Chapter 119: Terms of Surrender
Charles Lesnar looked up at his son, finally and the look in his eyes was the kind that stripped a person bare. It didn’t come with yelling or theatrics. Just the cold precision of a man who’d already made up his mind about you.
Then, his voice came low and calm. "You didn’t call."
Craig blinked. "What?"
Charles leaned back in his chair. The light from the desk lamp cast a glow against the edge of his cheek, highlighting the stern lines of a face carved from control.
"I texted you on your birthday," he said. "Told you to call. That was October."
"Yeah, I remember," Craig sat straighter, thrown by the shift.
It took everything in him to ask his dad if he had asked for Merlina’s expulsion and now his father was acting like he hadn’t heard a damn thing?
"You remember," Charles echoed, voice flat. "That’s nearly three months. I asked for a simple call, and I didn’t hear a word."
The silence crackled.
Craig hesitated, unsure if this was some kind of test. "I was busy," he said eventually. "School. Projects. There’s just...a lot going on."
Charles gave a humorless smile, like he’d expected the excuse and already deemed it insufficient. He stood, slow and smooth, adjusting his cufflinks like this wasn’t a conversation, but a surgical procedure.
"And yet...here you are." His father asked, with a raised brow. Craig didn’t respond. He knew better than to fill the silence.