Untitled Scene #6
He is roughly our height, maybe an inch taller, and his eyes carry a shade somewhere between graphite and sapphire. Even at first glance, the resemblance between us is obvious, though a bit less striking than it is with Blue. However, the fact that he is here tells me everything I need to know.
He hands me the inhaler they must have found in my pockets.
I take a deep breath and after a moment my lungs loosen.
"I didn’t want to cause any trouble for anyone," I mutter weakly, though I am not even sure whom I am addressing, but suddenly Blue appears in my field of vision.
He studies me for a moment with his head tilted, and then he calmly says,
"You see, as I mentioned, I am someone who enjoys digging into mysteries, not only the scientific ones but the family ones as well."
He throws a sour look at his older brother.
"Maybe I would never have taken this case so seriously, but it just so happened that two hours after you and I met, we had a small family gathering and I asked all my brothers if they knew an Albert Strada.
No one spoke up, but I noticed that my brother Sebastien reacted to that name with something like embarrassment, that is how I would describe it. "
Sebastien, who had been leaning over me until now, straightens up and walks toward the window as if he does not want me to see his face while this conversation unfolds.
Meanwhile Blue pulls a chair to the sofa where I am lying, sitting down with an expression that suggests he is somewhat amused by all of this.
"So I decided to dig a little deeper, and before asking him directly, I looked around and discovered that Albert Strada really had helped Red Line Agency with a number of different matters many years ago, which made me almost certain that my brother’s silence had to be caused by something more than simple reluctance to admit to a business relationship.
Because what would be wrong with that? The agency has many advisors.
I see no reason to hide the fact that he knew Strada. "
I glance uncertainly at Sebastien, who still stands with his back to us, staring out the window.
"In the end, I pulled him aside and asked him a question phrased like this: ‘Have you ever had yourself tested for sperm viability?’"
A faintly mocking smirk appears on Blue’s face.
"Quite a question, isn’t it? Not the sort one usually asks one’s own brother."
"True," I mumble.
"But once again his reaction surprised me.
Sebastien admitted that while he was studying, and you should know he studied in the mathematics and statistics department, there had been a group fertility study on omegas conducted at that college, and he volunteered for it.
The study was meant to determine what percentage of omegas had sperm capable of fertilizing an egg.
As it turned out, out of seven thousand omegas tested there was only ONE such case.
So as you can see, it is an extremely rare phenomenon, and that one case is standing right here…
Sebastien Lowen." Blue makes a light gesture toward his brother.
"Such omegas are called the gamma subtype. "
I stare at him. His profile is outlined against the window. Sebastien looks like a classic omega, on top of that one with very delicate, sweet features.
His brother Jacob, the owner of DevApp, also an omega of the gamma subtype, is completely different. Tall, more beta-like, with sharper facial features and alpha-leaning mannerisms.
Sebastien, on the other hand, has nothing alpha or even beta-like in him, which makes this all doubly interesting.
He still does not look at us, stubbornly staring through the window.
"Only then did I push him and tell him I had an interesting encounter with a young man who looked like he could be my brother, except his hair had more of a pink tint. And that man told me that his dad, Albert Strada, said one of the Lowens was his father."
Blue laces his fingers together.
"The only thing left was to get confirmation from him as to whether he had ever had a closer-than-usual interaction with Prosecutor Strada."
Only then does Sebastien slowly turn back toward us, and on his face I see a particular mixture of mild embarrassment and determination.
"Thank you, dear brother, for that… unnecessarily long introduction."
He turns toward me.
His eyes now hold something different, something that could be described as a shadow of sadness, perhaps even guilt.
"Yes, your dad reached out to me shortly before his death and told me that our very brief interaction… years earlier, had consequences."
He falls silent for a moment as if weighing his words, uncertain how he should put them, whether he should say them at all.
"So I have had almost five years to process that thought, which shocked me at first."
He approaches me slowly, stopping at the foot of the sofa where I am lying.
"I knew your dad for many years and respected him a great deal.
Let me explain the reasons why everything unfolded the way it did.
When I married Rhys Red, I entered a family known throughout the country, Omega Red Line Agency was already prestigious back then, although much smaller.
Rhys was an only child, and my father considered it a very good marriage, he put a lot of pressure on us to marry even though our compatibility was in the lower range, just slightly above Low Mates. "
Sebastien pauses briefly, looking down at his hands.
"Albert Strada consulted frequently for the organization, that is where I met him, he knew how to listen and always offered good advice. He was often the person I confided in when I complained about how poorly things were going between me and Rhys. Our relationship at that time was completely platonic, friendly, he was Max’s husband and I had recently given birth to my second son. "
I listen carefully, because although some might find his story too convoluted, this is that one special moment when my origins are being laid out before me and I do not intend to miss a single word.
"The crisis in my marriage grew worse, Rhys had no interest in running the agency, while it was my passion, I wanted to develop it and turn it into a strong organization that would strike fear into anyone who wanted to harm omegas. Things only intensified after Rhys’s parents died, when all the responsibility for the agency fell on me, and I felt completely alone in it.
Albert helped me a great deal during that time, even if only with kind words and goodwill… "
Sebastien exhales, and for some twisted reason I feel a kind of satisfaction that my parents actually liked each other, that I was not just the result of a moment of weakness, and maybe it should not matter, but somehow it does.
"I always suspected that Albert and I had very high compatibility even though we were both omegas.
I felt incredibly comfortable with him, there was an ease and smoothness to the way we connected…
That incident at the conference, when he went into heat, was the turning point in our relationship.
Albert was locked in a hotel room like an animal in a cage, and it was hard for me to accept that, so I went in there to keep him company, so he would not feel alone while waiting for Max to arrive, and we knew it would not happen quickly…
He was suffering, he had a severe heat case. "
There is a moment of silence, and Blue, who had remained quiet throughout that speech, staring somewhere above my head toward the rows of cabinets along the office wall, suddenly says,
"I think you can spare us the details of what happened, because we all know what must have taken place for Alex to be here now. What I do not understand is why you did it if you knew your sperm contained live cells."
I decide to speak up.
"I can add something. That was a lie my dad told. He told me that for years he and Max did not have children for unknown reasons, and he thought he would give himself that one chance to have a child, so he lied to Sebastien and said he was on contraceptives."
Sebastien nods. "That’s exactly what Albert told me, and he apologized for that lie. In a way, I understand him, because I knew how much he wanted a child, and over all the years, he would tell me again and again that another heat had ended in failure, and it took its toll on him."
"Did it never strike you as suspicious that Albert couldn’t have children for so many years, and then suddenly he ended up pregnant?" Blue asks abruptly.
Sebastien winces slightly. "The day Albert went into heat was the last day I ever saw him, he quit his work with the Red Line Agency and moved with Max to the other side of the city, and he even took a job in a different court division.
I assumed it was guilt, since I carried the same guilt and it suited me, our separation.
Neither of us planned a divorce, so I decided that this was simply the best solution. "
"You really never found out that Albert had a child? This community isn’t so big that news like that wouldn’t reach you."
"Believe me, if I had known, I would have asked him directly whether the child was mine, but soon after that everything in my life collapsed and flipped upside down.
Literally a few months later I met Darius.
We discovered we were True Mates, my whole life changed, I divorced Rhys, I had two more children, and that situation from the past completely disappeared from my mind and memory until the day Albert called me.
He told me you were already an adult, that you were going to college, that your boyfriend came from a good, wealthy family and that you would be safe.
So I assumed that if I reached out to you, I would be meddling in your life. "
My eyes drop to my hands, still clenched without me realizing it, damp and cold with stress.