ASHES TO EMPIRE

Episode3

I hadn’t seen Jasmine in nearly seven years.

And now here she was. Her voice carried the kind of practised sharpness that came from boardrooms and lawyers. She stepped forward, her heels silent on the gravel drive, sunglasses perched like a barrier between us. Elias, still standing beside me, seemed unfazed. Like he’d seen her that way before, gliding in like a threat wrapped in perfume and pressed linen.

“Take him inside,” she said, not even looking at the boy. “He hasn’t eaten all day.”

I stood, still holding the envelope in my left hand and my right clenched slowly, uselessly. “You show up out of nowhere, drop him at my gate like he’s some kind of parcel, and now you want to dictate what happens?

She took off her sunglasses, her eyes were tired, dark-rimmed, and steady. “He needed to see you, and you needed to see him. That’s all I’m here for.”

Do you know he left school because he wanted to meet with you?

He was searched for and brought to me by kind, hardworking police officers. Still, you do not care.

“That’s a lie,” I said. My voice had changed. Lower, like something caged, finally growling through its bars. “You wouldn’t come here unless you wanted something. You never do anything without a motive.”

Jasmine flinched just slightly, and that was when I knew I was right.

Elias tugged gently at my coat sleeve. “Mum said you work with oil. Do you dig the ground and get messy?”

I swallowed hard, I wanted to laugh. “Sort of,” I replied.

“Cool,” he said, smiling.

I stared at him for a moment too long, the freckled skin, the stubborn curl of hair over his right eye. He looked like me. No doubt, he was my son. My mom would soon meet with him, I thought. There was something gentler in him. Maybe that came from being raised in safety, a privilege I never had.

“I’ll take him in,” I said finally.

Jasmine nodded once. “I’ll be in touch.”

She turned and walked back to the car. I expected her to drive off immediately, but she paused, rolled down the window and said, “There are people who don’t want you to succeed, Elliot. I thought you should hear it from me.”

And then she was gone. She drove off, speeding away.

Inside, Elias sat at the edge of my leather sofa, legs swinging, watching me like I might vanish if he blinked too long. I made him eggs and toast, the only thing I could cook without burning. While cooking, we had a lot of conversations. About school, work, but when he asked about his grandparents, my parent. I remembered my dad and responded. They’re good.

He ate quietly, methodically, like he had learned not to waste.

“Does your mum talk about me?” I asked as I refilled his orange juice.

“Sometimes,” he said. “When she’s sad or angry. She says you were supposed to fight harder.”

The words hit me, and I nodded. “Did she ever tell you why she left?”

Elias shook his head. “Only that you were poor. And that she was scared of being with a poor husband.”

I crouched in front of him. “I was scared, too. Not being a dad. But of not being enough.”

He looked at me for a long time, then reached out and touched my cheek with sticky fingers. “You’re enough now.”

God help me, I nearly cried.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I thought about taking him to my mom and how she’d react. I wish my dad were still alive.

I sat in my study, staring at my father’s old pocket watch, the one thing I had fought to keep when his cousin stole everything else. The man had wormed through probate like a parasite, declared my father insane and penniless, after he had died, stripping what little we had left, the flat, the landline, everything.

The news of my money was spread through the country, and I knew that my family, all those who had abandoned me, would return.

The first to arrive was Cousin Terrence.

He didn’t call, just showed up at the oil company’s reception, in a three-piece suit too tight at the stomach and sunglasses that didn’t suit him. Claimed he was “family,” that he had “urgent business.” I had him sit outside for two hours before I even walked past him.

“You look good,” he said, standing too fast.

I didn’t stop walking. “You stole from a dead man,” I said…

He followed me down the corridor. “I kept the wolves at bay! Your father owed half the borough.”

I turned sharply. “And you sold our sofa for a c***k binge. Spare me.”

He stared at me, lip twitching like it wanted to snarl.

“You’re rich now,” he finally said. “Can’t we just let the past die?”

“No,” I said. “Because the past hasn’t let me live.”

Elias stayed with me for three days.

In that short time, I learned his bedtime songs, that he hated green peppers and loved Batman, and that he cried if the curtains weren’t closed at night. He clung to me like I’d always been there.

And then Jasmine came to take him.

She looked tired, worn. “He’s starting school next week. We agreed”

“I didn’t agree to anything,” I said.

“He’s yet to meet with his grandmother.”

“Don’t make this messy.”

“You made it messy when you left.”

She reached into her handbag, pulled out an envelope, and handed it to me.

I opened it and realised they were court papers.

She was filing for full custody.

“This isn’t about keeping him from you,” she said, but her eyes betrayed her. “It’s about control.”

And I laughed.

Not because it was funny, but because I saw that she was afraid.

Afraid I was no longer the man she left behind, I was a better man now.

That night, I stood at my window, after they had left, watching London stretch under streetlights. The London I left was when I was a kid. Elias’s toy car sat on my desk, beside the court papers.

The next morning, while thinking on how to pay my mom a surprise visit, a white envelope arrived by courier with no name and no return address.

Inside was a single photograph.

Elias, at school, was held tightly by a man I didn’t recognise.

On the back, it was written in slan

t: He’s not safe with you.

In shock, I dropped the photo.