Adrian’s POV
We sit in the living room—Sophie, me, my mother, and Amelia. The arrangement feels surreal, like someone staged a photograph of a normal family and forgot to tell us we're frauds playing roles we don't know how to perform.
Twenty minutes ago, Sophie burst into my office mid-online meeting with a client, flinging the doors open without knocking. Her face was pale, eyes wide with something between panic and disbelief.
"Your mother is here!" Her voice came out as a shrill whisper. "In our living room. Right now!"
I stared at her, not processing the words. "What?"
"Your mother," Sophie repeated, gesturing frantically toward the door. "She's downstairs, waiting."
"That's impossible." I turned back to my laptop screen where my client was still visible, mid-sentence. "You must be mistaken."
"I'm not mistaken! She said her name is Eleanor and she's your mother and she's holding Amelia and I don't know what to do!"
I ended the meeting abruptly, mumbled something about an emergency, closed my laptop with trembling hands. Followed Sophie downstairs on legs that felt unsteady.
And there she was—sitting on our couch like she belonged there, cooing over her granddaughter in Sophie's arms while Bellamy stood awkwardly near the kitchen looking like he desperately wanted to be anywhere else.
Mom looked exactly as I remembered and completely different—older, softer somehow, but with the same sharp intelligence in her eyes that could dissect a lie in seconds.
Sophie wrung her hands together, released them, then wrung them again.
"Can I get you anything? Coffee? Tea? We have… I think we have cookies somewhere, or," She glanced toward the kitchen, then back at my mother, fingers twisting anxiously. "Water? I could get water."
“No need, darling, thank you.” Mom said politely, without taking her eyes off me.
She wasn't in the mood for drinks. And I wasn't ready to face the mother I haven't seen or spoken to since I walked away from everything years ago.
But here we are.
"What are you doing here?" The question comes out harsher than I intended, defensive. "How did you even find me?"
My mother's expression shifts into gentle reproach, the kind only mothers can perfect. "It's not very polite of you not to greet your mother properly first, Adrian. Or give her a hug like a real son would."
The rebuke stings because it's accurate. I've been sitting here for five minutes treating her like an intruder instead of family.
She continues before I can formulate an apology. "I discovered the drama and scandals online. You and Sophie are real superstars, apparently."
Her tone carries pointed disapproval. "I learned about my granddaughter's existence from the internet rather than from my own son. Found out I'm a grandmother by scrolling through news articles about your scandal."
The hurt in her voice cuts deeper than anger would. I have no defense for this, no explanation that doesn't make me look worse.
"I learned her name is Amelia from a gossip blog. Saw pictures of Sophie being harassed by paparazzi while holding my granddaughter. Read comments speculating about whether you'd abandon them both."
Mom continues, each word precise and measured.
"And through all of it, I heard nothing from you. Not a call, not a message—nothing."
Sophie shifts uncomfortably in the chair across from us, clearly sensing the tension. She reads the room with that skillful awareness she's developed, the survival instinct that tells her when to retreat.
"I'll make tea," she says abruptly, standing. "Eleanor, how do you take yours?"
"Just a touch of honey, dear. Thank you."
Sophie escapes toward the kitchen, leaving me alone with my mother. I would have preferred she stayed—her presence creates a buffer, someone to deflect attention when the conversation gets too personal.
But I don't stop her. Can't ask her to shield me from my own mother.
Mom waits until Sophie is out of earshot before speaking again. Her voice drops lower, more intimate. "I know about the Lolita situation."
My entire body tenses. "What do you—"
"Don't." She cuts me off firmly. "Don't insult my intelligence by pretending ignorance. I know what she did to you, what she made you into during those years I was too blind to see it happening."
I feel my jaw tighten defensively. "She didn't do anything to me. Lolita merely helped bring out what was already inside me. I made my own choices."
"Choices?" Mom's voice rises slightly. "You were seventeen when she started!"
"I was old enough to know what I was doing." The words come out sharp, protective of Lolita in ways I don't fully understand myself. "She taught me things, showed me possibilities I wouldn't have discovered otherwise. Whatever I became, that's on me, not her."
My mother stares at me like I'm a stranger. "After everything, you still defend her."
"I'm not defending…" I stop myself, realizing the futility of this argument. We've had it before, will have it again, and neither of us will budge. "Can we not do this? Not right now?"
A brief silence stretches between us. Mom's face softens, some of the anger draining away. She sighs deeply.
"You're right." Her voice gentles. "We haven't seen each other in so many years. I didn't come here to fight with you. I don't want to start our reunion this way."
The word "reunion" hits harder than expected. As if this is something I wanted, something I've been waiting for instead of actively avoiding.
Her expression shifts into something more vulnerable. "How have you been, Adrian? After all these years..."
I realize with uncomfortable clarity that I missed her too. Despite everything—the lies I told, the family I abandoned, the mother I cut off to protect her from my father's world—I missed her.
Missed this—the person who knew me before Lolita, before my Dad, before I became the man I am now.
But I have no intention of telling her about my criminal past. About the things I did in my father's organization. About Bellamy and the debt I owe him and the violence that created it.
She doesn't need to know those details. Doesn't need to carry the weight of what her son became after he left.
"I've been... managing," I answer cautiously, choosing words with care. "There were reasons for my departure. Complicated reasons that had nothing to do with you being a bad mother. You weren't. You did everything you could."
"Then why did you leave without a word? Why cut me off completely?"
"To protect you." The truth slips out before I can stop it. "From things you're better off not knowing, from consequences that didn't need to touch you."
Mom studies my face, reading between the lines with that maternal intuition that's impossible to fool. She knows I'm hiding something, knows the full story is darker than I'm willing to share.
"It's in the past," I add firmly. "Where it should stay. I'm trying to build something different now, something better."
Her eyes drift toward the kitchen where Sophie is carefully preparing tea, then to Amelia sleeping peacefully in her carrier. "I can see that."
She agrees with a small nod, though I can see she dislikes the uncertainty. Dislikes not knowing the complete truth about her son's missing years.
But her love for me outweighs her need for complete answers—I can see it in the way her expression softens, the way she reaches across the space between us.
"I won't push for details you're not ready to share," she says quietly. "But I needed to see you, to know you were alright."
Mom stands first, moving toward me with purpose. She pulls me into a hug before I can resist or retreat, her arms wrapping around me with the fierce protectiveness that defined my childhood.
"Welcome home, son."
The words break something inside me. I close my eyes, briefly transported back to childhood. To being seven years old after a nightmare, my mother holding me just like this in the dark.
Promising me everything would be alright. That monsters weren't real. That I was safe.
I knew even then she was lying. But I believed her anyway because I needed to.
I let myself lean into the embrace now, just for a moment. Let myself be her son instead of Professor Lewis or the man Marcus created or the father failing his own daughter.
Just Adrian, her boy, home after years in the wilderness.