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Luna stopped, seemingly only just remembered that aspect too. “I don’t know. No. Not really. It was more of a threat ‘if’ I were to keep prodding Apollo to open up about his family history.”
“I don’t like it. I’m worried about your safety. Will you wait a few minutes while I organize a security team to-“
“No! No, I’m sorry, I just need to... I just need to go before I say anything else without really thinking it through...”
I kind of nodded, uselessly, and stood watching as Luna’s quick footsteps made their way to the exit.
I sat down at my desk, the news still sinking in. I was going to be a father. To Luna’s child. Why wasn’t I worried, or scared, or... any of the things my brothers had been upon finding out they’d accidentally brought another Brock into the world?
I meant what I’d said to Luna, about how it was nice that there would be another mini-Luna in the world – I’d thought it best not to mention a mini-Sylvester just yet, lest she fully lose her mind. There was maybe also a part of me that glowed with a secret warmth to know that Luna and I were linked together in parenthood. That our possibly misguided sexual activities had formed something greater than our parts – a new life, a little Brock-Black baby. I wasn’t sure we’d be going with the double-barrel for the kid’s name, if I had a say in it.
Did she want me to have a say in it? She claimed I’d not said anything, but neither had she. Perhaps she wanted to raise the kid on her own. Maybe she wanted to give it up for adoption. She’d not said that she wanted me to be with her, or to parent our child together. She was just as cagey with her feelings as she’d claimed I was. Dumping her and dropping her from the tour had led to her sealing her feelings away so deep inside I wasn’t sure even she knew what she felt. But I’d be there when she was ready to talk.
I idly clicked into my emails for a little distraction. I’d completely forgotten we were waiting on the latest set of test results. But there it was in my inbox:Test results for Sunny Badger, Tree Badger, Beatles Badger, Churchill Badger and Pussycat Badger.More expert code names for myself and my siblings. Though the Brock brothers had been far less amused by them than Luna and I had when we’d sent off the first set of test results forSunny Badger and Prissy Sheep.
“Sibling test match results:
Pussycat Badger a match for Tree Badger, Beatles Badger, Churchill Badger.
Tree Badger a match for Beatles Badger, Churchill Badger, Pussycat Badger.
Beatles Badger a match for Churchill Badger, Pussycat Badger, Tree Badger.
Churchill Badger a match for Pussycat Badger, Beatles Badger, Tree Badger.
Sunny Badger a match for nil.”
Holy shit.Holy shit.
Apollo wasn’t even related to us. He wasn’t our brother, or even our half-brother. He was... just some guy. Some guy who’d been terrorizing us for over a decade now.
I forwarded the tests to my actual brothers and sat back in the chair reeling. If Apollo wasn’t related to Priscilla Lamb or Emory Brock, then where the hell had he come from? Who was he? And why had Emory thought he was his son – or was this some weird part of Emory’s plan, too?
I suspected the only people with the answers to that were Apollo and Priscilla themselves. And since Priscilla had warned Luna off, it seemed unlikely they’d be offering up those answers anytime soon.
My phone buzzed on the table. I expected it to be one of my brothers, but the name lit up was:Luna Black.
I frowned, my warning bells ringing. I scrambled to pick it up as quickly as I could. “Luna?”
“Hi, Sylvester.” Her voice sounded odd. Somewhat muted. “I’m headed back to your office.”
“Um, okay, cool. Why?”
“I didn’t make it home. My neighbor called me saying there were some people in my apartment tearing the place apart.”
My heart started racing. It could only be Apollo or Priscilla – for whatever reason, they must have now decided Luna was enemy, not friend. I suddenly surged with anger. “How dare he? I’ll go over to his headquarters myself and give him a piece of my mind.”
“Please don’t, Sylvester. I just want us to... figure out what to do, together, okay?”
I took a deep breath. I wanted to smash Apollo’s face in, obviously, but I supposed I’d gone decades without doing that. I could wait a little longer. And Luna was coming here, for safety, to me. Luna, who was pregnant with my child. I exhaled again, trying to calm away the anger and the injustice of Luna being targeted. “Okay. I’m sorry for all of this Luna. I’ll wait for you at my office.”
“Sure. Thanks. I’ll be there soon.”
The line went dead. I held it to my ear for another moment. Since I couldn’t vent my anger upon Apollo, it turned inward.
Had I hadanypositive impact on Luna’s life since re-entering it? I’d accidentally gotten her pregnant, which she didn’t seem thrilled about. I’d gotten her to see the truth about Apollo, which had ended up in a complicating of her best client relationship so far. If I destroyed another career of hers, I wasn’t sure how I’d live with myself.
It had seemed so easy when I approached her at the start. She was in league with Apollo, and therefore she was immoral, just like him. Black and white thinking had been just enough to stave off the guilt about how I’d treated her in the past, but it hadn’t lasted long.
