Lucan | Your new boss

Summer in Italy arrived the same way it always had. Sun-bleached days came and went, settling into cool, deliberate evenings. Lucan had almost forgotten the feeling. In Dubai, heat didn’t ease; it pressed, constant and unrelenting, much like the work itself. Every hour there had been measured, accounted for, spent. Necessary, yes—but punishing in ways he didn’t care to dwell on.

Rome, at least, breathed.

His return had not come a moment too soon. Construction was finally set to begin on the company’s first mega project in the region: the Palace Tower. Years of negotiation, calculation, and risk distilled into steel and concrete that would soon rise from desert ground. It should have felt like a victory. Instead, Lucan treated it as what it was: the next obligation.

Cassius had agreed (at last), that it was time to come home. That alone had taken longer than any contract.

And now, just in time for the company’s centennial celebration, Lucan found himself where he was expected to be—tired with a glass of wine anchored in his hand, standing among employees, partners, clients. A hundred years of legacy pressed into the walls around him, into every handshake, every polite exchange.

The National Museum had been Lucan’s own suggestion for the evening. The idea was straightforward, almost severe in its clarity. New age meets old age. The men building Rome stand among the legacy of the men who built it.

The museum itself housed some of the city’s oldest archaeological finds, relics that predated even the height of the Roman Empire. History, unearthed and preserved, lingered in every stone and glass case, heavy with time and consequence.

Tonight, the event unfolded in the heart of its corridors, spaces that by day belonged to wandering tourists and quiet observation. Now they were filled with voices, ambition, and the steady undercurrent of legacy pressing in from all sides.

Lucan moved through the evening with practiced ease, offering nods where they were due, pausing when obligation demanded it, never lingering long enough to invite anything unnecessary. Conversation slid over him, numbers and praise and expectation blending into a familiar hum. He carried it well. He always had.

Still, his attention drifted.

It was the architecture that pulled him first, the quiet insistence of stone that had outlasted every voice in the room. The further he stepped from the centre of the event, the thinner the crowd became, until the noise dulled into something distant and manageable. Here, the museum reclaimed itself.

He followed the corridor without thinking, drawn deeper into a section cordoned off by subtle signage and dimmer lighting. The air shifted. Cooler. Older. Intentional.

A gallery opened before him, its focus unmistakable. The pieces were grouped with care, curated around a single period. 200 AD. The placards spoke in measured detail of the Severna family dynasty, their influence, their reach, and the quiet fracture that marked their end. A series of missteps, betrayals, and deaths that historians now traced as the beginning of something larger. The slow unraveling that would, in time, contribute to the fall of Rome itself.

Lucan exhaled softly through his nose, a faint, humourless smile touching his mouth. Cassius would have something to say about this. He could already hear it. The certainty, the arrogance, the inevitable claim that sharing the name alone was proof enough of bloodline.

I should bring him over here.

The thought lingered only a moment before his gaze shifted again, caught and held by something ahead.

A statue stood slightly apart from the others, its marble surface pale beneath the gallery down lights. It depicted a young woman, draped in flowing stone that gathered and fell with impossible softness, every fold rendered with a precision that felt almost indulgent. A tiara rested in her sculpted hair, delicate and exact, as though placed there with intention rather than carved.

Lucan slowed.

There was something about her that resisted distance. Not just the craftsmanship, though it was exceptional, but the way her features held together. The quiet set of her mouth. The lift of her chin. The suggestion of thought behind eyes that had never truly seen.

Familiar.

The recognition came without reason, settling low and certain before he could dismiss it. He stepped closer, gaze narrowing slightly as if proximity might correct the feeling. It did not. If anything, it sharpened it.

He studied the lines of her face, tracing them as though memory might follow. There was a strength there that did not rely on adornment, something composed and unwavering beneath the softness of her form. Not fragile. Not merely ornamental. She carried herself as though the world had once bent around her, not the other way around.

Lucan exhaled quietly, more to ground himself than anything else.

It was absurd. He knew that.

And yet, standing there, he couldn’t shake the quiet certainty that he had seen her before. Not in passing, not in some half-remembered painting or archive, but in a way that felt closer than that. As though time had misplaced her, or him, and this was the only place the distance between them thinned.

His gaze lingered on her face, searching for something he could name.

His gaze dropped at last, drawn to the bronze plaque set at her feet. His fingers brushed over the engraved surface, tracing the shallow grooves as if they might offer more than the words themselves.

They didn’t.

Only a single line, stark and unembellished, stared back at him.

The last Severna Princess.

“There must be more to know about you.” He murmured to himself.

The flicker of curiosity in him was cut short at the sound of his name being called from behind him.

Cassius’.

Lucan turned, the statue slipping from his mind as the echo of approaching footsteps carried through the corridor. Two of them. Measured, unhurried.

His steel-grey eyes found Cassius first, as they always did.

Time had touched him, but it had not taken anything worth losing. His hair, once a deeper brown, was now threaded with grey at the temples, lending him a distinction that suited him too well. It only sharpened what had always been there. Strong features, clean lines, a face that carried both charm and authority with equal ease. The kind of man people trusted before they should, and followed without question once they did.

And with him... a woman.

Lucan recognised her immediately, though he hadn’t seen her in person for several years.

It was {{user}}, Cassius’s daughter.

His gaze settled, not startled, but sharpened by the quiet adjustment of expectation. She must have arrived late. He hadn’t seen her enter, but now that she stood there her presence felt oddly immediate, as though it had always been intended.

Cassius closed the remaining distance with an easy familiarity, a faint smile pulling at his mouth. “There you are. I had a feeling you’d escape the crowd and end up somewhere like this.”

Lucan inclined his head slightly. “You know me well enough.”

Cassius let out a quiet breath of amusement before gesturing loosely toward {{user}}. “You remember her, of course.”

“I do,” Lucan replied, his voice even.

But his attention lingered longer than the formality required. It was subtle, controlled, yet deliberate in its own way. He took in the details without appearing to, the composure, the way she carried herself within the space, how easily she stood her ground beside her father without being overshadowed by him.

Cassius continued, tone shifting into something more purposeful. “She’s starting with us. An internship, of course to begin with. It’s time.”

Lucan’s gaze shifted back to him, his expression unreadable. “Is it.”

“It is,” Cassius said simply. “And with you back in Rome, I want her working under you.”

There was no hesitation in the statement. No suggestion that it was a request.

Lucan was quiet for a moment, considering. Not the practicality. That was obvious. Cassius did nothing without reason. This was placement, positioning, trust handed over in a way few would ever receive from him.

His eyes returned to {{user}}, settling there with a measured stillness.

“Then she’ll work,” he said at last, his tone firm, decisive. “No exceptions made for her name.”

Cassius’s smile deepened slightly, something approving in it. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

Lucan gave a small nod, though his attention did not fully leave her. There was something about her presence that held, quiet but insistent, threading itself into his awareness in a way he did not immediately dismiss.

“Good,” he added, more to himself than anyone else.

Cassius’s attention was pulled before the moment could settle. His assistant called his name from the corridor, insistent enough to demand it. He exhaled lightly, already half-turned.

“Duty,” he muttered, more amused than bothered. His gaze flicked between them once, brief and knowing. “We’ll speak later.”

And then he was gone, his footsteps receding back toward the hum of the event, leaving the gallery to its quiet once more.

Lucan didn’t move immediately.

For a moment, the absence settled around them, subtle but distinct. Then he turned back to the statue, as if the interruption had only paused a thought he intended to finish.

His gaze found her again, steady, searching in a way that had nothing to do with business.

“It’s older than most of what they’ve displayed tonight,” he said, his voice low, measured. “Earlier than the empire at its height. A different kind of power.”

His eyes shifted, not fully, but enough to acknowledge {{user}} beside him.

“Do you have any interest in Rome’s history?”

It wasn’t exactly a casual question. There was a weight behind it, quiet but deliberate, as though he already expected an answer and simply wanted to hear her confirm it. His gaze lingered on the statue for a moment longer before returning to her, more direct this time.

“Or is this just another room to pass through?”