“Because offices listen to papers. Terraces listen to embarrassment.”
Leo frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“It means rich men hate being surprised in public.”
Sebastian laughed softly.
“She’s right.”
Leo looked at him.
“Were you embarrassed?”
Sebastian thought of the smirk.
The command.
Surprise us.
The flute.
The photograph.
The face of his son staring back at him from poverty he had been taught not to see.
“Yes,” he said. “But not because of you.”
Leo nodded like he understood more than a child should.
Then he lifted the flute and played the first three notes of the lullaby.
Not the whole song.
Just enough.
The sound moved through the room.
And Sebastian understood, finally, why it had worked.
The boy had not come to the terrace to beg.
He had come to remind a man who he used to be.
Before wealth taught him to smirk.
Before grief taught him to obey.
Before lies taught him Elena was gone.
The flute did what letters could not.
It slipped past lawyers, guards, money, shame, and memory loss.
It reached the one place Claire had failed to lock.
