Hide and Seek

21 hours...

"LEVI SON AN INDUSTRIAL SPY."

"That is what the headlines read and it was a mess." Seth shook his head. "You see, I think Ezra thought he could solve the problem by ignoring it, which was obviously stupid, but hey, not all of us are smart." He shrugged and Zahara rolled her eyes.
"Anyway, Mr Merka went nuts. He was so mad at dad, and dad was so mad at Ezra..."

'"What is this?!" Dad yelled, slamming the newspaper on the desk. He had called all of us to the office, though the girls were obviously innocent.
Ezra was standing in front of dad with his head bowed. He kept quiet like he did whenever he was scolded, which of course was very rare. His silence pissed dad off even more.

"Ezra I am speaking to you, answer me! How did this happen?"
Ezra still remained silent, and for the first time ever, dad raised a hand and slapped him. He looked up, his eyes were slightly wide and watery. The rest of us held our breaths, struggling to respire in the tense atmosphere.

Ezra exhaled, staring at dad straight in the eyes. "I was weighing out our options," he finally answered, and my eyebrows involuntarily rose.

"What... what made you think to do something as stupid as that?" Dad growled. "How could you be so stupid Ezra?"

"I'm sorry. I'll take full responsibility for everything and accept whatever punishment."

"How will you do that? How are you going to fix this?" Dad picked up the paper and threw it at Ezra's face. "How? This is my reputation. It's not something you can just fix by taking responsibility and receiving a punishment. This will follow the family name for years."

"I misjudged the situation," he croaked. "I'm sorry.'

"Eli." Dad turned to him who stood up straight, awaiting his orders. "Have the media take these articles down. Seth, come with me to talk to Mr Merka. Kaiya and Dilean, go to Mr Leehyung and try to stop him from getting out of control."
Mr Leehyung was the manager of the company I had texted, and hearing his name gave me a bit of a chill.

"What should I do?" Ezra asked.
Dad glared at him with the coldest eyes I'd ever seen him give anyone, and in that moment I felt a pang of guilt.

"Go home," Dad said and stepped out of the office, followed by the others.

Ezra and I remained alone and he looked up at me. "Why do you look guilty?" He asked, and the guilt I felt was displaced by anger.

"What do you mean?" I asked him.

"For someone who just 'beat me'," he made air quotes with his fingers, "you don't seem very happy. One would say you look rather guilty. Like you did something wrong."

"Like what?"  I blinked a bit too much and swallowed the fear attempting to rise.

"Nothing. I'm just saying. You should hurry before dad gets mad at you for making him wait."

"Okay," I gave him one last look. His eyes were different. They weren't his normal pride-filled eyes. Now that I think of it, it was a look of pure disappointment. I walked out of the office and on that day Ezra moved out of the mansion.
Seth and Ezra never spoke again.'

"So, he never told you that he knew that you were the one who framed him?" Zahara asked.

"No... I got away with it. He never brought it up and neither did I. So... that was it."

"Are you sure that was it?" Teagan asked. "Because that sounds to me like the perfect motive. For two years you lived afraid that he would find a way to use it against you. You hated that he had something on you, so why not just get rid of him?" She pursed her lips, narrowing her eyes at him.