Chapter 8: Bastian's Last Move
He called her at six-fifteen.
Faye was awake.
She had been awake since five, sitting at the small desk in her room with a cup of tea gone cold, writing a list she kept crossing out and starting again.
She looked at the phone.
Bastian's name on the screen.
She answered it.
"I need to talk to you," he said.
"You're talking."
"Not like this.
In person.
Come to the east wing."
"No."
A pause.
"Faye—"
"I'm not coming to you, Bastian.
If you have something to say, say it."
Another pause.
Longer.
She could hear him breathing, deciding.
"I made a mistake," he said finally.
"Which one?"
"All of it.
I know that.
But there are things you don't know — things my mother did, things that were done to me — and I need you to understand before you make any decisions."
"I've already made decisions."
"You've made them based on one side of the story."
"I've made them based on a DNA test."
"That test was arranged by my father.
Who has his own reasons for wanting me out of this family."
Faye set down her pen.
"What reasons?"
"The will." Bastian's voice shifted — quieter, faster.
"He changed it eight months ago.
Did you know that?
He removed me as primary heir and replaced me with the child Serena is carrying.
Before the baby is even born.
Before any test confirmed anything."
Faye said nothing.
"He had already decided," Bastian said.
"Before last night.
Before the envelope.
He had already written me out.
Last night was theater, Faye.
He used you.
He used your situation with Marco to make himself look like the honest one."
"Why would he do that?"
"Because if I'm discredited — if I'm the liar, the unfaithful husband, the man who hjt Marco in front of witnesses — then no one questions the will.
No one questions why his pregnant girlfriend suddenly becomes the most protected person in the house."
Faye was quiet for a long moment.
"That's a very convenient story," she said.
"It's the truth."
"It might be part of the truth." She picked up her pen again.
"But Bastian — even if everything you're saying is accurate — you still knew about my baby before the wedding.
You still let me stand in front of our families and make promises you knew were built on a lie.
Whatever your father did or didn't do, that part is yours."
Silence.
"I know," he said.
It came out smaller than anything else he'd said.
"Then why are you calling me?"
"Because I don't want to lose you."
She looked at the cold tea.
At the list she'd been crossing out.
"You lost me the morning you decided not to tell me," she said.
"Everything after that was just time passing."
She ended the call.
She sat for a moment.
Then she picked up her phone again and called a different number.
It rang twice.
"Faye." Alaric's voice.
Alert, already awake.
"Bastian says you changed the will eight months ago."
A pause.
"Yes."
"Is it true that you removed him before any of this happened?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because eight months ago I found out he had been diverting family funds into a private account for two years.
I confronted him.
He denied it.
I began building a record." Alaric paused.
"The paternity situation came to my attention separately, three months later.
By then I had already decided what needed to happen."
Faye closed her eyes.
"So last night really was planned."
"Yes."
"You used my situation."
"I used the truth of your situation," Alaric said.
"I didn't create it.
I didn't manufacture the test results.
I didn't make Bastian do what he did to Serena in front of the family.
I only chose the moment."
"That's a fine line."
"It is," he said.
"I know it is.
And I'm sorry you were part of it without being told."
Faye opened her eyes.
Outside her window the garden was gold with early light.
"The funds he diverted," she said.
"How much?"
Alaric told her.
She was quiet for a long time.
"Does he know you know about the money?"
"He does now," Alaric said.
"I had my lawyer contact his lawyer at seven this morning."
"That's why he called me." Faye said it to herself as much as to Alaric.
"He wasn't trying to win me back.
He was trying to find out how much I knew."
"Yes."
She looked at the list on the desk.
She crossed out the last item.
She didn't start it again.
"What happens next?" she said.
"That depends on what Bastian does in the next twenty-four hours," Alaric said.
"He has two options.
He cooperates and we handle this privately.
Or he doesn't — and I hand everything to the authorities."
"And if he runs?"
Alaric's pause was the answer.
Faye stood up.
She went to the window and looked out at the garden.
At the far gate.
Still closed.
"He's already gone, isn't he," she said.
"The east wing is empty," Alaric said.
"He left sometime before six."
Faye pressed her hand flat against the glass.
"Then it's already the second option," she said.
May you like
"Yes," Alaric said quietly.
"It already is."
