Chapter 7
Sebastian did not remember sitting down.
One moment he was standing beside the motel table with the child’s drawing in his hand.
The next he was in the only chair in the room, staring at the words on the back as though they belonged to a language he should understand but could not.
Oliver, age four.
Seven years ago.
The mathematics happened automatically.
Oliver would be eleven now.
Eleven years.
For eleven years, Catherine had been a mother.
For eleven years, Sebastian had been an uncle.
And he had known nothing.
Audrey remained standing near the door.
Sebastian looked at her.
“You knew.”
It was not a question.
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Fourteen months.”
His laugh was quiet and empty.
“Of course.”
“Sebastian—”
“Who is the father?”
Audrey hesitated.
“Dead.”
His gaze sharpened.
“When?”
“Before Catherine came to me.”
“Name.”
“I can’t.”
Sebastian stood so quickly the chair scraped backward.
Audrey did not retreat.
“The promise,” he said bitterly.
“Yes.”
“My sister had a son, and you think her promise still gives you the right to keep him from me?”
“It gives me the responsibility to keep him alive.”
Everything stopped.
Sebastian stared at her.
Audrey’s face was pale, but her voice remained steady.
“That is what you haven’t understood. Catherine wasn’t hiding Oliver because she wanted to punish you. She was hiding him because someone had already started looking.”
“Malcolm?”
“I don’t know how much he knew then. Catherine believed he knew enough.”
“Where is Oliver?”
“I’m not telling you.”
Sebastian crossed the room.
He stopped less than two feet away.
“You think I would hurt him?”
“No.”
The answer came immediately.
Something inside him shifted.
Audrey continued.
“I think you would protect him the way you protect everything.”
His expression hardened.
“And apparently that is a crime now.”
“Sometimes.”
The word struck him harder than an accusation.
Audrey pointed toward the recorder.
“Listen before you decide I’m your enemy again.”
Sebastian looked at the device.
Then pressed play.
Static filled the small motel room.
A breath.
Then Catherine’s voice.
Sebastian stopped breathing.
“Seb?”
The single syllable almost destroyed him.
It was Catherine exactly as he remembered. Slightly amused even when serious. Warm at the edges. Familiar enough to collapse fourteen months into nothing.
“If you’re hearing this, you’re probably furious. Audrey is probably standing somewhere nearby pretending she isn’t worried you’re going to tear the building apart.”
Audrey covered her mouth.
Catherine laughed softly on the recording.
“She does that. She gets this line between her eyebrows when she thinks everyone else is being unreasonable.”
Sebastian closed his eyes.
“Do not blame her.”
The humor disappeared from Catherine’s voice.
“Whatever you think she kept from you, she kept because I asked. And I asked because there is a little boy involved.”
Sebastian opened his eyes again.
“His name is Oliver Thomas Ror.”
The surname hit harder than anything else.
“He is my son. His father was Thomas Hale.”
Sebastian’s face changed.
He knew the name.
Thomas Hale had been an investigative accountant hired by Ror Holdings twelve years earlier to audit several redevelopment companies.
He had died in a highway accident less than a year later.
Sebastian had attended the funeral.
He had never known Thomas had been involved with Catherine.
“He died before Oliver was born,” Catherine continued. “He never knew I was pregnant.”
Audrey stared at Sebastian.
He looked like stone now.
“Thomas discovered something before he died,” Catherine said. “He found money moving through shell companies tied to the waterfront redevelopment coalition. Money that didn’t belong there. Properties being bought through pressure, insurance manipulation, forged safety reports.”
Sebastian slowly lowered himself back into the chair.
“Malcolm Voss was involved.”
The room seemed to shrink.
“But Malcolm wasn’t the problem I was afraid of most.”
Sebastian leaned forward.
“The transactions carried Ror approvals.”
His stomach tightened.
“Some had Dad’s signature. Some had yours.”
Sebastian stopped moving.
Audrey looked at him.
His face had gone completely blank.
Catherine’s voice continued.
“I knew you didn’t sign them, Sebastian.”
His eyes closed.
“I knew because some were dated while you were in Switzerland after the shooting. You were in a hospital. You couldn’t have authorized anything.”
Sebastian remembered.
Eight years earlier.
A bullet through his shoulder.
Three surgeries.
Six weeks outside the country.
His father had managed the business during his recovery.
“When I asked Dad, he told me to stop looking. When I didn’t, someone broke into my apartment. Two weeks later, Thomas died.”
Sebastian’s hand curled into a fist.
“I still couldn’t prove the crash wasn’t an accident.”
Catherine took a breath on the recording.
“Then Oliver was born.”
Silence.
“I understood something you never had to understand, Seb. Fear changes when you have a child. You can gamble with yourself. You cannot gamble with them.”
Sebastian stared at the floor.
“So I left.”
Audrey had tears running silently down her face.
“I kept Oliver away from the Ror name. Away from the waterfront. Away from anyone who might use him to control me.”
Another pause.
“Then Dad died.”
Sebastian lifted his head.
Their father had died four years earlier.
“I thought maybe it was over. I thought maybe I could come home. Then Malcolm found me at a restaurant in Boston.”
Sebastian’s expression went cold.
“He didn’t threaten me. He didn’t need to. He put a photograph of Oliver on the table.”
Audrey turned away.
Catherine’s voice became quieter.
“That was the day I knew I couldn’t come home yet.”
Sebastian stood again.
Not in anger at Audrey.
This was different.
This anger had direction.
“I found Audrey because Thomas had once donated to her hospice. He trusted her. I decided that was enough.”
Catherine laughed weakly.
“Terrible logic, probably. But I was dying, and I didn’t have much time left to improve my judgment.”
Sebastian’s face broke.
Only slightly.
Enough.
Audrey saw.
He looked away before she could respond.
“I had pancreatic cancer,” Catherine said.
Sebastian froze again.
“Stage four by the time they found it. No miracle, Seb. No secret treatment you could have bought. No doctor you could have frightened into changing the answer.”
His hand went to his mouth.
Audrey had never seen him look helpless.
She hated it.
“I knew exactly what you would do if I told you. You would turn my dying into a war. You would find Malcolm. You would find every doctor. You would tear apart every company Dad ever touched. And you would spend my last months doing everything except sitting beside me.”
Sebastian looked as if someone had driven a blade between his ribs.
“I was afraid to come home because I knew you loved me.”
A long silence followed.
“And sometimes, Sebastian, your love feels like an army.”
Audrey closed her eyes.
Sebastian did not move.
Catherine continued.
“I needed a brother.”
His eyes lowered.
“I didn’t know how to ask you to stop being everything else long enough to be one.”
The recorder went silent for several seconds.
When Catherine spoke again, her voice had changed.
“There is evidence. Thomas found more than Malcolm knew. Audrey does not have it. Stop looking at her like that.”
Despite everything, Audrey gave a watery laugh.
Sebastian almost did too.
“Oliver’s guardian has part of it. Another part is somewhere Malcolm cannot reach without exposing himself.”
Catherine inhaled slowly.
“Do not search for Oliver unless Audrey believes it is safe.”
Sebastian’s jaw tightened.
There it was.
The command he least wanted.
“If she tells you no, listen.”
Catherine’s voice softened.
“That may be the hardest thing I ever ask you to do.”
The recording clicked off.
No one moved.
Rain struck the motel window.
Sebastian stared at the recorder for a long time.
Finally he asked, “How did she die?”
Audrey looked at him.
“At the hospice.”
“Was she in pain?”
“Not at the end.”
“Was she alone?”
“No.”
His throat moved.
“Were you with her?”
“Yes.”
He nodded once.
That single movement contained more grief than Audrey had seen from him in fourteen months.
“What did she say?”
Audrey hesitated.
“Your name.”
Sebastian looked at her.
“She asked me to tell her about the day we found you outside the building.”
He frowned.
“What building?”
“The hospice.”
Audrey sat down opposite him.
“You found us.”
“I never—”
“Not while she was alive.”
Sebastian went still.
“Two days after she died, you came looking.”
He remembered.
A dead-end lead had brought him to the street. One of his men had traced an old pharmacy purchase. By then, Catherine was gone.
Audrey had watched from an upstairs window while Sebastian stood across the street for almost an hour.
“You knew I was there.”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t come outside.”
“I had Oliver upstairs.”
Sebastian’s eyes locked on hers.
“He was there?”
“For one night. His guardian was moving him.”
Sebastian stood and walked toward the window.
His reflection looked unfamiliar in the dark glass.
His nephew had been less than a hundred feet away.
Audrey came up behind him.
“I wanted to tell you.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
He nodded.
The anger was there.
She could feel it.
But it did not own him.
That difference mattered.
“Where is he now?” Sebastian asked.
“I still won’t tell you.”
He looked back.
Audrey braced herself.
Then Sebastian said something she did not expect.
“Is he safe?”
“Yes.”
“Does Malcolm know where he is?”
“I don’t believe so.”
“Does Oliver know who I am?”
Audrey hesitated.
“He knows he has an uncle named Sebastian.”
His face changed.
“Catherine told him?”
“Yes.”
“What did she tell him about me?”
Audrey’s eyes softened.
“She said you were difficult.”
Sebastian stared.
Audrey smiled faintly.
“She also said you were the person she trusted to walk into a burning building for her.”
His mouth tightened.
“She said the problem was convincing you not to burn the rest of the city afterward.”
A rough laugh escaped him.
The sound seemed to surprise both of them.
Then his phone rang.
Nico.
Sebastian answered.
“What?”
Nico’s voice came through sharply.
“We have a problem.”
Sebastian’s expression changed immediately.
“What kind?”
“Someone accessed Catherine’s sealed probate file two hours ago.”
Audrey’s smile vanished.
“Who?”
“We’re checking. But there’s more.”
Nico paused.
“The file listed a dependent.”
Sebastian looked at Audrey.
His voice turned cold.
“Oliver.”
“Yes.”
Audrey stood.
Nico continued.
“And Malcolm’s attorney filed a petition thirty minutes ago demanding disclosure of all undisclosed Ror heirs connected to the waterfront trust.”
Sebastian’s fingers tightened around the phone.
Malcolm did not know where Oliver was.
Not yet.
But now he knew exactly what he was looking for.
Sebastian ended the call.
Audrey immediately reached for her coat.
“What are you doing?”
“Going back.”
“No.”
She looked at him.
“We need to warn Oliver’s guardian.”
Sebastian crossed the room.
Audrey expected him to demand the address.
Instead he held out his phone.
“Call from mine.”
She stared at him.
“You’re not going to trace it?”
“No.”
“You could.”
“Yes.”
“Your people could.”
“Yes.”
“Then why should I trust you?”
Sebastian looked at the child’s drawing still lying on the table.
“Because Catherine asked me to prove I could be his uncle before I tried to become his protector.”
Audrey’s expression shifted.
Sebastian placed the phone in her hand.
“Call.”
For the first time since their wedding, Audrey trusted him with something Catherine had died protecting.
She dialed.
A woman answered on the fourth ring.
“Audrey?”
Sebastian heard the fear instantly.
Audrey turned away.
“Grace, listen to me. You need to leave the house.”
A child’s voice sounded faintly in the background.
“Is that Aunt Audrey?”
Sebastian went completely still.
Audrey looked at him.
The voice came again.
“Did she find Uncle Sebastian yet?”
May you like
Sebastian’s entire world narrowed to the phone in Audrey’s hand.
And for the first time in many years, Sebastian Ror was afraid to speak.
