Keir had been the man who’d filled that hole.
Not gently.Not with sentimental speeches.
With presence.With discipline.With a place at the table and rules that meant someone cared whether Callum lived or died.
Now that is gone.
Footsteps echo in the corridor, measured and cautious.
Callum wipes his face with the heel of his hand and forces his shoulders back.He refuses to look like a child who’s been abandoned.Though right now his chest aches so hard that he fears he is having a heart attack.
A man stands in the doorway, mid-fifties, neat suit, eyes tired.
“Mr.Fraser,” he says softly.“Andrew Bell.We spoke earlier.”
Callum nods once.His voice is rough.“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
Callum’s jaw clenches.“So am I.”
Bell’s gaze flicks to the guitar, then back.“We should talk.There are arrangements and legal matters.”
Callum stands, legs stiff, and follows Bell into the study.
The study looks wrong.Keir’s absence is everywhere, an unfinished glass on the desk, papers stacked haphazardly, a jacket draped over a chair like Keir might come back to claim it.
Bell closes the door behind them.The click sounds too final.
“Please sit,” Bell says.
Callum doesn’t want to sit.Sitting feels like surrender.He does it anyway, because Keir taught him you could be hurt and still be smart.
Bell opens a folder.“Keir MacLaren’s will is…straightforward in some ways and complicated in others.”
“Just tell me what I need to do,” Callum says tightly.
“You are the executor.”Bell studies him for a moment, then speaks carefully.“But, there is a matter of next of kin.”
Callum’s eyes narrow.“Next of kin?”
Bell clears his throat.“Keir MacLaren had a daughter.”
The sentence doesn’t land.It detonates.
Callum’s body goes rigid.“What?”
That can’t be possible.He’d never mentioned having a child of his own.
“A daughter,” Bell repeats gently, as if Callum might not have heard English the first time.“Isla MacLaren.She is, legally, his child.His heir.”
Callum stares at him.
“No,” he says, voice low and dangerous.“No.That’s not possible.”
Why hadn’t the press mentioned her?
“It is,” Bell says.“Keir acknowledged her.Paternity is documented.She is his sole biological child.”
