The city is Mine

Four

When the sky lightened to gray, Benjamin dragged himself up.

He dressed quickly, careful not to rattle the loose floorboard near the door. He left the ledger hidden but slipped the card and pendant into his inner pocket. Before Evelyn’s harsh voice could corner him with chores, he slipped out the side gate, boots crunching on the gravel path as the city woke up around him.

The City Archives was an old, low building dwarfed by glass towers on every side — like a relic someone forgot to tear down. Inside, it smelled of dust and paper so old it felt brittle. A bored clerk barely looked up from his desk, nodded at the card Benjamin showed him, and mumbled something about family records in the basement.

The basement vault smelled like mildew and old ink. Benjamin ran his finger down rows of heavy files until he found one marked “Carter Trust”. His throat tightened. He flipped it open on a creaking table under a single flickering bulb.

Inside were deeds for farmland stretching for miles outside the city, shares in Carter Air, the biggest airline around, bonds, titles to whole city blocks. The numbers didn’t look real. Billions, not millions. But every page said the same thing: The heir must show the dragon pendant and the sealed code.

Benjamin closed his eyes. The pendant pressed warm through his shirt, as if answering. But the code? Nowhere in the file. Just a note scrawled in an old hand: “Held in trust by Harper & Associates.”

His gut clenched. Evelyn’s fingerprints were all over that name. Even dead, Old Master Harper’s choices bound him tight. Or protected him — Benjamin still couldn’t tell.

He photocopied the pages, each hum of the machine calming him.

This is real. Victor Carter’s fortune… all of it. No wonder Mom warned me—those old enemies aren’t just stories. I’ve got to be careful.

He slipped the copies into his jacket just as a door slammed upstairs.

He crept up the creaky stairs and stepped into the daylight — then stopped cold. Marcus’s black sedan was parked right there at the curb, idling like a waiting predator. Benjamin slipped behind a nearby pillar, his heart pounding in rhythm with the warmth from the pendant against his chest.

Marcus leaned out the window, flicking cigarette ashes, talking quietly with the clerk who’d sent Benjamin down.

“Yeah, if he comes back, call me,” Marcus said, voice oily. He slipped the clerk a folded bill. The clerk pocketed it fast.

Benjamin slid out the side exit, hugging the brick wall, slipping through an alley damp with morning runoff. He didn’t breathe until he hit the main street.

The Harper mansion loomed over him as he returned, just like always. Before he could even close the door, Evelyn’s sharp voice cut through the silence.

“Where’ve you been?” She stood at the bottom of the grand staircase, her robe pulled tight like armor. “People saw you sneaking out again. Don’t waste time — the charity auction’s tonight, and you’re scrubbing the garden path until it’s spotless.”

Benjamin just nodded, the file tucked flat beneath his shirt. Evelyn’s eyes darted to it, suspicion flashing across her face. “You look flushed. Feeling sick, Benjamin?” she asked, her voice sweet but with an edge.

“I’m fine,” he said.

From behind her, Amelia hovered on the staircase. She looked at him for a heartbeat too long. “You’re hiding something,” she murmured, just for him. She didn’t wait for an answer.

By sunset, the Harper estate buzzed with soft jazz, waiters in white jackets, and guests in gowns glittering under lantern light. Benjamin raked leaves off the lawn like a ghost at his own funeral. Marcus drifted past the caterers, glass of champagne dangling from his fingers.

“Look at him,” Marcus told a group of giggling heirs. “The Harper gardener-s***h-house pet.” He flicked ash onto Benjamin’s shoe. Benjamin didn’t flinch.

A guest in a tux brushed too close and “accidentally” kicked dirt into the pile Benjamin had just cleared. “Oops. Careful, Carter,” he snickered, drifting off with Marcus’s laughter trailing behind.

Benjamin tightened his grip on the rake. He could swear he heard the stone marker hidden under the hedges almost humming. He’d seen it before but never really looked at it. He crouched down, pretending to gather leaves, and brushed some dirt away from the edge. There it was — that same curling tail, the same dragon carved in the stone.

“Benjamin!” Evelyn’s voice came through. She was at the patio door, a flute of champagne in her hand. “Enough playing in the dirt. Get back to work — by the front gate.”

Their eyes met. For a flicker, Benjamin thought she knew exactly what he’d seen.

After midnight, the house quieted like a beast settling down after a kill. Benjamin dumped his rake in the shed and slipped into the kitchen. He found Clara by the back door, stuffing rags into a wash bin.

“You’ve been digging,” she rasped, her eyes darting to the hallway. “Be careful, lad. She’s burning papers tonight. Said no one must find ‘the old man’s mistakes’.”

Benjamin’s chest tightened. “Where?”

“The law office. Harper & Associates. Tonight.” She pressed his arm, her eyes fierce. “If you’re Carter blood, don’t let her win.”

He didn’t hesitate. He slipped out the back again, his boots scuffing the gravel. Downtown, Harper & Associates gleamed sterile under rows of security lights. Benjamin ducked behind a row of hedges and watched through a narrow window.

Evelyn glowed under recessed office lights. Beside her, Richard — the family lawyer — looked pale, sweat shining at his collar. Evelyn’s voice cut through the glass, faint but clear enough.

“No one must ever see Victor Carter’s trust,” she snapped, feeding pages into a shredder. “Father was senile. He tied my empire to a gutter boy. It dies with him.”

Richard fidgeted. “But the code — the trust can’t be broken without the heir’s pendant.”

“Then forge it!” Evelyn hissed. “I don’t care how. That trust will never see daylight.”

Benjamin’s fists curled. The pendant at his chest flared hot enough to sting his skin.

Before dawn, Benjamin slipped back into his room, boots caked with mud and the photocopied trust documents tucked under his arm.

He spread the papers out on the old, creaky desk by the window — deeds for Carter Air, city blocks, and billions in assets, all locked behind a code Evelyn couldn’t fake no matter how hard she tried.

The pendant throbbed steadily in his palm, almost like it knew something he didn’t.

A soft knock at the door made Benjamin turn around. Amelia stood there, her robe loose, hair falling free, eyes wide and raw.

“I heard Marcus,” she said quietly. “You went to the Archives. What’s going on?” Her gaze flicked to the papers spread out on his desk.

This time, he didn’t hide anything. “Proof,” he replied, his voice low but steady. “Your grandfather connected me to your family because of this. Because he trusted me to keep it hidden from your mother.”

She stepped inside, her fingers brushing a corner of the documents. “If this is real…” Her voice broke. “Then what does that make her?”

Benjamin held her gaze. The pendant’s warmth surged through him like fire in his veins. “Afraid,” he said simply. “Afraid of me.”

For the first time, Amelia didn’t look away.

When she was gone, Benjamin sat on the edge of the bed, the pendant resting on his palm. It was his grandfather’s promise, Victor Carter’s shield. He could almost hear his mother’s voice: You’ll know when you’re ready.