Chapter 4 - THE BROKEN CROWN
Julian looked at Clara, who stood frozen on the steps, her eyes filled with tears of anger and humiliation. He looked at his uncle, whose face was a mask of cold corporate greed.
Then, he looked down at Elowen.
She wasn't asking for money. She wasn't demanding a share of his billions. She was simply standing there in her worn brown coat, tears washing clean trails through the dust on her cheeks, her hands open and waiting.
Slowly, deliberately, Julian reached up and unpinned the white silk boutonniere from his lapel. He let it drop onto the stone steps beside Clara’s abandoned bouquet.
"Julian, no!" Clara cried out.
Julian took off his wedding jacket, draped it over his arm, and stepped down the remaining stairs to stand beside Elowen.
"Julian, if you step off those stairs, you are no longer a Thorne," Victor warned, his voice shaking with suppressed rage.
"I haven't been a Thorne," Julian said, his voice echoing clearly across the courtyard. "I've been a ghost in a suit."
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He turned to Elowen, his hand reaching out to wrap firmly around her rough, calloused fingers—the exact same way he had held her hand in the old scanned photograph thirty years ago.
"Take me home, Mother," Julian whispered.
