Chapter 84

**Flashback**

A young boy dressed in a well-groomed hairstyle and a comfy shirt and long pants, roughly eleven years old, skipped happily along a hallway in Blackwood Manor, a sealed report sheet in hand. He found his father's office and remembered the instructions drilled into him. He straightened, adjusted his hair and clothes, and walked carefully to the door.

He knocked twice.

A deep, gruff voice that sounded irritated bellowed from the inside, "Who's disturbing me at this time of the day?"

The boy quickly looked at his tiny watch—it was still noon. He gulped. "Father, it's me, Julian."

After a while, he heard a response, "Come in."

He pushed open the door. The urge to say "Daddy" overwhelmed him, but he bit his tongue and bowed his head, maintaining the manners his dad had instilled in him.

"Good afternoon, Father."

"What do you want, Julian?" The man with a head full of dark brown hair and black eyes stared at Julian with a bored expression.

Julian's face took on an excited expr