Chapter 22 – Sebastian
Chapter
Twenty-Two
SEBASTIAN
I know myself well enough to understand that I can be a bit of a prick. All of the women I’ve been in serious relationships with have been great, and the fault for the breakups never lay with them. The only mistake they made was to trust a man like me. I promised Lauren I would take good care of her heart, and I fully intend to do that. She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me, and I’m not going to fuck it up. I spent a lot of time in my last relationships thinking about other women, and now—well, Lauren occupies almost every waking thought. This is entirely different from anything I’ve felt before. After more than thirty-five years of chasing women, I’ve finally found the one.
Of course, it helps that the two of us are fucking each other’s brains out every chance we get. My house, her apartment—carefully, because I don’t want the lads getting an eyeful—the car, both offices, out in the sand dunes on the coast. I’m thinking it’s about time to take her to my special place, a bit of secluded land I bought a few years back in case I needed a safe space. I think she’d love it there, and it’s the perfect place to hunt. She’ll definitely be up for that. The woman is insatiable, into trying every twisted little game I suggest.
She’s in court all day today, and I’ve sent Scott to keep an eye on her. She won’t like it, but it’s a public building, so she can’t stop him. We’ll both get an earful, but I’m all out of fucks on that front. Jax and Alejandro have so far failed to lay eyes on this Diego Torres cunt who’s been bothering her, and since she told me more about her uncle and how they were connected, I’ve been even more worried. The little things like the dead flowers could easily be a prelude to something bigger, and it’s my job to worry about that. If some psycho has been obsessing over my woman since he was a kid himself, then I’m going to take care of her any way I can.
I’ve got my own work to do, but first, I’m going through a report that Phil Campbell emailed over. The file is accompanied by a note: Sorry this has taken a while, Seb. I kept digging but couldn’t find much. Wondering if maybe your instincts are wrong on this one?
“I don’t bloody think so,” I mutter to myself, staring at the pages on my screen. Try as I might, though, I can’t see anything that Phil couldn’t see. Taylor Grant was born in Manchester in 2002, which is the kind of birth date that still freaks me out—how can grown-ass humans have reached adulthood when they were only born yesterday? His mum was a school dinner lady and died of breast cancer exactly when Taylor said she did. No dad on the scene at any point, and no stepdads either. Looked like she was a good mum, worked hard and kept him safe, which is more than a lot of kids get.
He got into a bit of trouble in his teens, mainly for fighting. Kicked out of school for breaking the PE teacher’s jaw, which seems fair enough as most of them are sadistic bastards. Nothing serious, just the usual anger management issues I see in a lot of my men. He moved here exactly when he said he did, all his references checked out, and he doesn’t have so much as a blemish on his credit history or his criminal record as an adult. All the scraps he got into when he was younger were with other men, no sign of him being an asshole to women, kids, or puppies, and basically fuck all to go on. But still, those instincts are screaming at me. There’s something not right, and I plan on finding out what.
While I’ve been reading, another message has landed from a nonsense email address that’s all letters and numbers. Normally, I’d kill it off. Talking to Jax has made me realize we need to take our cybersecurity a lot more seriously at Archangel as well.
The only reason I don’t delete it right away is the subject line, which contains three eye-catching words: Lauren Getting Fucked . I suck in a breath and immediately assume it’s Torres—this kind of shit is right up his alley. I might regret it, but I open the email and skim it. ￡200k into this account by midnight, or this goes viral is above a string of numbers. Nothing more, nothing less. Based on everything I learned about Lauren’s situation, I never got the impression Diego was in this for the money.
There’s a video file attached, but I hesitate. I should probably forward the whole damn thing to the experts, but I can’t bear the thought of invading her privacy that way. If this really is an intimate video of Lauren, she wouldn’t want Jax and Alejandro seeing it. She ran from her family, and she never told them about all the shit that’s happened to her over the years. She has boundaries, and I need to respect them.
I press play, my nostrils flaring and my fists clenching on the desk as I watch. Bollocks. It really is a video of Lauren getting fucked—by me. I have her bent over the sink in the ladies’ room at McIverson’s, her dress is shoved up around her waist, and I’m railing into her. Any other time, I might find it a turn-on, but not when it comes with a threat attached. How dare this piece of shit threaten her like this?
I don’t give a damn if the internet is full of videos of me shagging—but Lauren? She has a career where that crap matters. She has clients who respect her. She has a lot to lose, and I won’t allow her to be humiliated. I stand up and throw my chair across the room, where it crashes against the wall and falls to the floor in pieces. Fuck!
Trying to calm myself, I rub the bridge of my nose between my fingers. I’m not going to help by wrecking the place, but I’m so angry I could kill. How did Torres get this? Will he actually go away if we pay? It’s a lot of money, but I can afford it, and I’d pay anything to protect her. Except I already know the answer to that—blackmailers never go away. They just slink off under a rock for a while, then as soon as the cash is gone, they crawl back out for another bite of the cherry.
The door to my office opens slightly, and Taylor pops his head in. Of course he does. “You okay, Boss?”
I point at the chair. “Do I fucking look okay? Is Gabriel in?”
“No. He said he’s working from home until after lunch. Anything I can help you with?”
I have no bloody intention of letting anybody else see this video, but the kid could come in useful. “You’re young. You know anything about email addresses, how to trace them, that kind of shit?”
“Not a lot, sorry. From what I do know, it’s tricky because you can set up webmail accounts anonymously, then use an IP address that’s bounced off different servers. Or just go to a library or a café and use their Wi-Fi.”
“Right, well, now you’re speaking a foreign language, mate. Some prickhas a video of Lauren. And me. I’ll leave the rest to your imagination. I don’t know how the fuck they got it, but it was taken at the McIverson restaurant launch.”
His blue eyes widen, and he literally looks like a light bulb went off above his head.
“Well, go on.” I wave my hand at him. “Spit it out.”
“You know Chantal? The girl we met that time? Well, we’ve been talking. Gone on a few dates, like.” He actually blushes, and if I wasn’t so mad, I might think it was sweet.
“Okay. Well, that’s very nice and all, Taylor, but I don’t see how your love life is relevant.”
“It’s not, but you remember she said she hated that little Jimmy wanker because he was secretly filming the female staff in the ladies’ loos? Now, I don’t know where this video of Lauren was taken—none of my business, guv—but if it was at one of the McIverson pubs, could it be possible he had the same scam setup in all the branches, not only the one where Chantal worked?”
He goes to pick up the wreckage of my chair as he speaks, as though he’s embarrassed at daring to have an original thought. I stare at him as I turn the idea over in my mind. Fuck me, the kid might be onto something. The cameras in Lauren’s place are motion activated—what if the ones in the restroom were as well? There was definitely a lot of motion that night.
Plus, there’s the matter of the cash, which really doesn’t fit with Torres’s MO. He stole from the Montoyas, but he could have taken a lot more. They reckoned it wasn’t about the money, that it was more about messing with them, exerting control. This isn’t his style.
I know exactly whose style it is though—Jimmy’s. He’s still spitting about the deal and the ways we wronged his family, and according to Kenny, he was still making noise about getting his revenge. I dismissed the bastard out of hand, convinced he couldn’t possibly be a threat. That was arrogant, and I should have known better—everyone can be a threat if they try hard enough. Hell, a mosquito can give you fucking malaria. I bet the twat couldn’t believe his bloody luck when that footage landed in his lap.
The more I think about it, the more I see that Taylor is right. This is down to Jimmy—and his luck is about to take a change for the worse.