His phone buzzed against the marble countertop. The name on the screen made his blood run cold.
“What do you want, Charles?”
“Sebastian.” The voice that had shaped his childhood—cultured, controlled, but carrying an undercurrent that made Sebastian’s skin crawl. “I trust you’ve seen the rather unflattering piece inThe Chroniclethis morning?”
Sebastian kept his voice steady, though his grip tightened on the phone. “I’ve seen it.”
“Anonymous sources, no byline. How very… modern.” There was that particular brand of amusement in Hawthorne’s tone, the kind that had always preceded Sebastian’s worst childhood punishments. “Professional work, really. Surgical. The kind of journalism that requires access to very specific information.”
“I wouldn’t know anything about that.”
“Oh, but I think you would.” The amusement faded, replaced by something colder. “If you think this little stunt will save you from the reckoning we both know is coming, my boy, you have badly miscalculated. I may have taught you well, Sebastian, but clearly not well enough to cover your tracks.”
Sebastian felt ice form in his stomach. “I don’t know what you’re—”
“The Chronicle,” Charles continued, his voice taking on that deceptively thoughtful tone Sebastian remembered from childhood interrogations. “Now, who do I know atThe Chroniclewho’s capable of this sort ofreporting…”
The pause stretched like a trap, and Sebastian could practically hear his father’s mind working, digging through years of conversations and half-remembered details.
“Right,” Charles mused, almost to himself. “That troublesome journalist who was asking questions about the foundation’s operations. Harper… Harper Sinclair. Yes.” The realization hit like a thunderclap. “The one who supposedly moved to the business desk. The same one who you convinced me to let you handle personally instead of destroying her career outright three years ago.” The last words dripped with dawning fury. “Tell me, Sebastian, exactly how did you handle Ms. Sinclair?”
Sebastian’s throat went dry. “I convinced her to drop the story. That’s all.”
“Oh, but how exactly did you manage that?” Charles’s voice turned silky with menace. “A story that damaging doesn’t simply disappear because you asked nicely. What did you offer her, Sebastian? What… personal incentives? You always have been quitecharmingwhen you want to be.”
“No personal incentives were needed. I got in her head just long enough to make her doubt herself, until I got the sources to pull back. With them gone, the story collapsed—there was nothing left to report.”
“But now she’s back, isn’t she? With whatever you’ve been whispering in her ear, while she pretends to write about IPOs. She must really be taken with you, to work with you after you already stabbed her in the back. How delicious.”
Sebastian felt something snap inside him—twenty-eight years of careful control, of measured responses, of swallowing his father’s poison with a smile. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. She has integrity. Something you wouldn’t recognize.”
Charles laughed, a sound like breaking glass. “Oh, my dear boy. You still don’t understand how this works, do you? I don’t need to prove anything. I simply need to let the world know that Harper Sinclair’s anonymous sources include my own son—that every story she’s ever written about our family came from pillow talk. Her credibility, her career, her precious integrity—all gone with one well-placed suggestion about her…veryspecialrelationship with her primary source.”
Sebastian knew that Harper’s real primary source was Sarah but he wasn’t about to reveal that to Charles, who apparently had no idea.Interesting.
The silence that followed was deafening. When Charles spoke again, his voice was dead calm, which Sebastian knew from experience was infinitely worse than shouting.
“If you so much as breathe one word about her, I’ll destroy you myself,” Sebastian said, surprising himself with the steel in his voice.
“Well that little threat tells me all I need to know, doesn’t it. You’ve just made a very serious mistake, Sebastian. Both of you.”
The threat hung in the air like a blade, and Sebastian realized with crystalline clarity that his father had just outlined Harper’s complete destruction—and it didn’t matter that the implications were false.
“Enjoy your last few days together,” Charles continued conversationally. “I suggest you make them count.”
The line went dead, leaving Sebastian staring at his phone, knowing that the war had officially begun.
He started by sending encrypted messages to contacts he hadn’t used in years. If Charles wanted to play by his own rules, then Sebastian would have to remember how to play the same game.
He called Ethan first.
“I’m in trouble,” Sebastian said without preamble when his friend answered.
“Jesus, Sebastian, what’s happened?”
“Charles knows. About Harper, about the article, about me working with her. He doesn’t have any proof but he’s going to try to destroy her by suggesting we have some kind of inappropriate relationship. She’s gonna need somewhere secure while she finishes the rest of the series.”
There was a pause while Ethan processed this. “I’ve got a place in Hampstead. Bought it under an LLC—figured I might need somewhere off the books eventually. Charles’s people won’t find it quickly.”