Chapter 191: An Answer Without Doubt
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[Damien Lockwood]
[TW: Homophobia, Physical abuse]
William’s voice cut across the room, sharper now.
"Your mother is preparing to announce her candidacy for the state senate. A scandal of this nature would not merely embarrass the family...it would destroy the campaign before it begins! The Lockwood name has never been associated with this kind of public spectacle, and it will not start now because you decided to indulge yourself with some scholarship student from nowhere!"
"The press would have a field day! Every political opponent I’ve spent years dealing with would use this against me!" his mother yelled.
"I know."
"And you don’t care at all?!"
Damien replied without hesitation, his voice steady as it had been throughout the conversation.
"No."
Not one bit.
William stepped forward, fists clenched at his sides.
"You selfish little—!"
Mrs. Lockwood raised a hand, stopping him mid-sentence, the motion practiced and precise, as if she had done this a hundred times before.
"No," she said quietly. "I’d like to understand."
She looked at Damien, studying him like he was a complete stranger, her eyes narrowing with a mix of confusion and calculation.
"You attended Hawthorne University. A university filled with the wealthiest, most influential families in the country."
"Yes."
"They have daughters of prime ministers, daughters of governors."
He stayed silent.
"Daughters of CEOs, daughters of investors, judges, ambassadors...!"
Her voice grew colder with each name, listing them like credentials on a résumé.
"And yet somehow..." She glanced down at one of the photographs. "...you chose a scholarship student."
Damien’s expression hardened, Mrs. Lockwood continued. "A boy whose father worked in a factory, not to mention the father is sick as well with records of being in rehab!"
Damien wasn’t even surprised his family did a background check on Oliver and his dad. William picked up where she left off, his voice rising to match hers.
"A boy who brings absolutely nothing to this family!"
"A boy," Mrs. Lockwood added, "whose entire future relies on scholarships and part time jobs."
"I am not apologizing for any of it," Damien said at last, the words still measured but carrying a harder edge beneath the surface. "Not for the photographs, not for Oliver, and not for the fact that I have no interest in the suitable options you keep inventing for me at Hawthorne."
William laughed bitterly.
"After everything we’ve built..." His eyes narrowed. "...our only son decides he wants to play house with some nobody."
Damien’s voice remained calm, but something colder had crept into it now.
"Don’t call him that."
William stepped away from the fireplace, the carefully restrained anger finally beginning to fracture into something uglier.
"A gay son was already more than this family needed to manage." William went on "Adding a gold-digging charity case to the equation is simply beyond what any reasonable parent should be expected to tolerate. Do you have any idea how this looks? Do you have any concept of the position you have placed us in?!"
Damien’s calm finally broke, not into volume but into a sharp, precise refusal that cut through the formal cold of the room.
"Oliver is not a charity case, and he is not a problem for you to manage. I will not apologize for who I am or for the fact that I want him. You can threaten the campaign, the money, and the family name as much as you like, none of it changes that."
Damien continued, "And he has a name."
The room froze.
Damien’s icy blue eyes were no longer indifferent; the calm mask had slipped for the first time that evening.
"His name is Oliver, not the horrible things you’ve called him."
William scoffed. "I don’t care what his name is."
"I do." Damien voice stayed even despite everything churning beneath the surface. "So you’ll use it."
Mrs. Lockwood stared at him, disbelief flashing across her features.
"You are willing to destroy your future..." Her words were slow, testing the question’s shape. "...for him?"
Damien responded immediately, without a hint of hesitation.
"If protecting him means destroying the future you planned for me..." A faint, humorless smile appeared. "...then maybe it wasn’t much of a future."
William moved before the last word had fully settled, the backhand landing with sudden, ugly force that turned Damien’s head to the side and sent a brief flare of pain across his cheek.
The silence that followed was heavier than the impact itself.
Damien did not step back. He did not raise a hand. He simply turned his face forward again and looked at his father with the same quiet, unsettling lack of reaction that had marked the entire conversation, a thin smear of blood already visible at the corner of his mouth.
More silence followed, heavy and complete, interrupted only by the soft crackle of the fireplace, indifferent to the chaos unfolding in front of it.
A small cut split the inside of his lip. The taste of blood was copper sharp against his tongue.
Slowly, he lifted the back of his hand and wiped the corner of his mouth. When he glanced at the smear of red across his knuckles... he simply rubbed it away with his thumb.
Just quiet, a silence more unsettling than any outburst could have been.
William’s breathing grew heavier, his chest rising and falling like he’d been the one struck instead.
"Say something."
Damien looked back at him, unhurried. "What do you want me to say?"
"Show some remorse!"
"For what?"
"For embarrassing this family!"
"I haven’t embarrassed anyone."
William’s voice boomed through the room, loud enough that Damien half-expected the servants outside to rush in. "You’ve embarrassed me!"
Damien tilted his head slightly, the movement almost curious. "I wasn’t aware your pride was my responsibility."
William looked ready to hit him again, his hand twitching at his side. Mrs. Lockwood spoke first.
"Enough, William." she said, with a sigh. As if a father hitting his son was some minor inconvenience. "He’s not a child anymore, discipline like that won’t be as effective as it used to be."
Her voice was calm once again. Cold. Measured. Final, that one word enough to still the room entirely.
"What did I do," William demanded, the words rising now, "to deserve a son who cares for nothing but himself?! A son who would rather destroy everything this family has built than show the smallest amount of loyalty or sense?!"
He stepped closer, the formal distance of the sitting room collapsing under the weight of the demand. "You will end whatever this...relationship...is."
Damien didn’t reply.
"You will stop seeing that boy!"
Nothing.
"You will return to university."
Silence.
"You will behave like the rightful heir of this family!"
Still nothing.
Mrs. Lockwood rose, straightening to her full, unyielding height. "Do you hear us, Damien?!"
He looked at each of them in turn. His mother. His father. His sister, still by the window, expression unreadable as she watched silently.
Finally, he bent down and picked up the photograph of Oliver beaming at him under the winter sunset, holding it for a moment longer than necessary before slipping it into the inside pocket of his jacket, close to his heart.
Then he turned back to his parents. "I hear you."
His father let out a breath, some of the tension in his shoulders easing. "Good."
Damien faced the door.
William frowned. "Where do you think you’re going?"
Damien rested his hand over the handle, the brass cool beneath his palm, just like it had been on the way in. "Away."
"You haven’t answered me, boy!"
He paused without turning around, his back to all of them. "I don’t intend to."
The door opened.
"You walk out that door," William warned, "and don’t expect this family to welcome you back."
Damien finally glanced over his shoulder. For the first time that night, something almost peaceful graced his expression, the tension that had carried him up the stairs finally, quietly, fading away.
"I stopped expecting that years ago."
He walked out without another word, his footsteps unhurried and even against the polished floor, taking him away from the room and everything in it.
Behind him, the sitting room remained as perfect as ever. Flawless furniture, flawless paintings and lawless silence and cold.
And not one person inside felt like family.
They wanted him to choose the Lockwood name over Oliver.
For the first time in his life... Making a decision was completely effortless.