Haunting Music

Jason flipped through the pages.

"Lex," he muttered, his voice unusually serious. "This isn't just some amateur playing around. This looks… top-tier even by professional standard."

Lex didn't respond right away. He reached out, taking one of the folders from Jason's hands, his fingers brushing over the aged paper.

The room felt heavier now.

Like his father was still here.

He turned toward the piano tucked into the corner of the archive room. It was an old Steinway baby grand, slightly dusty but still well-kept. One of the few things in this house that hadn't just been for show.

Lex walked over, set the folder on the music stand, and flipped open one of the sheets.

A song. Untitled. No recording. Just ink and silence.

Jason and Jonathan watched as Lex pressed down a key. A single note echoed softly in the vault, filling the space with something that felt almost sacred.

Lex exhaled.

Then, he began to play.

The melody was slow at first, uncertain, as he followed his father's markings, letting the notes guide his fingers.

Then it unfolded.

Deep, blues-inspired chords, layered with something almost cinematic. Jazz, but with a haunting musical storytelling woven into it. The kind of song that felt like it belonged in a late-night club, played under dim lights and hushed conversations.

Jonathan's brows furrowed. "This… this is incredible."

Jason let out a low whistle. "Damn, Latham. You can actually play."

Lex didn't answer. He just kept playing in the moment.

For the first time in two lifetimes, he was hearing his father's music. His story, laid out without titles and work. The last note hung in the air, fading into the stillness of the room.

Lex sat there for a moment, fingers resting lightly on the keys.

Jason reached for another folder, flipping through the carefully handwritten sheets, when his eyes suddenly froze on a page.

His expression shifted.

"Wait a damn minute."

Lex raised an eyebrow. "What?"

Jason held up the sheet music, his finger tapping the top corner, where a name was written in clean, deliberate ink.

R.L. – Midnight Reverie

A name Jason knew.

A name that made his brows shoot up in pure shock.

"No way." Jason looked at Lex, then back at the page. "Your dad wrote music with Reverie?"

Jonathan's head snapped up. "Wait—Reverie? As in THE Reverie?"

Lex's expression finally flickered. "Who the hell is Reverie?"

Jason let out a disbelieving laugh. "Latham. You really are the worst rich kid in history."

He held up the page. "Reverie was one of the greatest underground jazz pianists of the 20th century. The guy was a damn ghost—never recorded, never signed a deal. The only way you ever heard him play was if you were lucky enough to be in the right club at the right time."

Jonathan nodded, still staring at the signature.

"There were rumors that he wrote music with only a handful of people. But no one ever found proof." He exhaled. "Until now."

Lex slowly took the sheet from Jason's hands, his black eyes scanning the notes, the spacing, the pressure of the strokes.

Something felt off.

Not in the composition—the music itself was brilliant. The phrasing, the rhythm, the structure—it was his father's style. But the handwriting?

Lex frowned, flipping through more pages.

Then, his eyes sharpened.

"This isn't Reverie's handwriting."

Jonathan blinked. "What?"

Lex turned the page slightly, running his fingers along the ink. "It's all written in my father's hand."

Jason frowned. "But it says 'Reverie.'"

"Right. But my dad…" He exhaled, tapping the page. "He writes with both hands. His right-hand writing was sharper, faster—he used it for business. But when he wrote Letters its slow."

Just for show lex pull out the letter from his pocket and hand it to Jason. The handwriting were the same down to the Ts and Gs.

" I remember watching him switch hands and how quickly he work."

Jonathan's jaw tightened. "So what are you saying? That your father didn't just write with Reverie—he wrote as Reverie?"

Lex let out a slow breath, his fingers still tracing the ink on the sheet music. His father's handwriting—both hands, both identities—laid bare in front of him.

Roger Latham wasn't just an investor.

He was the legend.

Jason ran a hand through his hair, still trying to process it. "This is insane. Your dad was out here playing underground jazz clubs while running a goddamn financial empire?"

Jonathan, still scanning the music sheets, let out a low whistle. "It actually makes sense. Reverie disappeared overnight—no one ever knew why. The timing lines up to when Roger took over Maddox Holdings."

Lex leaned back against the piano, processing.

His father had spent years building wealth, navigating power, playing the long game. But before all of that—before the corporate battles, before the betrayals—he had been an artist.

Lex smirked, turning toward the archival shelves.

"It means we're making an album."

Jason carefully gathered the files, his movements precise—as if he were handling something sacred. He tucked the folders into a leather case, double-checking that nothing was left behind.

Lex watched him with an amused smirk. "You look like you're transporting nuclear codes."

Jason shot him a look. "Latham, this is a lost jazz archive from one of the greatest unknown musicians of all time—who just happens to be your dad. If I drop this, I get haunted."

Lex chuckled, but Jason was already marching toward the door.

Jonathan raised an eyebrow. "Where are you taking them?"

Jason smirked. "To my new office."

Lex leaned back against the piano, arms crossed. "Since when do you have an office?"

Jason scoffed. "Since I became your music guy."

He tapped the case. "If we're doing this, we're doing it right. That means pulling session players, finding the right sound engineers, setting up a recording schedule. This isn't some corporate meeting you can BS your way through."

Lex smirked. "I don't BS my way through things."

Jason laughed. "You absolutely do. But this? This needs to be real. If we're making this album, we're making it a classic."

Lex watched as Jason hoisted the case over his shoulder, already halfway out the door.

Noah, still filming, muttered, "Well, he's invested."

Jonathan shook his head. "He's obsessed."

Jason strode out of the vault, the leather case clutched tightly in his grip. For once, the man who usually joked through everything looked completely locked in.

Lex and Jonathan followed him down the hall, moving back toward the main wing of the brownstone.

"You gonna tell me where this office is, or am I supposed to guess?" Lex asked, smirking.

Jason didn't even slow down. "That building you bought next to SMORE last month? Yeah, that's mine now."

Lex raised an eyebrow. "I bought that for future expansion."

Jason shrugged. "Congrats. You just expanded into music."

Jonathan chuckled. "You just assigned yourself an office?"

Jason smirked. "Latham doesn't care about titles, right? He cares about results. And I'm about to get him some."

Lex's eyes glimmered with amusement.