Chapter 12: What Bastian Had
She told Alaric before she left.
She told Marco.
She told Petra, who gave her a number to call if anything felt wrong and made her repeat it back twice.
She drove herself.
The address Bastian had given was a small hotel twenty minutes from the house — neutral ground, public, a lobby café with other people in it.
She had chosen to read that as intentional.
A man planning something dangerous doesn't choose a hotel café.
He was already there when she arrived.
A corner table.
Coffee in front of him, untouched.
He looked like he hadn't slept, which meant they were even.
She sat down across from him.
"Thank you for coming," he said.
"Don't." She set her bag on the chair beside her.
"Just say what you have to say."
Bastian looked at the table.
Then at her.
He reached into his jacket and placed a USB drive on the table between them.
"What is that?" she said.
"Recordings," he said.
"Audio.
Fourteen months of conversations between my father and his lawyer.
Including the conversation where he decided to remove me from the will and how he planned to do it."
Faye looked at the drive.
She didn't touch it.
"Why does that matter?" she said.
"He had the right to change his will."
"He did.
But the way he planned it—" Bastian paused.
"He didn't just decide to remove me because of the money, Faye.
He decided to remove me because of Serena.
Because he wanted to secure the estate for their child before anyone knew about the relationship.
The financial audit was real.
What I did was wrong.
I'm not arguing that." He said it without flinching, which surprised her.
"But my father used it.
He used it as the justification for a decision he had already made for personal reasons.
And he built a case around me to make sure no one questioned his motives."
Faye looked at him.
"He's not the honest man he performed last night," Bastian said.
"He's a man who wanted a particular outcome and arranged the pieces to get it.
Including using you.
Including using Marco.
Including choosing that gathering, that night, in front of those specific people."
"He told me he chose the gathering deliberately," Faye said.
"He didn't hide that."
Bastian blinked.
He hadn't expected that.
"He told you."
"Yes.
He also told me about the financial audit.
And the competitor referral." She looked at Bastian steadily.
"He told me this morning, when I called him.
Before you called me."
Bastian was quiet.
"He's not perfect," Faye said.
"I know that.
He made decisions I wasn't part of, and some of them affected me, and I'm not pretending that's fine." She looked at the USB drive.
"But Bastian — what you're describing is a man who found out his son was stealing from the family and decided to protect the family.
The method wasn't clean.
The motive was also personal.
Both of those things can be true."
"He used you—"
"And you lied to me." She said it without heat.
"For eight months.
You looked at me every morning and you knew, and you said nothing.
Whatever your father did or didn't do — that's yours.
That's only yours."
Bastian looked at the drive on the table.
"What do you want me to do with that?" Faye said.
He didn't answer.
"If you use it," she said, "it becomes a legal matter.
Your father's lawyers will respond.
It will be long and expensive and public, and at the end of it, the recordings will either be admissible or they won't, and either way the audit findings don't change." She paused.
"Or you could give it to Petra.
Voluntarily.
As part of your cooperation.
And let her determine whether it's relevant."
Bastian looked at her for a long time.
"Why would I do that?"
"Because it's the only move you have left that doesn't make everything worse," she said.
"And because somewhere underneath all of this, I think you know it."
He looked at the drive.
He picked it up.
He held it for a moment — and then he set it down in front of her.
"Give it to Petra," he said.
Faye picked it up and put it in her bag.
"Bastian." She stood.
"Go back.
Talk to the auditor.
Cooperate fully.
Whatever comes from that — face it." She looked at him one last time.
"You're not a good man.
But I don't think you're only this."
She left him at the table.
He didn't follow.
She sat in her car for a moment before starting the engine.
She looked at her bag.
May you like
At the outline of the drive inside it.
Then she started the car and drove back.
