Sebastian's POV
It was a lazy Sunday. The kind where time felt slow and warm.
Ray was on the couch, flipping through a book he probably wasn't reading, and Mom was on the floor next to the coffee table, painting her toenails while humming something off-key. I was on my phone, half-listening to both of them.
And then the doorbell rang.
Nobody moved at first. It was weird—Sunday afternoons were sacred. No visitors. No plans. Just us. Mom glanced at me. I shrugged. Ray stood slowly, cautious already.
The second he opened the door, I felt it.
Something shifted in the air.
It was like walking into a room after a fight. Charged. Heavy.
A man stood there—maybe late thirties. Tall. Tan skin, stormy grey eyes. His suit was pressed like he cared about his image more than breathing. Handsome, in that slick, polished kind of way.
But it wasn't his face that scared me.
It was the way Mom's entire body froze.
I'd never seen her like that.
She shot up from the floor like she'd been electrocuted and immediately pushed me behind her. Her arm flung out in front of me like a human shield. Reflex. Like I was five again.
"Rain," she whispered.
Ray was next to her in a second. Quiet. Tall. Tense.
He didn't say a word. But his eyes were hard, locked on the guy like he was memorizing where to break first if he had to throw a punch.
Rain—yeah, that's what she called him—looked at her like she was a ghost. His gaze flickered to me.
And I realized what this was.
This was him.
My biological father.
The man who left her the second he found out I existed.
He looked at me again, but this time with something else in his eyes—shock? Regret? I couldn't tell. Didn't care.
"I… didn't know if I should come. But I had to see—" he started.
"Leave," Ray said quietly, and somehow that one word was louder than any yell.
Rain's eyes narrowed. "I just want to talk to her."
"You lost that right seventeen years ago," Mom said, voice low but shaking.
I looked at her hand. It was trembling.
My mom, who could walk into boardrooms in four-inch heels and own the world with one stare, was shaking.
I stepped forward, next to her. Not behind. Not anymore.
"You should go," I said. My voice cracked a little, but I meant every word.
Rain blinked like he'd just seen me for the first time. "You look like me."
"No," I said. "I look like her. And I have him—" I nodded toward Ray, "—because you didn't deserve to stay."
The silence stretched so long, it felt like it broke something.
Rain gave one last look—at her, at me, at the life he missed—and then nodded, slow and strange.
"I'm sorry," he said.
But no one answered.
Ray didn't relax until the door clicked shut again.
Mom turned and buried her face in Ray's chest. She didn't cry, but I could feel it—how hard she was trying not to.
I watched Ray hold her like the ground would fall if he didn't.
And for once… I didn't feel confused about who my real father was.
Because he was already here.
And he never ran.