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Chapter Eighteen
- Sebastian -
Ishouldn’t have openedmy damn mouth. I should have held her. I should have whispered sweet nothings in her ear. I should have offered her the comfort she needed.
Instead, I let the vengeance take hold again. I didn’t have answers to her questions. I should never have told her the truth. I hadn’t thought it through. I didn’t know what the fuck I was going to do about her.
I had two goals at the moment. Darion was still missing. In the morning, I had to call my sister and tell her that. I had to lie again. I had to play the concerned uncle, telling my sister that I hadn’t heard from her son in days. When I got done with that call, I had to continue arrangements to move Lilly into the house in Connecticut so she could open her boutique.
One more day. Arrangements were being made to beef up security around my house in Connecticut. I wasn’t relying on drones anymore. I needed people, soldiers in the field, until this was all settled. If it ever would be.
After leaving Lilly, I returned to my room for a few hours of sleeplessness before I swung my feet over the side of the bed again. The sun was barely in the sky. Pinks and mauves highlighted the treeline barely visible through the windows.
I would never get enough of that view.
Someday, if I could pull this off and live through it, I could see myself waking up next to Lilly with this view every morning.
She fit in here. She owned it as much as she owned me.
I had a tangled mess to straighten out, and she was my motivation to make it all work.
I walked into the master closet and slipped into black sweatpants and a black tee shirt.
The house was still dark. I stopped by the kitchen to make coffee before heading to my office. I walked in and went straight to the wall of windows to watch the sunrise while I gathered my thoughts. I had one day to shower Lilly with as much attention as I could before I took her back to Connecticut.
Once she was home, even if she was in my house, she’d want to get back to her shop. There’d be a power struggle - between me and her, between me and Gabriel, and if I knew anything about them - between Gabriel and Lilly too. I was cold to Lilly. Things felt different in the growing light of day. I wasn’t as sure of myself.
Last night made me wonder what the fuck this was all about. It wasn’t about software to steal money I didn’t need.
My entire life revolved around a vendetta to honor a man who wasn’t really any better than the man who killed him.
For years, I thought the only truth that mattered was my own. I didn’t have room for anything else. Lilly showed me I was wrong. Our world was more complicated than that. There was never just one path. While her brothers thought they were protecting her from their world, they were really leaving her vulnerable to it.
“What the fuck do I do now?” I muttered to the sunset.
“I have some ideas, but I’d have to keep you alive to hear them. I’m not sure I’m inclined to do that.”
My grip on my mug tightened to the breaking point. Howin the fuckhad someone gotten in here to threaten me in my own fucking house?
“You’re pretty brave, whoever you are.”
“I could say the same to you, but I think your actions have been more stupid than brave. Turn around.”
“To face my death?”
“To face me.”
I didn’t need to face him. I knew who he was. I was surprised to find him in my office, but there was a part of me that really wasn’t.
Cunning. Lethal. Nearly inhuman.
This was the Dante Calegari I had been warned about.
If this was the way it would all end, then so be it.
I took a sip of my coffee and turned to face the executioner.
He came out of the shadows as if he were unreal. How the fuck had I not seen him when I walked in?
