter 5 - THE SCARS WE CARRY
The words hit Emma with the force of a physical blow.
He has the burn scars on his back to prove it.
Emma stared at her little brother, the edges of her vision blurring. “Julian pulled you out?” she choked out. “Leo, what are you saying? The police said a firefighter found you outside the window.”
Leo shook his head, his dark curls falling over his pale forehead. He clutched his sketchbook tightly. “No. I was trapped in the closet. The smoke was so black, Emma. I couldn't breathe. The door was stuck.” Leo’s voice trembled, retreating into the trauma of a memory ten years old. “Someone kicked the door in. He wrapped me in a heavy coat and carried me through the flames. The ceiling fell. It hit him. But he didn't let go.”
Leo looked up at her, his blue eyes painfully sincere. “It was Julian. He visited me in the hospital the next day. He was wrapped in bandages. He told me I had to pretend I didn't know him, or the bad lady would come back.”
Emma sat back on her heels, the cold marble of the ballroom floor seeping through her dress, though she barely felt it.
She thought back to the past three years with Julian. She thought of the times they went to the beach, how he always kept his shirt on, claiming he burned easily in the sun. She thought of the nights she had traced the outline of his broad shoulders in the dark, and how he would flinch slightly, gently redirecting her touch.
He hadn't been hiding a betrayal. He had been hiding the proof of his sacrifice.
Emma looked down at the photograph in her hand. To my big brother, Julian.
“He saved him,” Clara whispered. Emma hadn't realized her mother had walked up behind her. Clara placed a trembling, work-roughened hand on Emma’s shoulder. She looked down at the teenage boy she had never been allowed to meet.
Clara fell to her knees beside Emma. She didn't reach out immediately, sensing Leo’s apprehension. Instead, she just wept, looking at her son’s face. “You have my father’s nose,” she sobbed quietly.
Leo looked at Clara, tilting his head. He reached into his sketchbook again and flipped to a page. “Are you the lady who sang?” he asked softly.
Clara froze. “What?”
Leo turned the sketchbook around. It was a charcoal drawing of a woman singing through an iron grate in the floor. “When I was little, before the fire, sometimes we heard a lady singing through the vents in the orphanage. Julian told me it was my guardian angel. Was it you?”
Clara let out a wail of absolute anguish and pulled Leo into her arms. Leo stiffened for a second, then relaxed, leaning into his mother’s embrace.
Elias watched them, leaning heavily on Diane Sterling’s arm. The old billionaire looked ten years older, stripped of his ruthlessness, left only with the profound regret of a father who had failed to protect his family.
“The orphanage was built on the old foundation of the estate’s original guest house,” Elias murmured, his voice hollow. He looked at Diane. “Victoria kept Clara in the tunnels beneath St. Jude’s?”
Diane nodded grimly. “It was the perfect hiding spot. And the perfect leverage. She could keep Clara close enough to control, and close enough to hear her children above her, but never reach them. When Victoria decided the children were too much of a liability, she ordered the fire. Clara was moved to the estate basement the night before.”
Emma felt sick. The sheer, calculated cruelty of Julian’s mother was beyond comprehension.
And Julian had grown up in that house. He had discovered his parents were monsters at eighteen, and instead of running, he had stayed. He had played the obedient heir. He had funded Leo’s care. He had plotted for ten years to tear his parents' empire down from the inside.
He had taken her hatred, her slap, and her rejection tonight without defending himself, just to ensure she got away clean.
Emma scrambled to her feet. “I have to find him.”
“Emma, wait,” Elias said, stepping forward. “The boy is right. The FBI is raiding Victoria’s offices tonight. The press will be crawling all over this estate by morning. You and Leo need to take that flight to Switzerland. Tonight. I have a private jet waiting.”
“I’m not leaving without Julian,” Emma said fiercely. She grabbed the skirt of her cream dress, ready to run.
“He doesn't want you to stay!” Elias argued gently. “Emma, he signed the annulment. He wants you to have a clean slate. Without the taint of his family’s name.”
“He is not his parents!” Emma yelled, her voice echoing in the empty ballroom. Most of the guests had quietly fled when the FBI arrived, leaving only the family and the agents. “He saved my brother! He saved my mother! I don't care about the money or the name. I care about him.”
Elias stared at her, seeing the fierce, unyielding spirit of his daughter Clara in Emma’s eyes. A small, proud smile touched the old man’s lips.
“He went to the boathouse,” Elias said softly. “He always goes there when he’s hurting. Go.”
Emma didn't hesitate. She hiked up her dress, kicked off her heels, and sprinted for the French doors leading to the estate gardens.
The night air was freezing, biting through her thin silk dress, but Emma didn't feel it. She ran across the manicured lawns, her bare feet sinking into the damp earth. The sprawling estate was eerily quiet, the only sound the distant wail of police sirens heading toward the city.
She reached the edge of the lake. The old wooden boathouse sat cloaked in shadows, a single dim light burning inside.
Emma slowed her pace, her chest heaving, her lungs burning. She walked down the wooden dock, the planks creaking beneath her weight.
She pushed the heavy wooden door open.
Julian was sitting on the floor, leaning against the hull of an antique wooden speedboat. He had taken off his tuxedo jacket and his tie. His white dress shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, his head thrown back, his eyes closed. He held a half-empty glass of whiskey in his hand.
He looked entirely, utterly broken.
At the sound of the door, his eyes snapped open. He saw Emma standing in the doorway, barefoot and shivering.
Julian scrambled to his feet, setting the glass down. “Emma? What are you doing here? You should be with Leo. The car is waiting to take you to the airstrip.”
Emma walked toward him. She didn't say a word. She just kept walking until she was inches from him.
Julian looked down at her, his eyes full of a desperate, pleading sorrow. “Please, Emma. Go. My parents are going to trial. The media is going to drag this family through the mud. You don't want to be attached to me when that happens.”
Emma reached out and grabbed the lapels of his white shirt.
Julian flinched slightly. “Emma—”
“Turn around,” she demanded softly.
Julian froze. “What?”
“Take off your shirt, Julian,” Emma said, her voice trembling but resolute. “And turn around.”
Julian’s breath hitched. He realized what she knew. He shook his head, taking a step back. “No. Emma, please don't.”
“Take it off,” Emma insisted, her voice breaking. “Or I will.”
Julian stared at her for a long moment. He saw the fierce determination in her eyes. Slowly, his hands shaking, he reached for the buttons of his shirt. He unfastened them, one by one. He pulled the shirt off his shoulders and let it drop to the floor.
Then, he turned around.
Emma covered her mouth to stifle a sob.
His entire back, from his shoulder blades down to his waist, was covered in thick, jagged burn scars. The skin was mottled and uneven, a permanent map of agony.
Emma stepped closer. She reached out with a trembling hand and gently, so gently, traced the edge of the worst scar near his left shoulder.
Julian drew in a sharp, painful breath, his muscles tensing under her touch.
“You carried him through the fire,” Emma wept, stepping into his back and wrapping her arms around his waist, pressing her tear-streaked face against his unscarred shoulder. “You saved my baby brother.”
Julian let out a broken, shuddering breath. He reached back, his hands covering hers where they clasped at his stomach. “I promised I’d protect him, Emma. And I promised I’d protect you.”
Emma turned him around. She looked up into his dark, tear-filled eyes.
“Why didn't you tell me?” she whispered.
“Because you would have felt obligated to me,” Julian said, his voice raw. “You would have loved me out of gratitude. I didn't want your debt, Emma. I just wanted you.”
Emma grabbed his face, pulling him down, and kissed him. It wasn't a gentle kiss; it was fierce, desperate, pouring three years of love, anger, and profound relief into him. Julian responded instantly, his arms wrapping tightly around her, holding her as if she were the only thing tethering him to the earth.
When they finally broke apart, Emma rested her forehead against his.
“You have me, Julian. You have always had me.”
Julian closed his eyes, a tear slipping down his cheek. “Emma, the annulment—”
“I’m tearing it up,” Emma said fiercely.
Suddenly, the boathouse door swung open with a violent crash.
Emma and Julian spun around.
Standing in the doorway, drenched in sweat, his tuxedo torn, was Arthur. He held a heavy, iron fireplace poker in his right hand. His eyes were wide and manic, completely unhinged.
“You think you’ve won?” Arthur snarled, stepping into the boathouse and locking the door behind him. “You think you can just take my empire and live happily ever after?”
Julian pushed Emma behind him, his body shielding hers. “Dad. It’s over. The FBI is here.”
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“The FBI is busy arresting your mother,” Arthur sneered, raising the iron poker. “I slipped out through the wine cellar. The accounts are frozen, Julian! My legacy is destroyed! If I’m going down, I am taking Clara’s little brat with me!”
Arthur lunged.
