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After months of hard work, Lucas was eager to return home; to see his wife, check on how she'd been holding up, and find out how she was managing the paparazzi situation.

But before any of that, he and Neil had a problem on their hands.

"This kid has no records anywhere. CPS doesn't know what to do with her." Neil sighed, glancing at the girl with pity. "I had no choice but to sign on as emergency custodian."

"She was wary of everyone else except us. If you hadn't done that, I would've." Lucas said.

Neil didn't doubt it. Lucas had that hero complex; he couldn't walk past someone in need without doing something about it.

Couldn't say he hated that about him.

The girl sat in front of the TV, quiet and well-behaved, like she was trying to take up as little space as possible.

Neil watched her with solemn eyes. "Forty-eight hours have passed and nobody's come for her. No records, barely speaks English. Best I can figure, she got separated from a tour group, or it's some kind of domestic custody situation..."

Lucas nodded. But he couldn't shake the feeling that something was off. Something about this wasn't as simple as Neil was laying it out to be.

"You can head back to California without me, you know," Neil said. "I can handle this. I know how much you miss Jennifer, and how much she misses you."

Lucas hesitated. "I know. I'll go soon. I just have a feeling this case isn't as straightforward as it seems."

Neil's brow furrowed. "You mean this little girl? You're overthinking it."

"It's just a feeling."

"What kind of feeling?" Neil asked. He'd known Lucas long enough to take some of his instincts seriously.

"A kid with no documents, no English, and nobody coming for her?" Lucas said quietly. "I don't think she was brought here by choice."

Neil's eyes widened. He opened his mouth, then closed it. Even he felt uneasy now.

Lucas was saying she might've been trafficked.

"Let's not go down that road, Lucas." Neil shook his head. "I don't even want to think about it."

"Yeah." Lucas let it go. "You're probably right."

They shifted topics.

"By the way," Neil said, "some charity organization's been reaching out. Geoffrey IV Foundation. They want to discuss a possible collaboration."

"Aren't they based here in New York?" Lucas's eyes drifted slightly. "I've been hearing about them."

He wasn't new to partnering with charitable organizations; it helped, and he'd even put together events alongside DiCaprio. But he stayed cautious. DiCaprio had warned him years ago: wolves dressed themselves up like sheep in this industry.

"Should I respond?" Neil asked.

"What do you think?" Lucas turned it back on him.

"Honestly? No." Neil said it without hesitation.

"Why?"

Neil's expression turned serious. "The man behind that foundation has been in some trouble recently. About a month ago, rumors started coming out about his island. The way I see it, he wants to attach himself to your name and your foundation to clean up his image. As your manager, I'm telling you to stay away. Just common sense."

"What kind of rumors?" Lucas asked.

Neil laid it all out. The unspeakable things.

Lucas stared at him. "There was news like that a month ago?"

"Yeah. Didn't get much mainstream coverage, but it's done damage to his reputation." Neil added, "Before all this, he was a big name. Heavy connections, threw parties on his island."

Lucas's expression shifted slightly at the word parties. He couldn't explain it, but whenever that word came up in the context of high society, something always felt off underneath it. The kind of off that took years to surface publicly.

That world had gotten quieter after Diddy's conviction. Lucas had played a quiet role in that; one of the people who helped victims get heard.

Just then, Daciana got up from the TV and padded over to Neil's side, grabbing his sleeve with a tense, wary expression.

Lucas's eyes softened. "What's wrong, little Daciana?"

That was the name she'd given them; the only real thing she'd offered about herself.

She didn't answer Lucas. Instead she pointed at the TV, rigid with tension.

Lucas and Neil looked over. The news was running a live interview. Geoffrey sat in frame, composed and polished, smiling for the cameras.

Daciana's grip on Neil's sleeve tightened.

Then she spoke, pointing at the screen with a shaking finger. "That— that man." Her English broke apart almost immediately, Romanian spilling in to fill the gaps. "El a luat-o pe sora mea." She looked up at Neil, then Lucas, desperate for them to understand. She jabbed her finger at Geoffrey's face on the screen again. "Sora mea. He take. She not come back."

Lucas and Neil went very still.

Daciana had barely spoken more than a handful of words since they'd found her; cautious, watchful, staying close to the two of them but giving nothing else. That wariness had been her default state around everyone.

Which made this different.

She wasn't just tense. She was urgent, pushing through a language she barely had, because what she needed to say was too important to stay quiet about.

It was obvious she wasn't lying.

"Looks like your instinct was right this time," Neil said, voice dry. He was watching Daciana, but the humor didn't reach his eyes.

Lucas had genuinely hoped he was wrong. She was just a little girl; he'd wanted it to be simple.

He looked at Geoffrey's silver-haired image on the screen for a moment, then turned to Neil. "I'm calling my director at the LK Foundation. The one who runs the child welfare program. I'll invoke emergency child placement protocol so Daciana's covered while her case gets investigated properly. You handle the police side."

Neil nodded, expression grave. "I'll handle it."

He studied Lucas's face for a beat. He already knew what was coming next. "Don't tell me you're going to play hero again and start reaching out to this guy's other victims."

"She said her sora mea was taken by him." Lucas said it plainly. "That's enough for me."

Neil exhaled through his nose. He didn't argue. Lucas had already made enemies of bigger names than Geoffrey; there wasn't much point in holding back now.

---

Over the following days, the LK Foundation moved quickly; finding Daciana proper placement, making sure she was safe and looked after. Once Lucas was confident she was in good hands, he and Neil finally pointed themselves toward California.

He was home.

Jennifer was waiting, and the moment she saw him her face lit up in a way that cut right through the exhaustion sitting in his bones. The pregnancy had rounded her out, and something about the sight of her, the proof of what was coming, filled him with a quiet, steady warmth.

She crossed the room and pulled him into a hug that had genuine force behind it.

"You have no idea how much I missed you." Her arms tightened. "No idea."

"Easy, easy." Lucas laughed despite himself, hands coming up to her back. "You're going to snap me in half."

She pulled back just enough to get a proper look at him, hands on his shoulders, and her expression shifted. "Lucas." She sighed. "I told you not to grind yourself into the ground. You look like a strong wind could carry you off."

Any other time that kind of worry would've landed differently, but this was far from the first time she'd seen him come back like this.

From the sofa, Neil settled in with the luggage and chimed in without looking up. "Don't stress too much, Jen. I genuinely don't understand how his body works, but he actually looks better than he did yesterday. Same guy, somehow slightly less like a ghost."

"It's true," Lucas said. "Give me a little time. I'll bounce back; I always do."

He'd stopped trying to explain the Mind Workshop to himself years ago. It didn't follow any logic he could map out, and thinking too hard about it just gave him a headache.

"I suppose you're right." Jennifer relented, then called for the maid to start on a proper meal.

They ate together, and Lucas spent most of it asking after her; how she'd been managing, whether the paparazzi situation had been wearing on her, whether she was actually doing okay or just saying she was.

"They're annoying," she admitted. "Camping just outside the property line, pointing cameras at the windows. But I'm not letting them stress me out. I just go about my day and don't think about them."

"Smart," Neil said.

Jennifer set down her fork and glanced at Lucas. "I've been talking to my agency and my manager about it. We all landed in the same place: we can't keep this secret much longer. We should announce the pregnancy on our own terms, before someone else does it for us."

Lucas let out a slow breath. He'd known this conversation was coming. "Yeah." He nodded. "I know."

"By the way," Jennifer said, eyes shifting to Neil, "you two said you'd be back a few days earlier. What happened?"

Neil paused, remembering fast. Lucas had been clear: don't drag Jennifer into the Daciana situation. Not while she was pregnant. "Well... you heard about that foreign girl I found, right? Lucas helped me make sure she was properly settled before we left. You know how he is." He gestured vaguely. "Hero complex. Couldn't just walk away until he knew everything was handled."

Jennifer smiled, the kind of smile that said she wasn't even remotely surprised. "Is that so. That sounds about right."

Lucas kept eating. Quietly. He had absolutely no intention of mentioning Daciana, the Geoffrey situation, or the fact that he was already pulling on threads that would probably lead somewhere dangerous. Jennifer was pregnant. Some things were better left on the other side of the country.

---

Late August, Lucas posted a Vine with Jennifer; her hands cradling her belly, his arm around her shoulders, both of them looking at the camera with the kind of ease that only comes from genuinely not caring how it looks. The caption read: Expecting an angel to be born soon. The audio was the piece he'd performed at the Grammys.

It went off within hours.

The speculation had been building for weeks, fed by the paparazzi photos circulating online; Jennifer in oversized sweaters, baggy jackets, not her usual style. People had their theories. But theories weren't confirmation.

This was confirmation.

The comments flooded in:

"I'm so happy and so sad at the same time. My boyfriend is having a kid."

"Genuinely so happy for them both."

"My goddess is becoming a mother. I'm not okay. But if it's Lucas's then fine. I accept it."

"If this baby doesn't have Lucas's cheekbones I'm suing."

The overwhelming wave was congratulatory, warm, celebratory. There were negative voices scattered in; people who had opinions about the timing, the relationship, Jennifer's career, whatever else. But they were swallowed whole by the positivity; barely visible under the volume of goodwill pouring in.

Lucas's tweet sharing the Vine drew an immediate pile-on of celebrity responses. Taylor Swift replied within minutes. DiCaprio sent a warm public comment, then a longer private message. Ryan Reynolds posted a joke that somehow made it about himself before wrapping it in a genuine congratulations. Justin Bieber dropped a simple congrats bro that still managed to trend. Chris Pratt, Dwayne Johnson, Adele, Rihanna; the replies kept stacking.

His closer circle reached out privately. Paul Sterling, Liza, Samantha, Leonard; messages that were warmer and less polished than the public ones, which made them mean more.

And because Lucas had spent years building real relationships in the YouTube world; the Rewind, the genuine back-and-forth with creators; that community showed up too. PewDiePie, MrBeast, Markiplier, Jacksepticeye; all of them posting or messaging, the kind of response that came from people who actually liked him rather than people managing optics.

The announcement was supposed to settle things down.

It did the opposite.

The paparazzi presence outside their property didn't thin out; it doubled. New vans appeared. Photographers who hadn't bothered before were suddenly staking out the neighborhood. Interview requests stacked up faster than Neil's team could filter them.

It made a certain kind of sense, even if it was infuriating.

Lucas and Jennifer weren't just famous individually; they were one of the biggest couples on the planet, a pairing that had fascinated the public since the beginning. And now there was a baby.

A child that would carry the genetics of an Oscar-winning actress and an actor-musician who had somehow become a global icon across film, music, and philanthropy simultaneously.

The tabloids could run that story for months: the pregnancy journey, the due date speculation, the name speculation, the gender, the birth, the first photos. Every stage was a cover.

The reveal hadn't closed the story. It had opened a new one.

---

Meanwhile, in New York.

The rumors about certain elites and a private island were spreading. Quietly, steadily. Largely buried under the wave of coverage surrounding Lucas and Jennifer's pregnancy announcement, but it was definitely there, circulating in the right circles.

Geoffrey's penthouse sat above all of it. For now.

He was at the card table with his closest people, playing cards, wine within reach, the city sprawling indifferently behind the windows.

"I heard the Hollywood biggest power couple is expecting a child." Geoffrey glanced at his cards. "Fortunate for us. It's somehow overshadowed the news about our situation. Still, we need to lay low for now."

Giselle, his socialite right hand and assistant, a sharp woman in her forties, sighed. "True. My operations are really being affected because of all this. I do hope the LK Foundation responds soon about our collaboration proposal. With Lucas's image attached to ours, it'll render the rumors useless."

Geoffrey shook his head slowly. "I have a feeling he won't ever respond." He set a card down. "I've been a philanthropist for years, and I've barely managed any real connection with Lucas despite reaching out for quite some time now."

He paused, swirling his wine. "When I first heard about him, I thought he was like me. Nobody does that much good without an angle underneath it. Nobody gives that much away without expecting something back. So I watched him closely, tried to find the seams." A short pause. "But the longer I watched, the more I realized there are no seams. The man genuinely has no ulterior motive. He just... does it." He set his glass down. "A person like that is either the most dangerous kind of saint, or someone I will never understand."

Dominic, his fixer attorney, glanced up from his cards. "Either way, from a practical standpoint, having his association would make things considerably easier. His credibility alone would neutralize a lot of our ongoing exposure."

"True." Giselle laughed softly. "Though Geoffrey's attempts at gaining that association have been something else entirely." She drew from her cigarette, then offhandedly: "He used Harvey in prison; fed the man's grudge against Lucas, gave him the right people to arrange a hit." She immediately covered her mouth. "Woops. Is it okay that I said that?"

Geoffrey and the others laughed softly.

"It's fine. We're the only ones here."

The voice came from the laptop open at the end of the table. A secure video call app on a private server; several faces on screen, some with cameras on, some without. The one who'd spoken had hers on: a woman, well-dressed, seated in what looked like a private study.

Looking closely, it was none other than Myla. Lucas's stepmother. A long-standing part of Geoffrey's circle, joining remotely.

"Giselle is giving me too much credit." Geoffrey smiled toward the screen. "Myla here is definitely the one who truly wanted the boy out. Even I was surprised by how much she hates her own stepson."

On screen, Myla sighed. "I regret involving myself. I can't move freely now without the FBI watching my back."

"You regret it because you became a person of interest in an assassination attempt," another voice on the call said dryly. "Not because you actually tried to have your husband's kid killed."

A few chuckles.

"Fortunately there's this group call, so I can still be part of these meetings." Myla admitted. Then: "But seriously, since the kid survived the attempt, are you all considering a second one?"

Geoffrey snorted. "Are you serious? Especially now with the media already on my back?"

"That kid is a real threat," Myla said, with the particular weight of someone who'd observed Lucas up close for years. "It's no secret he's been playing hero and snitching on Hollywood. It's only a matter of time before he gets his nose around your business. You can see that, can't you?"

Geoffrey savored his wine before answering. "It's too risky. Even if we succeeded in offing him, there's a very real chance the public wouldn't settle for it, and the investigation would lead straight back to us." He added, "Not to mention, he's part of the Cavendish family. Even I would be in trouble if they got serious. The old man, William, is retired but he is not someone to trifle with." A pause. "We already got lucky that the attempt on his grandson isn't leading back to us."

Silence settled over the room and the call.

Even with Geoffrey's connections, offing someone like Lucas Knight; with equal reach, equal resources, and considerably more public goodwill; was a different kind of risk entirely.

Geoffrey changed the subject smoothly. "Anyway, I heard there's been some trouble with logistics. One of the girls slipped out before her transfer was completed." He looked toward Nadia Solberg on screen, the woman who handled the operational side. "Has it been resolved?"

Nadia's expression complicated. "About that..."

"Find her," Geoffrey said, tone still pleasant. "My associates have been waiting on that placement. They're looking forward to meeting the child they've agreed to adopt. I want it handled."

The adoption program was clean on paper; displaced children matched with wealthy benefactors, proper documentation, a foundation doing visible good work. Daciana had been a genuine part of that; not everything Geoffrey ran was sinister, and the adoption front was exactly what it presented itself as. She was simply a child matched with a family who wanted her. Too young, too ordinary to be of any other use.

Had the transfer completed, she would've had documents, a proper home, a life that looked entirely legitimate on paper.

But she'd slipped out before any of that happened, which meant her paperwork remained entirely on Geoffrey's end, never formally filed anywhere.

To any authority who came across her, she was a ghost; a foreign child with no identity, no immigration record, nothing to trace her back to anyone.

Not ideal, but even that was a better situation than her older sister's.

At least Daciana had somewhere to land; a family waiting, a life that would've looked entirely legitimate once the paperwork cleared.

Her older sister would never have that. She hadn't gone anywhere, and she never would. Still inside Geoffrey's household; working as a maid, living under his roof, under an arrangement that existed in no documentation anywhere.

---

Geoffrey and his associates had no idea that the girl who'd slipped out of their pipeline was now safely handled under the care of the very man they were wary of.

Lucas wasn't thinking about Geoffrey right now though.

He was focused on Jennifer, on being home, on being present. And on eating, apparently, because his body was doing something that continued to baffle his medical team. The gaunt, hollow figure that had returned from New York was gradually filling back out by the day; flesh returning to his face, his shoulders, his arms. At this rate, two more weeks and he'd be back to his normal self.

His doctors had no explanation for it. They ran panels, checked bloodwork, discussed theories among themselves. One floated the idea that Lucas might carry a rare genetic condition affecting his metabolism and recovery rate; something that allowed his body to bounce back at a pace that simply wasn't medically standard.

It was the most logical framework they could attach to something that didn't behave logically.

They weren't wrong to be baffled. Even Christian Bale, notorious for his extreme physical transformations, operated on a longer recovery timeline. Lucas was something else entirely.

He finished his morning workout and walked through the estate, noticing something he hadn't expected: the media presence outside the property had thinned out considerably over the past few days. The vans that had been camping along the perimeter, the paparazzi with telephoto lenses; most of them were gone.

The reason was Britney Spears.

The Free Britney movement had exploded back into the headlines, consuming the news cycle almost entirely. The conservatorship battle had reached a critical point, and the public's attention had shifted there wholesale.

With a father like Vince Knight and a stepmother like Myla in his own history, he didn't need convincing about what it looked like when family treated someone as disposable. They'd kicked him out at eighteen without looking back, and when fame arrived and suddenly made him worth knowing again, he'd shut that door without hesitation and never reopened it.

They talked about it over meals, over coffee in the morning, in the evenings when the news updated. It was one of those topics that felt personal without needing explanation between them.

Life felt almost normal for a stretch. Quiet, domestic, easy in the way that only happened when the world briefly forgot to look at them.

But underneath that quiet, Lucas was making moves.

He'd reached out separately to Netflix and HBO about producing a documentary centered on Geoffrey Eckstein; his foundation, his network, his island.

The kind of documentary that followed the money and didn't stop until it found what was at the end of it. Joel Berlinger, who'd worked with Lucas before and understood the weight of that kind of project, had already volunteered to lead it.

Both platforms had hesitated initially. Geoffrey still had powerful connections, and a documentary of that nature invited legal risk before a single frame was shot.

But Lucas had come prepared. He'd already made contact with several of Geoffrey's victims through the channels the LK Foundation operated; people willing to speak on record, with documentation to support what they were saying.

Netflix had greenlit projects on less. HBO had built its documentary reputation on exactly this kind of story. Once Lucas laid out what he had access to, the hesitation gave way.

The project moved forward quietly.

Jennifer knew none of it. Her attention, for now, was pointed somewhere else entirely.

---

Early November brought the news they'd both been waiting for.

Britney's conservatorship was officially terminated.

Jennifer was glued to the TV, one hand on her stomach, eyes already watering. "Oh my god. She's finally free." She let out a breath. "Thirteen years, Lucas. That's insane."

"Yeah." Lucas watched the coverage beside her. "Long time coming."

Jennifer wiped the corner of her eye, laughing a little at herself for crying. Then she looked over at him. "You relate to her at all? Like, obviously it's not the same situation, but... Vince and Myla weren't exactly parents of the year either."

Lucas snorted. "That's putting it nicely."

"So you do relate."

"I mean, yeah. People who are supposed to have your back treating you like shit instead." He shrugged. "I get it on some level."

Jennifer nodded, leaning into him a little. "I saw what you've been doing on Twitter. Pushing the hashtags, making sure the algorithm wasn't suppressing it."

"I own the damn platform," Lucas said. "Least I could do."

Jennifer smiled. "Still counts."

Lucas pulled her closer and they kept watching.

After a while Jennifer tilted her head up at him. "Hey, can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"What's your secret?"

Lucas went a little still. 'Secret?' His mind jumped immediately to the Mind Workshop, to everything that didn't have a logical explanation. 'Does she know? Has she noticed something?'

"What do you mean?" he asked carefully.

"Like..." Jennifer gestured vaguely. "You grew up with Vince. Dealt with Myla. Been in this industry long enough to see how disgusting it gets up close. And you're still just... normal. Good, even." She looked at him. "Most people who go through half of what you've been through come out the other side bitter or broken or just straight up corrupt. You didn't. How?"

Lucas exhaled quietly. 'Oh. That.'

He thought about it for a real second. "I don't know, honestly. I think at some point I just got stubborn about it. Like, I watched what the money and the power did to people around me and I just... didn't want that. Didn't want to become something the world molded." He paused. "I'd rather leave a mark on the world than let it leave one on me. And I got lucky enough to actually be in a position to do that. Not everyone gets that."

Jennifer just looked at him for a moment. "Yeah," she said quietly. "I see it."

He held her a little tighter.

Truthfully, none of that applied to his previous life. He'd been consumed by all of it; the failures piling up, the resentment toward everyone who'd made it look effortless, the slow rot of a life that hadn't gone the way he'd wanted. He'd died bitter, broke in spirit, full of regrets.

This life was different.

He looked at Jennifer. At her hand on her stomach.

This time around, he was good.

---

By November 8th, after a hard labour, Jennifer finally brought their first child into the world.

A baby girl.

She lay in the hospital bed holding her, exhausted in the way that only came from that kind of effort, but smiling anyway; the tired, genuine kind that had nothing performed about it.

Lucas entered the room almost at a jog and stopped.

His wife. His daughter. Right there in front of him.

He didn't do anything for a moment. Just stood there, eyes watering, lips curling up without his permission.

Jennifer looked up and laughed softly. "You can hold her, you know."

"Can I?" Lucas asked, not moving.

"Lucas. You're the father."

He crossed the room and took the baby with careful, slightly quivering hands. She was impossibly small. Eyes closed, soft and warm, making small sounds that shouldn't have meant anything and somehow meant everything.

He didn't realize he was smiling like an idiot until he heard Jennifer laughing again.

"Seraphina," he said. It came out without thinking; he hadn't planned it.

Jennifer blinked. "Is that the name you want?"

Lucas looked up. "Yeah. If you want something else we can—"

"No, no." She was already smiling. "I love it. Seraphina."

They stayed in that for a moment, just the two of them and the baby, the rest of the world somewhere far away.

Then Lucas glanced at Jennifer. "How are you feeling? I can take her while you rest—"

"I'm fine."

"You sure? You just—"

"You just want to keep her to yourself." Jennifer narrowed her eyes at him. "Don't think I don't see it."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Lucas said, already turning slightly away with the baby.

Jennifer opened her mouth to respond, but the door opened and her parents came through; and within approximately four seconds, Seraphina had been efficiently removed from Lucas's arms by her grandmother, who was already conducting a full examination.

"Look at those eyes. Blue, just like—"

"She's going to be beautiful. Just like her mother, obviously."

Lucas stood there empty-handed, watching his daughter get passed between her grandparents like a prize. He'd completely forgotten they'd been waiting outside.

He and Jennifer exchanged a look.

They both accepted their helplessness quietly.

---

A month later, back at the Bel Air estate.

The master bedroom had been reorganized around Seraphina in a way that had somehow become pink and Barbie-themed without Lucas fully understanding when that decision had been made. He didn't complain.

Jennifer had recovered well but Lucas had appointed himself the household's primary operative regardless; cooking, cleaning, handling Seraphina through the nights when Jennifer needed sleep. For a stretch, he was entirely domesticated and found he didn't mind it at all.

Then William Cavendish showed up unannounced.

The old man walked through the door and made a beeline for Seraphina with an energy that was almost alarming for someone his age. "There she is." He took her carefully, face breaking into something genuinely joyful. "Seraphina. You are so cute, aren't you?"

Seraphina, for her part, made a small gurgling sound and grabbed at his finger.

William looked like he'd been given the world.

He kept at it for longer than any of them expected; carrying her, talking to her, completely absorbed. His subordinate standing nearby looked increasingly anxious watching an elderly man refuse to sit down.

Eventually gravity and age won out. William lowered himself onto the sofa with a long exhale, Seraphina handed carefully back, his energy visibly spent.

Jennifer brought him cold juice. "Grandpa. You need to take it easy."

"I'm fine," William said, and drank the entire glass in one go. He rested for a moment, then looked at Jennifer with genuine warmth; asked how she was recovering, whether she was eating properly, whether Lucas was actually helping or just getting in the way.

After a while, Jennifer slipped out to check on Seraphina, and the two men were alone.

William's expression shifted. The warmth didn't disappear entirely, but something underneath it came forward; sharper, more deliberate.

"What have you been doing now," he said. Not a question.

Lucas smiled faintly. "You know."

"Geoffrey Eckstein." William said the name plainly. "Yes, I know. I know everything you've been setting up." He looked at his grandson steadily. "That man is not Diddy, Lucas. He has considerably more insulation and considerably more dangerous friends. You understand that?"

"Should I leave it alone then?" Lucas asked.

William studied him for a long moment, then exhaled through his nose. "I can't stop you. I've never been able to stop you." He set down his glass. "So I'll back you instead. The Cavendish family still has influence in New York; enough to open certain doors and close certain others. Use it."

Lucas looked at him. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me. Be careful." William's voice dropped slightly. "I mean that seriously this time. Increase your security."

"If I add any more it'll be presidential level."

"Then make it presidential." William didn't smile. "I mean it this time, Lucas."

Lucas nodded. "Understood."

The seriousness passed and William leaned back, the warmth returning, and they talked about Seraphina for the rest of the visit; her eyes, whether she'd have Lucas's jawline, what kind of person she'd grow into.

When William finally left, he paused at the door and held up his phone. "A photo. Humor an old man."

They gathered; Lucas, Jennifer, Seraphina, William. His subordinate took it.

Jennifer didn't flinch at it, which was notable because she'd been quietly firm with everyone else about photographs of Seraphina.

The reasoning was simple and she'd said it plainly to Lucas already: they'd seen what happened to celebrity children whose faces circulated online before they were old enough to consent to any of it. The commentary, the parasocial attachment, strangers feeling entitled to opinions about a child who had no say in being public. Seraphina hadn't chosen this life.

Until she was old enough to understand what it meant, her face wasn't for public consumption.

William was different. The photo wasn't going anywhere except a private collection. She trusted that completely.

She watched him walk to his car, subordinate at his side, moving a little slower than when he'd arrived.

"He really loves her already," Jennifer said quietly.

"Yeah," Lucas said. "He does."

---

The birth hadn't been confirmed by anyone close to the couple. But the media didn't need confirmation.

TMZ: "EXCLUSIVE: Lucas Knight and Jennifer Knight's Baby Has Arrived — Couple Refuses To Confirm Any Details"

People: "Lucas Knight and Jennifer Knight Welcome Their First Child — Gender And Name Unknown"

E! News: "Baby Knight Is Here? Lucas Knight Spotted Leaving Hospital — Everything Still A Mystery"

Daily Mail: "Lucas Knight Returns To Bel Air As Baby Arrival Rumours Swirl — Not Even Gender Confirmed"

Entertainment Tonight: "Jennifer Knight Has Given Birth, Sources Claim — Couple Completely Silent On All Details"

Page Six: "Lucas Knight Goes Full Hermit Mode — Baby Knight's Gender, Name, Everything Still Unknown"

Interview requests stacked up. Representatives reached out. Journalists camped outside the Bel Air property.

Silence. Complete and total. Not a denial, not a confirmation. The couple moved as if the media simply didn't exist.

Netizens filled the vacuum themselves:

"As much as I want to see their baby, I completely understand why they're keeping it private. Leave them alone honestly."

"Other celebrities post their newborns within 24 hours for clout. Lucas and Jennifer said absolutely not and I respect it."

"I mean I get it but also... we've been so invested in this pregnancy and now just nothing? A little cruel ngl."

"The fact that TMZ is literally guessing and calling it 'exclusive' is embarrassing journalism."

"They don't owe us anything. That's a baby. That baby didn't sign up for this."

"Okay but a SINGLE photo? Just one? We're begging."

"Lucas owns Twitter and still won't say a word. The discipline on this man."

"Honestly the more celebrities keep their kids off the internet the more I respect them. Those kids grow up and have to live with whatever was posted."

Whatever the internet thought, the decision had already been made. No photographs of Seraphina would circulate online. Not now, not through leaks, not through anyone. The household staff had been briefed clearly; NDAs already in place and reinforced.

Lucas and Jennifer hadn't needed a long conversation about it.

---

Early December, Lucas left for Granity Studios.

He didn't leave without promising Jennifer he'd be back early. She waved him off without much fuss; he'd been good, genuinely good, and she wasn't going to hold him back from work that actually mattered to him.

Maggie's animation project had been developing well in the background. The animation itself was complete. What remained was Lucas's cameo dubbing and the song he'd written specifically for the film.

At Granity Studios, Kobe and Maggie were already waiting.

Kobe spread his arms when Lucas walked in. "Man. It has been a while."

"Yeah." Lucas smiled, taking the handshake that turned into a brief hug. "It really has. How's the project looking?"

"Great," Maggie said, not hiding her satisfaction. "The animation surpassed what we were expecting, honestly. You'll see."

"Looking forward to it."

Kobe studied him for a second, then scratched the back of his neck. "Hey, I've been hearing stuff from the news. About your kid." He held up a hand immediately. "And look, if that's private, just tell me to mind my business. No offense taken either way."

Lucas laughed. Even Kobe Bryant was curious. "No, it's fine. Yeah, she was born about a month ago. We have a daughter."

Kobe's face broke into a full grin. "A daughter! That's everything, man. Congratulations." He pointed at Lucas. "Let me tell you something right now; daughters are different. They own you completely and you'll realize it within the first week. Whatever you think you know about yourself, your daughter is going to rewrite all of it. Just accept it early, save yourself the confusion."

"Already happening," Lucas admitted.

"Good." Kobe laughed. "Just be present. Everything else figures itself out."

"I'll keep that in mind."

Maggie, who had been standing slightly to the side with increasingly visible disappointment, finally spoke. "I was really looking forward to that gender reveal party."

Lucas turned to her. "Last minute decision. The media was already so far up our business that any kind of event would've turned into a circus. We had to kill it."

Maggie sighed. "That's really tough. I bought an outfit and everything."

Kobe looked at her. "You bought an outfit."

"I was excited," Maggie said, unapologetic.

After a while, Lucas got a look at the completed animation. It was genuinely impressive; the style, the movement, the way it carried the tone of the story. Better than he'd expected, and he'd expected good.

Then he went to work. Into the booth, the song he'd prepared, the scene built around it. The piece came together the way things did when they'd been properly thought through beforehand.

---

Late December. The first K-Pop Demon Hunters trailer dropped on YouTube.

Warner Bros. and Netflix logos opened it; WB handling theatrical distribution, Netflix handling streaming with multilingual dubbing across markets, something theatrical release couldn't guarantee. The arrangement had been discussed and settled months ago.

The first trailer landed quietly. A few hundred thousand views across the first day; respectable for an animated project, nothing extraordinary.

Then the second trailer dropped.

Three seconds of Lucas's cameo. The trailer closed on a black screen, two lines fading in:

In theatres January 15, 2022.

Featuring Lucas Knight, with an original song performed exclusively for this film.

That was all it took.

Under twenty-four hours, twelve million views.

"LUCAS KNIGHT IS IN AN ANIMATED MOVIE AND HAS AN ORIGINAL SONG IN IT?? WHAT IS HAPPENING"

"The animation looks incredible but I lost my mind when I heard his voice come in"

"January 15th can't come fast enough"

"The way I screamed when I saw him in the trailer. An original song too?? We're so fed."

"Kobe Bryant producing an animated film with Lucas Knight is genuinely one of the most unexpected crossovers in history and it looks GOOD"

Twelve million views and climbing.

---

By January 15th, the theatres in New York were packed.

K-Pop Demon Hunters. Not a single empty seat. The billboard in Times Square had been up for two weeks; Lucas rendered as an animated character, larger than life above the city. It had become a photo spot overnight.

Most of the audience had shown up for one reason and one reason only. The plot was secondary. The K-pop angle was secondary. Lucas Knight had a cameo and an original song in this thing, and that was enough.

Then the movie started.

And somewhere around the fifteen minute mark, people forgot why they'd originally come.

The story was actually good. A girl group who were secretly human protectors, their lead carrying demon blood she barely understood herself. A demon boy band who were supposed to be the enemy but moved and sounded like nothing the enemy was supposed to sound like. The music from both sides was genuinely great; not filler, not background noise, actual songs with actual hooks.

"I seriously came for Lucas but the songs from both bands are seriously good."

"Right? I wasn't expecting this at all."

"The demon boys are actually kind of hot for animated characters."

"That's not something I expected to say tonight either."

The plot pulled them in. The complicated push and pull between the girls and the boys; love-hate, human and demon, two sides of something neither fully understood. The audience leaned in.

And then it arrived.

The moment both bands stood across from each other, tension wound tight, a battle of music building between them.

Lucas walked in.

The theatre lost it immediately.

"LUCAS!"

Someone a few rows back just screamed wordlessly. Nobody judged them.

He appeared between both groups, easy and unhurried, like he belonged exactly there. The band materialized behind him. He turned to the female lead, close, tilting slightly toward her.

"Have you got colour in your cheeks?"

His hand gestured toward her face, the animation capturing it perfectly. Then he turned toward the boy band.

"Do you ever get that fear that you can't shift the type that sticks around like summat in your teeth?"

He moved between both sides, threading through the tension like he was reading it.

"Are there some aces up your sleeve? Have you no idea that you're in deep?"

Every line landed on something real between the characters; their confusion, their pull toward each other, the thing neither side wanted to admit.

"Do I wanna know?"

From beside Lucas, a previously unseen character appeared out of nowhere, deadpan, inexplicably singing along perfectly in step.

Lucas glanced sideways at him. "If this feeling flows both ways?"

"Sad to see you go," the unknown character followed.

"Was sorta hopin' that you'd stay."

"Baby we both know."

The audience erupted in laughter at the random character, then immediately went back to being completely invested.

The cameo lasted a few minutes. When it ended the theatre was loud in a way that didn't feel like a crowd reacting; it felt like people who'd just heard something they wanted to hear again immediately.

They'd bought tickets for three seconds of trailer footage. They got that, and somehow considerably more.

---

The cameo and "Do I Wanna Know" consumed the internet for days.

The baby conversation evaporated. Temporarily, at least.

"I came for Lucas and ended up genuinely invested in the demon girl group storyline. I don't know what happened."

"The way Do I Wanna Know fit that scene perfectly. That song was MADE for that moment."

"How does this man keep producing hit after hit. Film, music, animated movies. What is Lucas Knight's brain made of."

"Who is the random guy singing with Lucas and why is he my favourite character in the whole movie."

"Lucas Knight animated is genuinely one of the most beautiful things I've seen in 2022 and it's only January 15th."

"The girl band and boy band music goes SO hard. I came for Lucas I'm staying for everything else."

"The entire cinema lost their minds when Lucas walked in. Best audience experience I've had in years."

---

IMDb: 7.9/10

"Went in expecting a fun animated movie with a Lucas Knight cameo. Left genuinely moved by the story and completely obsessed with the soundtrack. The Do I Wanna Know sequence is worth the ticket price alone. The demon boy band are scene stealers and the female lead carries real emotional weight. Surprisingly layered for what the marketing suggested."

"Lucas Knight's cameo is everything you want it to be and the movie around it turns out to be great on its own terms. Rare double win."

Rotten Tomatoes: 84% Critics / 91% Audience Score

Critics consensus: "K-Pop Demon Hunters arrives as a pleasant surprise; a visually inventive, emotionally engaging animated feature that transcends its premise. The music is its strongest asset, and a show-stopping cameo sequence featuring Lucas Knight is the kind of moment that makes people remember why they go to the cinema."

---

Days passed and it became clear the success of K-Pop Demon Hunters had nothing to do with Lucas's cameo alone.

The songs were the story.

Videos kept surfacing from everywhere; kids in Korea, Brazil, the Philippines, Japan, the UK, all singing the same tracks. "Scarlet Moon." "Shadow Play." "Starlight Promise." "Final Encore." HUNTR/X and Gwi-Ma had somehow become globally recognised names without anyone planning for that to happen.

But "Golden" was the one that got completely out of hand.

It ended up everywhere. School hallways, living rooms, Vine, YouTube, family group chats. Then Kobe posted a video of himself, his wife, and his daughters singing it together in the kitchen, none of them caring how it looked. Ten million views in a day. The comments were people tagging Lucas, tagging the studio, just generally losing their minds.

The first week box office closed at $98 million.

Genuinely nobody had expected that. Sing 2 was still running. Encanto was still pulling numbers on Disney's theatrical push. Both good films, both backed by studios with decades of infrastructure and marketing muscle. Both got overshadowed.

Then the weekly box office chart updated with K-Pop Demon Hunters at number one, and someone edited it off the list within hours. No explanation. It came back later like nothing happened.

Nobody admitted to it. Nobody needed to.

The whole thing said what it said. A first-time animation studio run by a basketball player and an actor, with a mid-budget K-pop demon concept that the industry would've laughed out of a pitch meeting, had just beaten the majors in their own lane on story and music alone.

----------

Song: Do I Wanna Know? - Arctic Monkeys