Chapter 20: Explanation

Chapter 20: Chapter 20: Explanation

"What the fuck is this?" Sebastian asked, his voice trembling slightly at the end of the sentence.

Whether it came from anger or the instability Claude had spent the morning documenting, Sebastian had no intention of examining too closely.

Melanie stood opposite the desk with her tablet still turned toward him. "There are multiple tabloids publishing articles about you and Crown Prince Nero. This one is restrained. Some of the others are considerably more creative."

Her tone had become clipped in the way it always did when panic translated into work. One hand already moved rapidly across her phone as she coordinated with Fitzgeralt communications.

"Our PR team is sending notices and contacting the larger outlets, but it won’t accomplish much before this spreads beyond the tabloids." She exhaled. "Or before it reaches your fathers."

Another notification appeared.

Melanie glanced at it and grimaced.

"I think they already received it."

"That’s fucking great."

Sebastian pushed his right hand through his hair and leaned back in the chair, staring at the photograph again.

The angle compressed several feet of distance until they appeared almost intimate, as though Sebastian had retreated somewhere private and Nero had followed because neither of them could tolerate remaining apart.

It was complete bullshit.

Convincing bullshit, unfortunately.

"Not only do I have to tell my parents I’m approaching berserk," Sebastian muttered, "but now I have to justify whatever tragic romance someone invented around it."

He was too occupied with wondering how a photographer had reached a private gallery to notice Irena straighten beside the windows.

Timi did.

His posture changed immediately.

Sebastian looked up only when a familiar voice came from the doorway.

"Indeed. I would like to hear the explanation."

Trevor stood just inside the office.

At nearly sixty, he had acquired only a few silver strands through the black hair Sebastian had inherited from him, most visible near his temples beneath the gray northern daylight. He wore a dark suit from the security meeting he had apparently finished early, jacket open over a black shirt, his deep-purple eyes moving first toward Sebastian and then toward the tablet on the desk.

The article was open on his own phone.

His expression was not angry... not yet.

More annoyed than anything, with the weary resignation of a man whose family had survived enough public scandals to recognize gossip when it appeared.

"I came because this reached me during the meeting," Trevor said as he entered. "I assumed someone had photographed you and Nero in an unfortunate position and decided to monetize it."

Sebastian glanced at the photograph.

"Unfortunate is generous."

"I was going to ask whether you wanted Fitzgeralt communications to deal with it or whether ignoring it would irritate the press more."

Trevor stopped beside the desk.

His eyes shifted toward Melanie, Irena, and Timi.

Something about the room registered.

Nobody looked entertained.

His gaze returned to Sebastian.

"What did you say about berserk?"

The office seemed to become quieter despite the rain tapping steadily against the tall windows.

Sebastian closed his eyes for a second.

Claude’s two-hour courtesy had apparently lasted until Sebastian decided to announce the problem at full volume with his father standing outside the door.

"Everyone out," Trevor said.

His voice never rose but carried authority like thunder.

Irena picked up her tablet immediately. Timi followed her toward the door, although both looked at Sebastian first.

"I’m fine," Sebastian said.

Neither seemed reassured.

Melanie hesitated longest.

Sebastian nodded toward the corridor. "Keep working on the article."

"I’ll be outside."

"Wonderful. Form a committee."

Trevor gave her a brief look.

Melanie decided this was not the moment to defend Sebastian from his own personality and left with the others.

The door closed behind them.

Trevor remained standing.

Sebastian knew that posture.

He had seen it in war rooms, family arguments, and once when Dean had been seventeen and managed to damage three cars in a single evening.

Controlled anger.

Usually the dangerous kind.

Trevor placed his phone facedown beside Melanie’s tablet.

"What happened?"

Sebastian gestured toward the chair opposite him.

Trevor did not sit.

"Claude ran another set of tests this morning."

"I know you’ve been testing since you returned."

"The fourth confirmed advanced destabilization."

Trevor’s face changed slowly.

The annoyance left first.

Then whatever remaining interest he had in the article disappeared with it.

"How advanced?"

Sebastian hated that his father asked like an officer before a parent.

Mostly because Sebastian knew why.

It was easier.

"Final-stage markers are present."

Trevor’s deep-purple eyes remained fixed on him.

"Berserk cascade?"

"Not fully established."

"But the markers are present?"

"Yes."

For a moment Trevor said nothing.

Then he finally pulled out the chair and sat.

The movement made him look older than Sebastian remembered him being that morning.

"When was Claude going to tell us?"

"In approximately..." Sebastian checked the clock. "Thirty-eight minutes."

Trevor stared.

"He gave me two hours before announcing it officially."

"So you could tell us yourself?"

"That was the concept."

"And instead you were going to spend those two hours reading procurement reports?"

Sebastian looked toward the documents on his desk.

"In my defense, they were extremely pressing."

"Sebastian."

The humor died.

Trevor rested his forearms on his knees and studied him properly now.

The black knit shirt. Hair loose around his shoulders. The wrist monitor Claude had ordered him to wear. The faint pallor Sebastian had stopped noticing because everyone had mentioned it too often.

"How long have you known it was this bad?"

"I didn’t."

"Don’t lie to me." Trevor snapped, but his voice was still level.

Sebastian sighed, his face becoming serious and unguarded. "Three years... I knew for three years."