Chapter 206 Chapter two hundred and six

Chapter 206 Chapter two hundred and six
Sebestian's POV

The line went dead with a hollow, mechanical click that seemed to echo through the silence of the study.
I stood frozen, the phone still pressed to my ear, my thumb hovering over the screen where the private number had just disconnected. His voice was still ringing in my head—shredded, wild, and stripped down to pure desperation.

The East Dock depot. Come alone, Dad. Or I burn every piece of evidence I have left, and Lena’s name goes down with me.

I slowly lowered my arm, the cold glass slipping in my sweat-slicked palm. My hands, usually steady enough to perform delicate work without a tremor, were shaking violently.

Avery stepped into my line of sight, her face pale under the soft lighting of the room. She had been holding her breath while I was on the call, watching every micro-expression on my face.

“Sebastian?” her voice was barely above a whisper, tight with a cautious, trembling fear. “What did he say? Was that Wes?”

I didn't answer right away. I couldn't. My mind was spinning backward, tumbling through two decades of memories, desperately searching through every interaction, every strict reprimand, every high expectation I had ever placed on a boy who was currently unspooling into madness.

“He gave me a location,” I said, my voice gravelly and stripped of its usual authority. I stared down at my trembling hand, the weight in my chest suffocating me. “Avery… was I too hard on him?”

She blinked, caught completely off guard by the direction of my thoughts. “What? Sebastian, no—”

“Maybe… maybe what Wes needed wasn't discipline,” I cut in, the words tumbling out of me in a sudden, desperate spill of self-doubt. I swallowed hard, my throat feeling as dry as ash.

“Maybe he just needed love. Maybe he needed me to stop acting like his boss, his commander, and just be his father. When I get there… I’m going to ask him why he did it. I’m going to sit him down and make him talk to me. I need to understand where I failed him.”

Avery reached out, grabbing both of my arms with firm, unyielding strength, forcing me to pull my gaze away from the floor and look directly into her eyes.

“Sebastian, listen to me!” she snapped, her tone sharp, grounded, pulling me back from the edge of my own spiral.

“Do not do this to yourself. Wes put Lena in that hospital bed. He drove her off the road, he compromised everything, and he is out of his mind right now. You cannot walk into that depot thinking you can talk him out of a delusion with fatherly warmth. He is dangerous.”

“He’s my son,” I rasped, the words tasting like copper.

“And he is broken!” she countered, her eyes burning with fierce, protective loyalty—a loyalty she held for me, but above all, for Lena lying helpless in that coma. She smoothed a breath, her fingers digging firmly into my jacket sleeves. “You aren't going in there alone. I am coming with you.”

“No. Avery, absolutely not,” I said, shaking my head. “If he sees you, if he thinks I brought help—”

“I’m not asking for your permission,” she interrupted, her jaw set with an iron resolve.

“Detective Miller is already on standby. We track your phone. We set a perimeter. You don't get to go in there and let him destroy you too.”

I looked at her, seeing the unwavering grit that kept her standing when everything else was collapsing. She was doing this for Lena. She was doing this to keep the last piece of Lena’s world from being tore apart.

“Thank you,” I rasped, giving her arm a firm, grateful squeeze.
She offered a single, grim nod, her grip tightening on my sleeve in a silent pact before she pulled away to dial Miller.

The East Dock depot was a cavernous, rotting carcass of corrugated iron and decayed timber, sitting right on the edge of the dark, churning water.

The night air inside was thick with the stench of salt, damp river mud, and rusted steel. High above, shattered skylights let in pale, fractured shafts of moonlight that cut through the drifting dust.

I pushed open a heavy side access door, the metal screeching in protest against the cracked concrete floor. The sound echoed wildly through the massive, hollow space.

Outside, completely invisible in the pitch-black shadows surrounding the property, Avery and Detective Miller were moving into position.

I knew they were there. I knew SWAT units were quietly fanning out, creeping around the perimeter, waiting for Miller’s signal. But inside these walls, surrounded by towering stacks of rusted shipping crates and rotting wooden pallets, I felt entirely, terrifyingly alone.

“Wes?” my voice echoed, flat and hollow.
From the deep shadows near the center of the floor, a figure detached itself from the gloom.

My heart hammered violently against my ribs.
Wes stepped into a beam of pale moonlight. He looked utterly wrecked.

His clothes were filthy and torn, his hair matted with sweat and grime. His face was hollowed out, dark purple bruises of exhaustion carved deep beneath his sunken eyes.

But it was his posture that chilled me—he was swaying slightly, his breathing shallow and fast, hyperventilating like a cornered animal.

And in his right hand, gripped so tightly his knuckles were white, was a heavy firearm. It trembled, pointed straight at the concrete between us.

“You actually came,” Wes rasped. His voice was shredded, raw from shouting or crying or both. “The great Sebastian. Always coming to play the hero.”

Seeing him like that—shattered, unhinged, looking so small despite the weapon in his hand—broke something fundamental inside me.

The anger I had carried, the frustration over what he had done to Lena, the deep sense of betrayal… it all evaporated, leaving behind only a profound, bleeding sorrow.

I didn't raise my hands defensively. I didn't shout.
I took one slow, careful step forward.

“Put it down, Wes,” I spoke. My voice was stripped of all authority, raw with a soft, aching tenderness I hadn't used with him since he was a child.
Wes flinched at the softness of my tone, his grip tightening frantically on the grip.

“Don't move!”
I stopped instantly, holding up a single hand, palm open.

“I’m not moving. I’m right here.” I swallowed hard, fighting back the sting behind my eyes. “Put it down, Wes. Please. Come home with me.”

He let out a harsh, wet breath that sounded like a sob, but his expression remained twisted in bitterness.

“We’ll talk about it,” I begged him, my voice cracking on the words. “We’ll sit down and talk about where it all went wrong. Every bit of it. I’ll listen. I swear to God I’ll listen this time. We’ll drink. We’ll face the court together, side by side. I won't abandon you to the lawyers or the system. I’m your father, Wes. We can fix this. I can help you fix this.”

For a fraction of a second, a flicker of the boy I raised flashed across his eyes—a desperate, terrifying vulnerability. But as quickly as it appeared, it was swallowed whole by a dark, toxic rage.

A laugh burst out of his throat.
It wasn't a sound of amusement. It was a bitter, psychotic bark that bounced off the high steel rafters, cold and manic.

Slowly, deliberately, Wes raised his arm. The heavy barrel of the firearm rose until it was pointed directly at the center of my chest. His hand was shaking violently, but the trajectory was dead-on.

“There is no home to go back to, Dad!” Wes shrieked, his voice cracking wildly under the strain. Tears spilled over his sunken cheeks, cutting pale tracks through the dirt on his face.

“There’s nothing left! And everything went wrong the moment you took Lena... and the moment I found out we aren't even related by blood!”

The world seemed to stop moving. The ambient hum of the wind outside, the lap of the water against the dock—everything fell away into a deafening, ringing silence.

I blinked, the words echoing in my mind like a foreign language I couldn't comprehend. My brain stalled, gripping onto the phrase, trying and failing to make it make sense.

“What…?” The word tore out of my throat, barely audible. “Wes, what are you talking about?”

“You heard me!” he screamed, his eyes wide and wild, the whites of them bloodshot and frantic.

“Wes, stop,” I said, stepping forward again, completely forgetting the barrel pointed at my heart. “What do you mean 'not related by blood'? What are you saying? You’re my son!”

“I’m not your son!” he roared, a jagged, broken howl that tore through the warehouse. He spat onto the concrete, shaking his head furiously, his breath coming in jagged gasps.

“I never was! You spent my whole life treating me like a disappointment because I wasn't you, and I spent my whole life trying to earn the blood in my veins—only to find out it was a lie!”

“Wes, who told you that? What lie?” The confusion was suffocating, a wave of nausea washing over me.

“I raised you! I was there when you were born!”
“Ask your mom!”

Wes screamed back, a terrifying, triumphant malice twisting his tear-stained face. He gestured wildly with the gun, waving it in the air before snapping it back to my chest.

“Go on, Sebastian! Ask her! She’s better off explaining that part to you! Ask her whose blood is actually in my veins, because it sure as hell isn't yours!”

My breath caught in my lungs. My mother? The implication landed like a physical blow to my chest, knocking the air straight out of me.

My mind reeled back, staggering under the weight of a secret I couldn't fathom, a revelation that threatened to rewrite every single foundation of my life.

“She lied to you,” Wes hissed, his voice dropping into a dark, ragged whisper that carried clearly across the space between us. “She lied to you your whole life. And you passed all that perfectionist bullshit down to me.”

“I hated it,” Wes sobbed suddenly, the anger collapsing back into a desperate, feral grief. “I hated living in your shadow! Do you have any idea what it’s like? To spend every day of your life trying to measure up to a giant? To suffer for a man who wasn't even my father?”

“Wes, please—” I reached out, my hand trembling in the empty air between us. “It doesn't change what you mean to me—we can figure this out—”

“DROP THE WEAPON! DROP IT NOW!”
The air exploded.
The high glass skylights above us shattered in a deafening cascade of rain-like glass as black-clad figures descended on tactical ropes. The heavy wooden doors at the far end of the warehouse were burst open with thunderous force.

Blinding tactical lights cut through the darkness, pinning Wes in a harsh, inescapable glare.
“POLICE! DROP THE GUN! ON THE GROUND NOW!”

The sharp, authoritative commands echoed like gunfire off the metal walls. Red laser dots danced frantically across the dust-filled air, crisscrossing over Wes’s chest, his shoulders, his head.

Through the glare, I saw Avery burst through the side entry behind a shield unit, her face pale with horror, Detective Miller right beside her with his weapon drawn.

“Wes, no! Put it down!” I screamed, throwing my hands out, trying to step between the tactical red dots and the broken boy standing in front of me. “Miller, wait! Don't shoot!”

Wes didn't drop to his knees. He didn't lower the gun.
He looked around at the swarming tactical officers, at the blinding lights, at the iron cage closing in on him from every side.

The realization hit him, visible in the sudden, eerie stillness that washed over his features. He wasn't going to get away. He was going to end up in a cell, stripped of everything, exposed, ruined, and trapped forever in the shadow he had tried so desperately to burn down.

He looked back at me. Through the dust, the laser sights, and the blinding glare, his eyes locked onto mine. The frantic, psychotic rage was gone, replaced by a cold, terrifying clarity.

He was driven by pure, toxic humiliation. He refused to spend his life in a cage.

“I’m not going back,” he whispered.

“Wes, DON'T!” I screamed, lunging forward.
With a final, guttural cry of defiance, Wes gripped the firearm with both hands and raised it higher, snapping the barrel directly up toward my face.

“DROP HIM!”

The world dissolved into thunderous violence.
The tactical team’s rifles barked in rapid, synchronized bursts—a deafening, mechanical roar that shattered the night. Muzzle flashes strobed wildly in the dark warehouse, casting horrific, jerky shadows against the metal walls.

I saw the impacts hit him.
The force of the bullets jerked Wes’s body violently backward, spinning him like a ragdoll. The handgun flew from his grip, clattering uselessly across the concrete floor.

“NO!”
The scream tore from the very bottom of my lungs, a sound that didn't feel human.

I fell to my knees beside him before his body had even stopped moving. The tactical officers rushed past us, securing the perimeter, their shouts fading into a muted, distant hum in my ears.

“Wes! Wes, look at me!” I cried out, gathering his upper body into my arms, pulling him into my lap.

The concrete beneath us was already slick with hot, dark blood. I slammed my hands against his chest, trying desperately to stem the flow, but there were too many entry wounds, too much damage. The smell of copper and gunpowder was overwhelming, burning my throat.

Wes’s eyes were open, staring up into the high, broken ceiling where the moonlight filtered down through drifting dust. His breathing was a wet, rattling gasp.

“Wes, stay with me! Please, God, stay with me!” I sobbed, tears streaming down my face, dripping onto his pale, blood-spattered skin. My hands were covered in his blood—the blood he claimed wasn't mine, the blood I had tried so hard to protect. “I’m here. Dad’s here. Just breathe. Please, just breathe…”

His chest gave one last, shallow shudder.
The light in his eyes flickered, faded, and went entirely dark.

His head slumping heavily to the side against my shoulder, his body suddenly light, hollow, and completely still.

He died right there, in my arms, on the cold concrete floor of a ruined warehouse.

I collapsed over his chest, wrapping my arms around his lifeless shoulders, clutching him tightly as the quiet returned to the room.

I rocked him back and forth, weeping openly, the agony tearing my soul to shreds.

Above the sound of my own shattered sobbing, I felt a gentle, trembling hand rest on my shoulder.

I looked up through a blur of tears to see Avery kneeling beside me, her own face wet with tears, her hand gripping my jacket tightly as the red and blue emergency lights began to flash outside the high, broken windows.

She didn't say a word—there were no words left to offer. We were just two broken people standing in the wreckage of a family, with Lena still fighting for her life in a hospital bed miles away, and the weight of a horrific secret left hanging in the cold night air.