Chapter 10
S ebastian wondered if he could get away with muting the phone. Probably not.
“—told us! How dare we have to find out from Jay that you got shot, you asshole!”
Sebastian rubbed his forehead, feeling a headache coming on.
“I didn’t get shot,” he felt compelled to point out. He’d gotten shot at, but no bullets had gotten him. Not like the graze he’d gotten during the drive-by. He didn’t think it would be smart to mention that incident, though. It sounded like Caleb, at least, hadn’t told his siblings about it.
“Don’t you dare argue semantics with me right now,” Charlotte, his younger sister, said. “You should have called us.”
“What could you do?” Sebastian protested.
“I wasn’t hurt.” A little white lie, but one he was more than happy to give if it would diffuse the situation.
His sister was a nurse, and she knew how to make people feel bad about not looking after themselves.
He didn’t know if it was from being the middle child, or his and Eli’s tendencies to find themselves in tricky situations, or her years as a nurse, but the guilt game was strong. And Sebastian wasn’t in the mood.
“That’s hardly the point! Are you in some kind of trouble, Seb? Are the police helping? Do you need some form of protection? Eli and Jay have security contacts, maybe we should—”
“No,” Sebastian blurted out. Fuck no. The last thing he wanted was people following him around all day. “No,” he repeated softer. “I promise you that everything is under control.”
“That is never true when you say it.”
“Well, this time it—” He looked up and froze, his words catching in his throat.
Hunter was standing in the doorway to his home office, and he looked more than ticked off. Fucking great.
“Seb? Seb, what's wrong?”
Sebastian jolted back to his phone call. “Nothing. Look, I've got an important meeting. I'll call you back later, okay?”
“Fine. We're gonna talk about this more.”
“Can't wait.”
“I have been trying to contact you all night,” Hunter said the second Sebastian put his phone down.
“How did you get inside?”
“Let me tell you how this goes,” Hunter said, moving further into the room. He loomed over the desk, his palms pressed firmly against it. “When I call, you answer.”
“I was getting laid; you should think about doing the same, jeez. Fucking relax.”
“Where were you?”
“Don't you have me tracked or something?” Sebastian asked, his brain still caught on Hunter's statement.
“If I'd had you tracked, then maybe I could have helped when someone tried to kill you. You should have told me what happened.”
“That seems to be going around.” Sebastian leaned back in his chair. “At what point did our agreement have anything to do with me keeping you informed of my whereabouts? You handed me a case, and I finished it. Unless you have another case, we have nothing to talk about.”
“Keeping you alive is an important part of that agreement. How do I get anything out of you if you're nothing but a corpse?”
“You're all heart.”
“I'm putting someone on you until this is sorted.”
“No,” Sebastian said immediately. “I have more than enough protection.”
“Your soldier and your cop?” Hunter said, scoffing. “Both are impressive, but they have jobs and lives. The people I’ll put on you won't ever look away.”
“That is... super creepy. No, thanks. I can look after myself. Still alive, see?”
Hunter sneered, and he looked like he was gearing up to say something Sebastian just knew he was going to take offence to, when a knock at his door made him pause.
Christ, could he not get a break today?
Hunter looked down at his watch and pressed something on it.
“Cops. Detectives.” He tapped again. “Hughes and Donehue. They're on your case. You know them?”
“I got laid by one of them last night,” Sebastian said dryly. “Is that the kind of detail you're asking for?”
Hunter tilted his head. “Which one?”
“Fuck off, Hunter.”
Another knock, more urgent.
“Better go answer,” Hunter said.
For fuck’s sake.
When Sebastian swung the front door open, he faltered. Based on the look on Quinn’s face, and the fact Grady was standing beside him, Sebastian had a feeling this wasn’t a social call.
“Detectives,” he said warily in greeting.
Quinn moved the edge of his jacket to show off the badge clipped to his belt.
Sebastian didn’t even get a chance to admire the curve of his hip or get caught up in memories from last night and this morning and just what those hips could do before Quinn let his jacket fall back over it.
“We’re here in an official capacity,” Quinn said. “We have some questions we need to ask. May we come in?”
Before Sebastian could open the door for him, Hunter appeared at his shoulder, staring them down.
“I think you were just leaving,” Sebastian said. “Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.”
“I wouldn't damage it,” Hunter said. “I'll call you.”
Quinn and Grady wordlessly moved out of his way, though Quinn glanced back, and Sebastian couldn't help the sinking feeling in his gut. Or the anger that accompanied it at the look on Quinn's face. He'd thought they were past this, but it seemed not.
“Who was that?” Quinn asked.
“A client,” Sebastian lied curtly. He couldn't give a fuck what Quinn thought about it if they were going to so quickly return to where they'd once been.
“Another lie, Devlin?” Grady said. His tone sounded like a dare, and Sebastian bristled.
“What the hell does that mean?”
“We’re here to talk about Mason Delgrade and your association with him.”
“I already told you—”
“Well, what you told us is a crock of shit, so why don’t you try again?” Grady drawled. “Or you could lie to us some more. Hell, we got nothin’ better to do than sit here and listen to you—”
“Stop,” Quinn said quietly. “Let us in.”
Sebastian wordlessly opened the door. He bit back a curse as Grady shoved at this shoulder as he passed.
He led them into his kitchen and flicked his coffee machine on because he had a feeling, he was going to need a coffee for this.
Quinn put a file on the counter and flipped it open. “Mason Delgrade. Two counts of intent to distribute. Case opened sixteen months ago. Went to court eleven months ago. Prosecution lead was Renfrie Laurent. Defensive lawyer was—”
“I know what it says,” Sebastian interrupted. He didn't turn around, didn't want to see Quinn's face. “It was one case almost a year ago.”
“We specifically asked you if you knew the victim,” Quinn said.
“I know, and—”
“And you said,” Quinn interrupted, talking over him, “no. You said you didn't know him. I have a formal police report that shows that you said that you didn't know him.”
Sebastian pursed his lips and turned around. “I didn't remember straightaway.”
Grady scoffed. “Oh, fuck off, Devlin. Start telling the truth.”
Quinn put a hand on Grady's arm. “When did you recognise him?” he asked Sebastian.
Sebastian glanced between them. It wasn't even the accusation in Quinn's eyes that bothered him, it was the hurt underlying it.
“The night we found him,” he said, with a sigh.
Grady cursed, and Quinn's face dropped.
“You're a lying piece of shit,” Grady said angrily.
“Like you're a paragon of perfection,” Sebastian retorted. “Detectives should look at you as what not to do to act like a professional.”
“Do you just enjoy making our lives as difficult as possible?”
Sebastian fucking hated him. And he hated the way Quinn was looking at him.
He wanted both of them to leave. Wanted this conversation to have never started.
“Yeah, I don't have anything better to do either.
Running cops around is my favourite activity.
It's right after finger painting, but before trail riding because that takes more prep, you know? It's the details.”
“This isn't some fucking joke,” Quinn growled. “This is your life, and you've been lying to us from the goddamn start!”
“I was trying to figure out what was going on!” Sebastian said, unable to control the way his voice rose. He gritted his teeth as he pursed his lips.
“That's our job,” Quinn said in return, his own voice matching Sebastian's. “ My job. You should have trusted me to protect you! You should have told me.”
“Because the police are so fucking friendly.”
“I'm not just the police,” Quinn said, deflating. He put a hand over his mouth as he took a deep breath and stared down at his files.
Sebastian opened his mouth to say something, but he didn't know how to fix it. He knew he'd fucked up. But it had been one white lie.
“Is this how you get your rocks off?” Grady asked, narrowing his eyes.
“Sleeping with one of the detectives on the case so that you can get away with obstructing justice?
Just some fun for you on the side while you laugh as we run around in circles?
You picked Quinn because he was an easy target.
Got a little history, getting him back in bed would be a snap, right?
Maybe you thought Quinn wouldn't dig, that he'd lie down like a good fucking dog and let you walk all over him.”
Sebastian's mouth dropped open. He turned to Quinn, but he still wasn't looking at Sebastian. “You can't honestly believe that!”
It took Quinn a heartbeat too long to answer. “No. Grady, can you give us a second, please?”
Grady looked like he wanted to protest, but he nodded and left the room.
“Don't break any of my stuff!” Sebastian called after him. He rubbed his eyes and desperately wished he had a coffee.
“What are you doing, Seb?”
“Well, you're the one that came here with all the answers, so why don't you tell me?”
“I'm trying to trust you, and you're making it really hard for me.”
“Because I lied about one thing? I've never given you a reason not to trust me. That was all in your head; don't you dare fucking put me back in that box.”
“You lied about knowing the victim! If we'd known you had a connection to him, we would have known you were the target from the start.”
“You already knew that.”