FLASHBACK // WilliamEst

Prologue

Wesley Sangaworawong had always thought silence was his father's first language.

Not Thai. Not English. Not the clipped business Mandarin Est used on overseas calls at 2 AM.

Silence.

The kind that lived in the walls of their 3,200-square-foot penthouse like another tenant. The kind that answered back when Wesley asked if they could eat dinner together.

At seventeen, Wesley could count on one hand the number of times Est had hugged him first.

Once, when Wesley was six and had a fever of 104. Once, when he graduated from middle school with honors Est barely glanced at. Once, after the funeral of the woman Wesley called Mom.

Est provided everything.

International school tuition paid three years in advance. A black card with no limit that Wesley never used because spending it felt like owing more silence.

A bedroom with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Bangkok's skyline, where the city lights looked close enough to touch but never warmed anything. Affection, when it came, arrived restrained. Carefully folded into practical gestures, like shirts from the dry cleaner.

"Eat before sleeping." Sent via text at 11:47 PM.

"Message me when you arrive." Delivered without eye contact as Est left for the airport.

"Don't stay out too late." Said to the back of Wesley's head, not his face. Never:

"I missed you."

"Are you okay?"

"I love you."

So when Est left for a three-day business summit in Singapore, and the house staff took their weekly night off, Wesley didn't plan to feel anything.

He planned to be seventeen. Which meant he planned to get into his father's private study and find out if the rumors about Est's vintage Macallan collection were true.

The study was the one room in the penthouse that stayed locked. Biometric pad. Tinted windows.

No cleaning staff allowed. Wesley had watched Est enter the code enough times from the hallway — his father's muscle memory was precise, predictable.

The door clicked open. Inside smelled like leather and something older, like paper left in the sun.

No liquor cabinet in plain sight. Just bookshelves, a desk cleared of everything except a Montblanc pen, and a wall of framed certificates Wesley had stopped reading at age ten.

He checked the drawers. Locked. Except the bottom one.

It stuck, then gave. No whiskey. No secret ledgers. Just a mess of old cables, a stack of foreign-language contracts, and a dusty Sony camcorder, the kind that used mini-DV tapes.

The kind no one had used since Wesley was in primary school.

He shouldn't have touched it. He told himself he was looking for alcohol, not answers. But his hands were already lifting it, thumbing the open button.

The tape inside read W.E. in handwriting he didn't recognize. Loopy. Soft. The E wasn't Est.

Est's E was all sharp angles. The battery was dead. Of course it was. But the charger was in the drawer too, coiled like a sleeping snake.

Wesley told himself he'd watch ten seconds. Just enough to confirm it was boring. Just enough to prove his father was as sterile in private as he was in public.