Page 34 of Innocent Salvation

To think he’d been on the brink of asking this woman to be his wife. Yes, out of convenience and companionship, but it had involved a hell of a lot of trust. Something she didn’t deserve and had thrown away by lying to him and wheedling her way into his life. He got the feeling he still wasn’t fully aware of the reason. What he couldn’t understand was the feeling of hurt that was lodged in his gut. Anger he could understand but her lies hurt him in a way he hadn’t expected. Perhaps because she’d disappointed him and shown him how things could have been, yet it was all a lie.

“If you’re through sulking, we have some things to discuss.”

Sebastian glared at Reaper who just smirked back. His hands clenched with the need to ram his fist down the other man’s throat. Sebastian gritted his jaw and took a second to compose his features before he turned from Fleur, who was sitting at the table drawing, to look at the man they called Reaper.

Sebastian didn’t know what it was about him that rubbed him the wrong way, but everything he did annoyed him, and what the hell was with him calling Snow baby girl all the time like she was his possession in some way. Only the fact that he’d saved his life made Sebastian decide to bite his tongue, but that wouldn’t last forever. “Fine.”

“We’ll be in the living room when you’re done. Bein can watch Fleur. He loves to get his nails painted.”

Fleur’s head shot up as Bein walked in, giving Reaper a sharp dig in the ribs as he walked past, muttering asshole low enough that Fleur never heard him.

Fleur was almost bouncing in her seat with excitement at the prospect of painting the man’s nails. “Do you really?”

“Sure, my nieces always love to paint my manly nails.”

“Can I?”

Bein crouched to Fleur and Sebastian watched closely, not trusting anyone with his niece right now.

“Well, we don’t have any polish, but we can do some drawing together while your uncle Seb and Snow talk with Reap. When we get a chance, I’ll let you paint my nails. How does that sound?”

Fleur cocked her head, pursing her lips and giving the idea some serious thought. Seb was impressed with how patient Bein was as he waited for her to respond.

“Okay.”

Bein sat down beside her and grabbed a crayon, waving them away with his free hand.

In the living room, Snow was waiting by the window, her body tensing as if she sensed them in the room before she turned with her usual wide smile on her face. Sebastian wondered what it took to put a chink in her sunny disposition, annoyed that she could smile when his world was turned upside down. As he looked closer, he realised her smile didn’t reach her eyes the way it usually did, and his heart ached at the loss he’d just seconds ago wanted.

“Take a seat, Sebastian.”

Snow sat on the sofa and Reaper took the seat beside her, making him grit his jaw as sudden explosive jealousy reared its ugly head, making him want to rip the man away from her. Instead, he took the single seat opposite them and waited.

“The men who attacked you last night are colleagues of Jakub Nowark.”

Snow was leading this meeting and Sebastian was entranced with her confidence as she took charge, her words hardly making a dent.

“Nowark?”

“The same man who killed Margaret. We believe they’ve been tasked with killing you and finding whatever information it is you have that their boss wants.”

“And who do you believe their boss is?” Sebastian knew who he thought was behind it all, but he wanted to know what they knew and what they wanted from him.

“Before I reveal that, I think it’s only fair I come clean about a few things.”

Sebastian thought for a moment as the dread he felt earlier came flooding back that perhaps this was how defendants felt waiting for him to pass judgement. A sense of not knowing and having no control over the next few minutes of their lives and like them he thought perhaps he had nobody but himself to blame. “Some honesty would be a novel idea.”

Reaper raised a warning eyebrow, but he ignored him. As far as he was concerned this was between him and Snow and nobody else.

“My name is Sabine Goubert and I work for a company called Shadow Elite. As I explained, we’re not an illegal vigilante group, we have the highest clearance in the land.”

“How come nobody has ever heard of you? Not even a whisper.” Even secret groups had stories told about them.

“Because we don’t want anyone to know about us and we’re good at what we do. If people knew, we wouldn’t be as effective. As far as the outside world knows, we’re either dead from our pasts or missing. Or for some like Bein, the image of a life lived away from the one he should have had. We keep our real names, but our history is wiped from existence. If you Google us, you won’t find anything, not even a school picture.”

Sebastian could respect that, understand it even, but that didn’t explain their interest in him. Unless. “Bein. I recognise him. He’s Bram McCullum from the shoot-out with Doyle.” He leaned forward; his anger forgotten in his quest for the truth now. “Is that why you’re interested in me, because of the enquiry I’m heading up?”

“Your name came up during that, but our interest comes from my own personal reasons.”