Chapter 13 Sebastian
Sebastian
Present
“Ok, what’s wrong? I don’t like how quiet you’re being. It’s weird,” Hayden said.
“Nothing’s wrong.” I lit a cigarette and took a drag.
We’d arrived at the Organisation about twenty minutes ago, and I hadn’t really said much to him the whole journey here.
“I thought broody Sebastian had left and happy Sebastian was here to stay,” he joked.
I glared at him.
“Look at me all you want, but you’ll tell me eventually, so let’s get it out of the way.”
I let out a heavy breath and took another drag.
“Aria invited Callum fucking Brown to dinner on Friday.”
“Oh shit,” Hayden blurted out.
I took another toke and blew the smoke out. “Apparently, it was a coincidence, and they just so happened to be in the same shop. I don’t believe that one bit.”
Fire burned in the pit of my stomach just thinking about him, and I clenched my fist to try to control it.
“I’m guessing you didn’t tell her you knew him.”
“Like fuck. She doesn’t need to know about this place.”
“You agreed to dinner, didn’t you?” His face lit up with amusement as he tried to suppress his laugh.
“It’s not funny, Hayden. She told me he meant a lot to her.” I took another drag and stubbed the cigarette out in the ashtray, then grabbed another and lit it.
“They spent four years together in an intense situation. I can imagine they were close, and he clearly cares for her to get her out of Leeds.”
I sat up in the chair. “I care about her.”
Didn’t he realise how much I loved her and all I ever wanted to do was keep her safe and protected from this shitty world? From all of this?
“I never said you didn’t, but you can’t protect her from everything. She’s not that teenage girl anymore.”
I fucking could, and I would. I’d burn this fucking world to the ground if it ever laid a finger on her.
He shook his head at me, his curls bouncing as he leaned back in the chair. “That would have been the perfect opportunity to come clean about everything. Then you wouldn’t have to sit at a dinner with Callum. Now you’ll need to be on your best behaviour.”
I narrowed my eyes at him as I took the last drag on the cigarette and stubbed it out. Callum wasn’t stupid enough to let Aria know I was involved in this again. There was more to this, I could feel it.
“What else is bothering you? I feel like that’s not all,” he said.
Hayden always knew when something was wrong. He’d known me for so long I couldn’t hide anything from him anymore. I let out a heavy breath and rubbed my face.
“My dad turned up.”
His eyes widened at me. “Oh.”
“Yep. Turned up out of the blue. No warning.”
“What did he want?” he asked, leaning back in the chair.
“I didn’t give him a chance to speak; I slammed the door in his face. Then Aria called me an asshole for doing it and went to talk to him. Why would anyone want to talk to that man? And the worst part, she agreed to have a family dinner with him on Sunday.”
Hayden knew about a lot of the things my dad had done to me growing up. He’d seen the bruises and cuts to my face, and they weren’t from fighting. It wouldn’t surprise me if Serfina had filled him in on my life before we met. Not out of malice, but because she’d seen it all and cared.
I think Aria knew deep down I didn’t have the best childhood, but she didn’t know the half of it. I’d kept it hidden the best I could when she lived there.
“Damn, all these dinners she’s arranging for you.” He chuckled to himself. “Guess she’s really good at being a PA.”
“You’re not helping right now.”
“You never listen to my advice anyway, but I’ll give it to you.”
Of course he would. He’d given me advice throughout the years that I hardly ever took, but he always ended up being right. Well, most of the time.
“Go to dinner with your dad and get it out of the way. You can see what he wants and then decide what you want to do moving forward. If you choose not to see him again after, Aria needs to understand that, but for her to understand, you’ll have to tell her about your childhood.”
“She doesn’t need to know.”
“What are you worried about?”
If I were being honest with myself, I was scared. Afraid she’d think I was weak. Unable to look after her like a man should. Things that my father had instilled into me from a young age. Men should never show weakness, he’d always told me. Men aren’t meant to be soft, to show their emotions.
That was all I was told growing up.
When I cried at my mum’s funeral, he hit me and told me men don’t cry.
I was ten.
I didn’t deserve someone like Aria, but she’d chosen me. If I told her how my childhood was, what if she’d look at me like someone who couldn’t protect her? I’d allowed my dad to do all those things to me, and I’d never done anything about it because I just wanted him to love me.
“She loves you. She always has. She won’t think anything less of you because of it. She’s always seen you.”
In a world of darkness, she was the light I held onto. That light that managed to save me from falling into the pits of hell. If she had never come to live with me when we were younger, I would have been fully consumed by the darkness, and I know I wouldn’t have found my way back.
“The past is the past. Just leave it there.”
Why would I want to burden anyone else with my demons? Aria didn’t need that. She’d had enough monsters in her life. She didn’t need any more.
“What’s happening with Luca? Have arrangements been made?”
“You can’t avoid your past forever,” he finished, then shifted in the chair. “As for Luca, Hassan is sorting containers to get the products out of Italy.”
“What’s he using?”
“Sugar barrels. Connor is getting the paperwork sorted to clear the ports when it arrives.”
“Good. I don’t want anything to go wrong.”
Even though Luca was someone Valon knew, I never fully trusted anyone I didn’t know like I knew these guys.
“Why would anything go wrong? Everything is running smoothly. It has been for months.”
I patted him on the back. “This is why I’m here. To make sure nothing happens.”
He shoved me, and I smiled at him. “You’re the one who makes the trouble, don’t forget that.”
“It’s not trouble when they start it first. I can’t help that. If they’re stupid enough to mess with us, then I’ll give it back. You know I’ve never been one to back down from a fight.”
He raised his brows in agreement, and I saw a little spark in his eyes. “You ever miss those days when we were young and just fighting?”
I let out a chuckle. “Are we old now?”
“You definitely are.” He laughed.
“I think you’ll find you’ll be twenty-eight before me.”
“This is why I’m the wise one, and you should listen to what I tell you.”
“Never going to happen.”
“Look at you, being all Moon Knight with your secret identity. CEO by day, criminal by night.”
I arched my brow. “You do realise he was a vigilante with dissociative identity disorder?”
He pressed his lips together, holding his hands up and widening his eyes. “Just saying.”
I grabbed him in a headlock and gave him a few playful punches.
“Dickhead,” he said, pushing me off.
The laughter soon died down, and I rubbed the back of my neck as my lips parted, then closed, thinking twice about what I wanted to ask. I swallowed hard, pushing that feeling back down.
“Can you do something for me?”
He looked up at me. “Nothing good ever follows that sentence with you.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “I’ve learnt to hide my files better. Caspian Whitmore. The guy my dad appointed as COO. Something isn’t sitting right.”
My phone started ringing, interrupting the conversation. Hassan. I placed it on the table, answering on speaker.
“Hey, Sebastian. I just got into Italy with a few of my guys to check out the routes before we proceed. Luca is sending some of his men to pick us up for the meeting.”
“Send some of your men there now, separately. Get them to find a good vantage point in case anything goes down.”
“All right, I’ll keep you updated.”
He cut the call, and I placed my phone back in my pocket.
“See, everything is running smoothly,” Hayden said.
I wanted to believe it would stay that way, but if there was one thing I knew about the world down here, it was that nothing ever went according to plan.