“Get me Miranda Walsh at The Standard,” Charles interrupted. “She’s always wanted access to the inner circle.”
Miles consulted his phone, his hands slightly unsteady. “Sir, Ms. Walsh isn’t taking calls from… from anyone associated with the office.”
“Then get me James Crawford. Or Peter Hartwell. Or any of the dozen editors who’ve spent years begging for inside information.”
Miles made several calls, each conversation shorter than the last. Charles watched his aide’s face grow increasingly pale with each rejection.
“Sir… none of them are available. Their assistants are all saying the same thing—scheduling conflicts, prior commitments. Sir, I think they’ve been advised not to—”
“Advised by whom?” Charles’s voice took on a hard edge.
“I don’t know, sir. But the pattern is… consistent.”
For the first time, Charles’s composure cracked. He opened the manila folder wider, spreading Sebastian’s signed documents across the desk like a poker hand. Authorization forms, transfer requests, board minutes—all bearing Sebastian’s careful signature from his time as ostensible heir to the Hawthorne empire.
“He signed these,” Charles said, his voice hardening. “Every single one. When the accountants needed approval for ‘administrative restructuring,’ Sebastian signed. When the lawyers needed authorization for ‘strategic offshore partnerships,’ Sebastian signed. He may be playing the repentant son now, but these documents tell a different story.”
Miles stared at the papers, recognizing his own role in obtaining many of those signatures. “But sir,” he said carefully, “Sebastian was told these were routine corporate matters. He trusted—”
“Trusted whom? Me?” Charles’s laugh was bitter. “That trust is exactly what makes him complicit, Miles. Willful ignorance is still culpability in the eyes of the law.”
He grabbed his personal phone, scrolling past the political contacts to a different section. “Barney Morrison at The Sun. He still owes me.”
The call connected immediately. “Barney, Charles Hawthorne. I have something that will reframe this entire Chronicle narrative… Evidence that my son wasn’t an innocent bystander but an active participant who’s now playing victim to save his own skin.”
Charles’s face grewincreasingly flushed as he listened.
“What do you mean ‘nobody will touch it’? I have documentation! Signatures! Proof of his involvement in—”
The change in Charles’s expression was dramatic—from fury to disbelief to something approaching panic.
“You’re refusing? You, of all people, are taking the moral high ground?” His voice cracked slightly. “Barney, I made your career. That cabinet minister’s gambling debts, the defense contractor story—without me, you’d still be writing obituaries!”
The line went dead.
Charles stared at the phone, then at the scattered documents. His hands were shaking now, a fine tremor that he couldn’t control.
Miles watched in growing horror as his employer—the man who had controlled narratives and destroyed enemies for decades—finally encountered a story so complete, so devastating, that even burning his own son wouldn’t create enough distraction to save him.
“Even the bottom-feeders won’t touch it,” Charles whispered. “They’d rather protect Sebastian than save themselves from what’s coming.”
“Sir,” Miles said quietly, years of loyalty making his voice gentle, “perhaps it’s time to consider other options. Legal counsel, damage control—”
Charles looked up at him, and for a moment his mask slipped entirely. Miles saw not the calculating political operator he’d served for fifteen years, but a man confronting the complete destruction of everything he’d built—and the terrible knowledge that his own son had been the architect of his downfall.
“Get out,” Charles said quietly.
“Sir?”
“GET OUT!” The words exploded from him with such force that Miles flinched. “You’re just like all the rest! Leave me alone with what my ungrateful son has done!”
Miles hesitated at the door, loyalty and self-preservation warring in his expression. “Sir, I—”
“NOW!”
As the door closed behind him, Charles sweptthe documents off his desk in a violent arc. Sebastian’s signatures scattered across the Persian rug like accusations he could no longer weaponize.
* * *