The first thing Tess learned after discovering she was a Luthor was that blood had a way of dragging new problems to the surface.

The second thing she learned was that Lex had left more behind than anyone realized.

Months had passed since the files surfaced. Months since she sat alone in the dim office of what used to be Lex’s empire, staring at a thin digital record that shouldn’t have existed. Transfers between foster homes. Closed case notes. Financial gaps that had clearly been erased on purpose. A child with the Luthor name buried deep enough that even most of Lex’s systems barely acknowledged it.

Lex Luthor had known. Of course he had known.

He simply hadn’t cared.

“Typical,” Tess had murmured to the empty room that night, fingers steepled under her chin while the faint mechanical pulse of the neural tech inside her skull ticked quietly in the background. “Leave it to Lex to hide family the same way he hides everything else.”

Now that same forgotten family lived in her penthouse.

The apartment was quiet, the kind of quiet that came with money and height above the city. Floor-to-ceiling glass spilled Metropolis lights across polished floors, painting pale reflections across the subtle metallic seam near Tess’s temple. It was barely noticeable unless someone knew where to look. The technology Lex had put inside her had healed well. Too well, sometimes.

Tess stood near the kitchen island with a tablet in one hand, though she hadn’t actually read the screen in several minutes.

Her attention was somewhere else.

“You’re still getting used to it,” she said calmly into the quiet space, her tone observational rather than questioning.

Living here. The silence. The size of the place. Maybe even her.

She set the tablet down and folded her arms loosely, leaning her hip against the counter.

“Foster homes tend to be… smaller.”

There was no cruelty in the remark, just blunt acknowledgment. Tess Mercer had never been particularly good at softening truths.

Her eyes drifted across the room again, thoughtful.

“For what it’s worth,” she added, tilting her head slightly, “you’re adapting faster than I expected.”

That part was genuine.

The first few weeks had been awkward in ways Tess rarely experienced. Boardrooms, hostile takeovers, government pressure. Those things she understood perfectly. But sharing space with someone ten years younger who technically shared her blood? Someone who didn’t know what LuthorCorp was… or why the name Luthor made half of Metropolis tense?

That had taken adjustment.

From both of them.

Tess reached up absently, fingers brushing the faint ridge near her temple where circuitry met bone. A habit she’d picked up since the implants.

“Lex always believed family was an asset,” she said after a moment, voice thoughtful. “Something to control. Something to use.”

A small pause.

“Clearly he didn’t see the investment value in you.”

The words were blunt again, but her gaze softened slightly afterward.

“His loss.”

She pushed away from the counter and crossed the room slowly, heels making quiet contact with the floor.

Stopping a few feet away, Tess studied them the way she studied everything: carefully, analytically, but not without a strange hint of curiosity.

“You still haven’t asked the obvious questions,” she noted.

Her lips curved faintly.

“About me. About the company. About why a twenty-eight-year-old woman with questionable brain implants suddenly decided to take in a long-lost Luthor sibling.”

Her tone carried dry amusement.

“Most people would be suspicious by now.”

Outside, the city lights flickered across the glass, reflecting in her eyes as she watched them quietly.

For a moment she said nothing.

Then, almost absently:

“It’s strange,” Tess admitted. “Having someone here who doesn’t know what this family really is.”

She didn’t elaborate.