The Overnight Student Trillionaire

Chapter 5

The door opened and Lorenzo and Derek stepped quietly into the bedroom. The room was large, softly lit, and surprisingly simple for someone of such status. There was a wide bed at the center, neatly arranged, and lying on it was a man who looked far too fragile for the power he once commanded.

A faint smell of medicine hung in the air. A few pillows were propped behind the man’s back, and a small table beside him held a glass of water and some folded towels. Lorenzo had imagined someone fierce, someone whose presence alone would shake the room. Instead, he found an old man who looked like he could barely lift his head.

As Lorenzo stood there taking everything in, the man on the bed also studied him with tired eyes. He blinked slowly, as if making sure the visitor wasn’t a figure from a dream. His gaze moved from Lorenzo’s shoes to his face, and there was a hint of recognition or maybe hope.

A moment later, the door behind Lorenzo closed softly. He walked toward the bed and bowed respectfully.

“Sir,” the attendant said gently, “this is the young man you asked to see… this is Lorenzo…”

The old man’s eyes brightened the moment he realized Lorenzo had stepped into the bedroom. Even though he was lying weakly on the bed, his hands trembled with excitement as he struggled to sit up.

“Is… is that truly you? Lorenzo?” he whispered, his voice thin but filled with emotion.

Before Lorenzo could reply, the old man reached out with surprising urgency. He grabbed Lorenzo’s wrist and gently pulled him closer to the bedside. His frail fingers began touching Lorenzo’s arms, his shoulders, even the side of his face, as if confirming that the boy standing before him was real and not an illusion.

Lorenzo felt awkward at first, frozen in place, but he didn’t push the old man away. It was clear the man was overwhelmed. His eyes were wet, and tears kept sliding down his cheeks without stopping.

After a while, the old man finally let out a shaky breath. It seemed he had satisfied himself that Lorenzo was truly there. He held Lorenzo’s hands tightly, showing no concern for Lorenzo’s worn-out clothes or faded shoes.

Despite not knowing the man, Lorenzo felt a strange warmth in his chest. It had been a long time since anyone looked at him with that kind of sincerity without judgment or disgust.

The old man eased back onto his pillows but did not release Lorenzo’s hand.

“Twenty years,” he whispered, smiling through his tears. “After twenty years… we finally found you, Lorenzo.”

Lorenzo frowned. Found him? He had never been lost. Why would anyone say that?

The old man saw the confusion on his face and sighed softly.

“I know you don’t understand,” he said. “So let me explain what really happened to you.”

Lorenzo swallowed, unsure whether to pull his hand back or brace himself.

Derek stood quietly at the far side of the room, his posture stiff. It was clear he knew something Lorenzo did not, something heavy, something that had been kept hidden from him for years.

The old man gathered a slow breath and his fingers trembled around Lorenzo’s hand.

“Twenty years ago,” he began, “you were taken from this family.”

Lorenzo blinked. “Taken? Sir… I don’t understand.”

The old man paused, as though the memory itself drained what little strength he had left. His gaze drifted somewhere far beyond the room, somewhere Lorenzo could not follow yet.

“You were barely four,” he continued, his voice thin but steady. “A child who should have been safe in the arms of his parents… yet fate had other plans.”

Lorenzo felt his stomach tighten. His parents. He didn’t remember much about them. The only memories of his childhood were him growing up in the orphanage before his foster mother Caroline came to adopt him. He had no memories of his real parents. Now hearing the old man speak so softly, so painfully, stirred something deep inside him.

“We were preparing to leave for the winter estate,” the old man said, blinking back the mist gathering in his eyes. “Your mother had insisted on traveling early… she wanted you to see the snow for the first time.”

He stopped again, and his grip on Lorenzo’s hands tightened, as if the memory might slip from him if he did not anchor himself.

“But there was an ambush on the road,” the old man whispered. “A deliberate one.”

Lorenzo’s breath caught. Ambush?

“They attacked the convoy, overturned the cars, set everything ablaze…” His voice trembled. “Your parents died there. They were burned alive before help could reach them.”

A hollow sound escaped Lorenzo’s throat. He didn’t even know what emotion it was, pain, anger or disbelief. The room suddenly felt too small, too warm, too heavy.

“We searched the wreckage for you,” the old man said. “But there was no trace of your body. Nothing to confirm your death… nothing to prove you were alive.”

Lorenzo’s hands went cold listening to all of this. He had no idea of his childhood other than the fact that he grew up in an orphanage before a woman came to adopt him. Everything else before that had always been a blur, a dark, empty space in his memory. But now, hearing this… it felt like someone was peeling back a part of him he never even knew was missing.

The old man’s voice softened as he continued.

“For months, we held onto hope,” he murmured. “We believed someone must have helped you escape the fire. That someone took you away to protect you. But as the years passed… that hope became harder to hold.”

Lorenzo swallowed, but his throat felt too tight to let anything through.

“I don’t remember any of this…” he whispered, his voice cracking unintentionally.

The old man smiled, a small, aching smile that carried twenty years of grief.

“I never expected you to,” he said gently. “A child your age… the mind protects itself from trauma. Your memories were likely buried for your own safety.”

Lorenzo’s gaze dropped to the floor. He didn’t know what part of him was shaking, his hands, his breath, or the part of him that suddenly felt like a scared, abandoned little boy again.

The old man inhaled weakly, gathering strength he barely had.

“For twenty years,” he said, “we lived between two possibilities, that you were alive somewhere, or that you had died alone without us knowing, and both thoughts destroyed me.”

The old man wiped his eyes weakly, but Lorenzo didn’t speak. His mind was spinning too fast. Everything he’d heard felt unreal, like someone else’s story being forced onto him.

A long silence settled in the room before Lorenzo finally exhaled.

“Sir…” he murmured, his voice low and unsteady. “How do I even know any of this is real?”

The old man blinked in surprise.

Lorenzo stepped back a little, not harshly, but enough to make space for himself. His chest rose and fell sharply.

“You’re telling me I’m your grandson,” he said, struggling with the word. “You’re telling me my parents were murdered. That I was taken.” He shook his head. “I don’t even remember their faces. I don’t remember anything. And now I’m just supposed to accept it?”

The old man’s expression crumpled, but he didn’t get offended. Instead, he nodded slowly, as if he had expected this.

“I understand,” he whispered. “You have every right to question.”

Derek stepped forward slightly, watching Lorenzo’s reaction carefully, but he didn’t interrupt.

Lorenzo rubbed the back of his neck, trying to steady his breathing, but nothing inside him felt steady. His pulse was loud in his ears, loud enough to drown out the quiet hum of the machines and the old man’s weak breaths.

“I don’t even know who I am right now,” Lorenzo said, his voice cracking despite how hard he tried to hold it together. “Everything I thought I knew about myself… it’s gone.”

Derek finally spoke, his voice low.

“That’s why we brought you here. To show you the truth.”

Lorenzo shot him a look, a sharp one. “Truth? Derek, you’ve barely spoken to me since I arrived. You act like you know everything but you’ve said nothing.”

Derek clenched his jaw but didn’t look away.

“You needed to hear it from him,” he said quietly. “And… you needed proof.”

Lorenzo let out a bitter laugh. “Proof? What proof could possibly exist after twenty years?”

The old man shifted, wincing in pain, and Derek immediately stepped in to adjust his pillows. Weak as he was, the old man still reached for Lorenzo again, his gaze steady.

“There is proof,” he whispered.

Lorenzo stiffened. “What kind?”

The old man’s trembling hand lifted toward Lorenzo’s neck.

“On your shoulder,” he whispered. “The left one. You have a birthmark… a crescent-shaped mark. You were born with it.”

Lorenzo froze.

No one knew about that. Not the orphanage, not even Caroline. He’d never shown it to anyone because it always felt too strange, too personal. A curved, moon-shaped mark etched into his skin since birth.

The old man’s voice broke.

“That mark… it belongs to every firstborn in our bloodline.”

Derek stepped closer, his tone firm. “Lorenzo. That birthmark is the proof. You are a Byers.”

Lorenzo’s breath stopped as his hand slowly rose to his shoulder, the place where the mark had always been.