Free Web NovelChapter 61: Chapter 61 Distance between two brothers
_Author’s POV_
Kasper made the call from the east annex.
He went there specifically, not to the study the corridor, not anywhere that the household’s ambient awareness would catch whatever he was saying on the call and knowing of the conversation.
The east annex was where he went when he needed the walls to be his own business, and this conversation qualified on every level.
He stood at the window with his phone and looked at the garden coming into its late morning light and dialed a number he had not dialed in fourteen months.
He had the number memorized. He had never deleted it. The not-calling had been a choice made every time he looked at the contact, and the choice had always been straightforward until now.
It rang four times before the call was connected and the dreaded voice came through.
“You have exactly one reason to be calling me,” Gabriel said, when he answered. His voice had the quality of someone who had decided the terms of this conversation before it started. “If it isn’t that reason, we’re done.”
“It’s that reason,” Kasper said quietly, keeping his voice even.
Silence followed. Long enough to be meaningful.
Gabriel was Kasper’s older brother by six years, same parents, same upbringing, same training foundation, and then entirely divergent paths taken with deliberateness of two people who had looked at the same world and chosen different scales to work at.
Where Kasper had come to the Ashthorne estate through a loyalty that was personal and specific, Gabriel had gone into the Alpha King’s enforcement division with the intensity of someone who had decided that justice at the largest possible scale was the only version worth pursuing.
He was good at his work. He was one of the best, by most accounts, and the accounts of people in Alaric’s office were not accounts given generously.
They had not spoken in fourteen months because of Rowena.
The specifics of what had happened between Gabriel and Rowena before she came home were not something Kasper had the full picture of, Rowena had not given him the full picture, and Gabriel had not either, which meant what Kasper knew was the shape of it rather than the details.
Gabriel had known Rowena in a context that predated Kasper’s involvement. Something had happened. It had ended badly enough that Rowena, who did not issue warnings as a general practice, had issued one specifically: Tell him to stay away from me.
Kasper had told him.
Gabriel had argued. Then he had gone quiet which meant he had accepted something and was not happy about it and was not going to discuss it further.
Fourteen months of not discussing it further.
“Tell me,” Gabriel said now.
Kasper told him. The full operational account, in the order that mattered, the wine company, the facility, the eight survivors, the blood extraction program, Corby’s confession, Alice’s identity as Mara, Drake’s disappearance, Dickson’s death, the documentation currently in Celeste’s lawyers’ hands and the gaps that still needed filling.
The silence that followed was longer than Kasper expected from a man who processed information quickly.
“She found all of this,” Gabriel said. “She led the investigation herself.”
“With support,” Kasper said. “But yes. She led it.”
“And she’s injured.”
“Left side. Wrist and ribs. She’s managing it.”
A sound that was not quite a laugh. “Of course she is.”
“Gabriel not no_”
“I know what I said I’d do,” Gabriel said. “I’m coming. I’ll stay out of her direct path.” A pause. “Is Alaric’s office already engaged?”
“Partially. She reached out to his office through the dissolution channel. He’s been..... aware of the situation.”
Another pause, a different quality to this one, the pause of someone receiving information and integrating it into a picture they were building. “How aware.”
“Sufficiently,” Kasper said.
Gabriel was quiet for a moment. “Right,” he said, as if okay with it which he wasn’t. “I’ll be there in two hours. Don’t move the documentation until I’m there, I want the chain of custody clean from this point. Corby and everything physical goes through my office directly to Alaric’s authority.” ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm
“Understood.”
“And Kasper.” His voice shifted, still professional, but with something underneath it that the professionalism was containing. “She’s alright? Beyond the injury.”
“She’s better than alright,” Kasper said honestly. “She unsealed. She’s.....” He paused a bit, trying to find the right word. “She’s herself again. The real version.”
A long silence came again. Did Gabriel love silence now or what?
“Good,” Gabriel said quietly.
He kept to his words. He arrived in ninety minutes, which meant he had been moving before he hung up.
He took the documentation and processed Corby’s transfer to Alaric’s custody, he handled the chain of evidence with the accuracy of someone for whom this was not a complex task but a practiced one. He spoke to Celeste’s lawyers with direct authority because he worked for the alpha king. Perks of being in the government.
Then coordinated with Reid in Alaric’s office through secure channel and had the formal handover complete before noon.
He was professional throughout. He was thorough and he was fast and he did not create friction with anyone in the household.
He did stand outside the study door for approximately thirty seconds when it was open and Rowena was visible inside, working at her desk with her wrist wrapped and her posture carrying the careful compensation of someone managing pain they refuse to acknowledge.
He stood there and looked at her, and his face did something that Kasper, watching from the corridor’s far end, recognized as the expression of a man who has made peace with a situation and has just discovered that peace and acceptance are not the same thing.
Then he turned and walked back to the annex without saying anything to anyone.
Kasper let him go.
Some things did not require commentary to be understood.
Gabriel finished his work and left the estate at three in the afternoon with the documentation secured and the formal process engaged and everything in the correct order.
At the gate he stopped.
“Tell her....” he started then stopped. “Tell her the case is solid. She built it well.”
“I’ll tell her,” Kasper nodded, not knowing if he should thank his brother or not.
Gabriel nodded and got into his car and drove away without looking back, and Kasper stood at the gate for a moment watching the car go and thinking how he even grew this much distant from his elder brother.
A part of him wanted to fix what they had, but he knew he also didn’t want to seem like a simp.
If Gabriel felt the distance was what they needed, then so be it. He would keep his distance as well.
