The Lost Heir: Trials of an Empire Reclaimed

Chapter 022

A crystal-clear image of the Lancaster estate filled the huge flat‑screen TV in the Lawson family’s elegant living room.

Lilian sat at the mahogany dining table, glass of rosé poised in her hand, as her parents and younger sister Eva took their seats around the china plates and silver cutlery.

A roasted chicken, buttered asparagus, and golden-brown potatoes steamed temptingly, but no one touched a bite as the broadcast began.

“…and now, ladies and gentlemen,” the patriarch’s voice rang through the speakers, “it is my honor to present to you, the long‑lost heir of the Lancaster clan—Silas Lancaster!”

In that split second, the camera cut to a beaming Silas stepping onto the podium. Lilian’s fingers tightened on her wine glass. Time seemed to slow.

Her glass slipped. It toppled from the table’s edge and crashed onto the hardwood floor, splintering into a glittering rain of shards. Rodger Lawson, her father, leapt to his feet.

“Lilian!” he exclaimed.

But Lilian could barely hear him. A high-pitched zing rang in her ears, drowning out the TV’s applause. A burst of hot panic erupted in her chest.

“How—how can this be?”

She stared at the screen: Silas, her Silas, standing beside his grandfather under a chandelier’s glow. The heir.

Confusion tumbled into her mind, followed by a wave of anger—at herself, at fate.

“I was blind. I let him go.”

Her mother, Veronica, pressed a trembling hand to her lips. “My daughter… what… what is this?”

Eva’s eyes darted between the screen and her sister. “Sis, who is—?”

Lilian blinked, tears of incredulity pricking her eyes. Every memory of hospital beeps, hushed hallway conversations, and the chauffeur who whisked Silas away that night before Lilian’s surgery flashed before her.

“I—I don’t understand,” she whispered, voice cracking.

Rodger knelt to gather the broken glass. “Lilian, calm down. Tell us what’s—”

Her mother’s face went pale as she connected the dots. “Oh God… the chauffeur at St. Mary’s… bringing Silas to the hospital…”

Lilian’s knees buckled. “He was family,” she managed, tears streaming. “They took him… and never told me!”

The TV shifted to a close‑up of Silas’s face—strong, resolved, radiant. A thunderous ovation erupted from the studio audience. Lilian flinched as if struck.

“No,” she choked out, wrenching her gaze away.

Eva stood, reaching for her hand. “Mom, he’s… our brother-in-law.”

Veronica stood, “I know!” arms trembling as she embraced her younger daughter. “My poor girl.”

Rodger rose, grief and guilt warping his features. “We should have told you everything, Lilian. We too didn’t know what it meant when the chauffeur came to pick Silas at the hospital that day.”

Lilian’s hands shook so violently the chair scraped the floor. “Everything,” she repeated, her voice hollow. “Why did you hide that information from me? From ME?!”

The screen now showed Silas and Charles—his butler—moving through a sea of dignitaries. Champagne flutes raised, toasts were made.

“Why wasn’t I told?” Lilian’s voice rose. “Why did they bury him in secrets?”

Rodger opened his mouth, then closed it, at a loss for words.

A final thunderclap of applause resounded on TV as Silas nodded graciously, his grandfather’s hand resting on his shoulder.

It was too much. Her world spun. Anger. Betrayal. Shame. She felt stupid for believing her marriage, her life, had been the center of everything.

All along, Silas had been someone else’s heir—someone of immense power she could never compete with.

She let out a raw scream—half grief, half rage—and pushed back from the table. Plates clattered. Veronica and Eva sprang to their feet, Rodger raced after her.

“Lilian, wait!” her mother called, but Lilian bolted through the archway toward the stairs. Her heels clicked wildly as she flew upward, each step echoing her racing pulse.

She burst into her bedroom and slammed the door shut, leaning back against it, shaking. The muffled sounds of the ceremony broadcast became distant—unreachable—as tears pooled in her vision.

“He’s theirs now, not mine.”

Her heart pounded like a drum. She pressed trembling palms against her face.

Through the closed door, she could still hear her father’s voice: “We have to talk to her… calm her down.”

But Lilian could barely think. The image of Silas—her husband—standing at the altar of a family she had never known, being celebrated by a nation, seared into her mind.

She sank to the floor, sliding down until she sat in a pool of moonlight slanting through her curtains. The shattered glass from downstairs swirled in her memory like broken promises.

“I loved him.” “He belongs with me!!”

Sobs wracked her body. Each breath torn from her lungs. She curled into herself, despair and longing tangled in her chest.

On the TV, the patriarch finished his speech: “…I present to you the future patriarch, Silas Lancaster!”

Lilian buried her face in her knees as the applause washed over her—an ocean of adulation from which she felt hopelessly marooned.

In the Lawson living room, her family huddled by the shattered remains of her glass. Rodger’s face was etched with regret; Veronica’s with maternal anguish; Eva’s eyes wide with confusion and fear.

They could only watch the screen, helpless, as Silas—heir to a legacy she could never touch—embraced a new life that would pull him further away from her.

And upstairs, Lilian’s scream still echoed through the halls, the sound of a heart fracturing under the weight of truth.