Page 18 of Kill Shot

Breaking Point

Seb

When Seb returned home, he wasn’t surprised that his father immediately called him into his office. However, he was surprised by just how calm his father looked as he glanced over some documents and barely even acknowledged his son’s arrival.

Seb closed the door behind him and went to take that familiar seat before his father’s desk.

There was a strange sense of calm that came with being found out, a very different sensation from the fear and uncertainty that came with going behind your father’s back.

Now the cards were all on the table, and his father had been told by half a dozen corroborating witnesses that Seb was out doing unsavory things with Nico in the dead of night.

Nothing but his stolen kisses with Nico were still secret, and even those might have been spotted without him noticing.

“How much do you know about this Nico?” his father asked suddenly, glancing up. Only then did Seb realize that the papers in his father’s hand weren’t expense reports, but rather a dossier on Nico.

“Wh-what do you mean?” Seb stammered. “He’s just a friend that’s helping me out.

” He should’ve expected this, of course.

It was only a matter of time before his father asked about Nico.

He’d expected it much sooner, but now, he felt rather unprepared for this level of questioning.

It seemed his father’s silence on Seb’s escapades wasn’t for nothing.

He’d been digging up information on Nico.

Pablo gave him a flat stare. “Seb, you know better than to lie to me. Do you know who this Nico character is and what he does for a living?”

Seb shrugged, not quite meeting his father’s gaze.

“He’s an enforcer, a fixer,” his father continued mercilessly. “He’s a gangster, and he gets sent in to clean up messes. Do you understand what that means? What that really means?”

“Yes,” Seb said hotly, all his frustrations boiling to the surface. “And so what? People have to make compromises out there in the real world. Not everyone gets to live squeaky clean lives like you do.”

That surprised his father into pausing. “Squeaky clean?” But after a moment’s consideration, he shook his head and declined to go down that tangent. “Seb, I had some background checks run on this Nico. Or rather, Nicolas Frederico Lopez Gutierrez.”

“You had no right to do that,” Seb said as he leapt to his feet. He could feel the world giving way under his feet. He knew that he should have expected this, that his father technically did have the right, but that didn’t make the pill any easier to swallow.

“Of course I did,” his father said coolly. “Now sit down.”

Seb obeyed, clenching his jaw tightly.

“As I was saying, I ran background checks on him, and they all came back clean.”

Seb blinked. “But isn’t that a good thing?”

His father shook his head. “Too clean. Squeaky clean, if you’d like. His record is absolutely spotless, to the point where he basically doesn’t have any history at all of his childhood and adolescence. From infancy to twenty, there is barely a trace of him existing.”

“I don’t understand what the problem is. Maybe he just lived somewhere that kept poor records. He’s Mexican; maybe he lived in a rural village and went to school down there.” Seb knew that he was grasping at straws, but that felt infinitely better than doing nothing and waiting to drown.

“No, you don’t understand how thorough my agents are.

This isn’t a case of a lack of data. It looks like someone wiped off his records.

That’s suspicious,” his father said, his voice still as cold as ice.

“You know the kind of work I do, Sebastian. The lending business is a dangerous world. And there are some businesses I do that you don’t even know about.

I have many enemies who would stop at nothing to get what they want. ”

But he must have seen something in his son’s face because his expression softened.

“Seb, I’m just trying to look out for you.

You’re my son, and I don’t want anything to happen to you.

What my men have been able to gather is that he’s a gangster, but we still haven’t been able to pin down his main network.

We’ve gotten a few names here and there, and are still investigating.

” His father paused for a beat, making sure the words sink in.

“You do know how bad that is, don’t you?

That boy is dangerous. Something about his name makes me uncomfortable, and until I get to the root of it, you should stay away from him. ”

But Seb’s thoughts were elsewhere entirely. The words of his father were ringing in his head, and he couldn’t help but feel the faintest tingling of suspicion. What if Nico really was lying to him? What if he wasn’t who he said he was? What if he was even worse than his father suspected?

No, Nico had been nothing but kind to Seb, and here he was, suspecting him of being the absolute worst that humanity had to offer. Guilt filled Seb to the point of overflowing, and he was so disgusted with his own thoughts that he leapt to his feet.

Unfortunately, there was one other target in the room that he could take his confused anger out on.

“I’ll never be safe if you keep suffocating me like this,” he cried out, clutching for anything that was simmering beneath the surface, any stick or stone that he could find.

“Why can’t you just let me live my life?

Why do you have to keep monitoring everything I do like this?

What at all are you protecting me from, huh?

I barely have any friends, and now the only person I want, you-you’re trying to take him away from me! ”

“Seb—”

“No! Don’t! I don’t want to hear it. I swear to God—if you beef up the security because of Nico, or try to lock me down, or lay a finger on him in any way—I swear, I’ll run. I’ll disappear, and you’ll never see me again!”

He could see his father’s heart break in real time, but Seb was in too deep, and the momentum was too great. Too ashamed to face the idea of apologizing and mending things, he turned around and stormed right out of his father’s office.

“Seb, wait!”

But it was too late. Sebastian was already turning the corner and nearly collided with a solid wall of muscle.

The head of his security detail didn’t flinch as Seb stumbled into his chest. One glance at the man’s face, and Seb knew he’d heard the shouting match that happened back there.

Without a word, Seb turned and marched down the hallway heading for his room, jaw tight and his blood pulsing in his veins. From the sound of the heavy footsteps behind him, Frederick was following.

“Why don’t you just fuck off and stop following me like a damn shadow?” Seb snapped. “It’s not like something’s going to happen to me in my own house!”

“I’m just making sure you get to your room,” Frederick said evenly, then lowered his voice. “That you don’t sneak out like last time.”

It took a couple more steps before the words registered in Seb’s rage-fuelled brain, stopping him in his tracks. “You… knew?” he whispered, turning to face the bodyguard.

Frederick didn’t answer, but the look in his eyes told Seb everything he needed to know, and it hit him.

Here he’d thought he was a smart genius, but it turned out it was because of Frederick that Seb hadn’t been caught when he snuck out and how easy it was to sneak back in like nothing happened. He had known and covered for him.

“I was only trying to correct a lapse in my duty; the cover was for me as much as it was for you,” the man said flatly, as if reading his mind. “That shouldn’t have happened.”

Seb stared at him, heart racing as a wild idea sparked to life in his head, which had, a second ago, been filled with anger at his father and his suffocating control. Before he could talk himself out of it, he grabbed Frederick’s wrist and tugged him into his room, shutting the door behind them.

“I need to see Nico. Right now,” Seb said, the words tumbling out of him. Even worse, he felt the tears he’d been holding back welling up in his eyes. “I need to make sure he’s okay. Dad… he…”

“I’m not sure what you’re asking of me, sir. If you’re worried about your friend , just give him a call.”

Seb grabbed Frederick’s hands. “You have to help me again. I don’t want to be here. I really don’t want to be here right now. Please…”

A long silence stretched between them as his bodyguard observed him quietly, the expression on his face not changing much from the blank look he often wore. Seb wasn’t even sure if the man would report this to his father, but… he had to try at least.

“The guard shift at the servants’ entrance changes in two hours,” Frederick finally said. He didn’t have to add any more details to that because Seb immediately understood what just happened here.

Seb nodded. “Okay. Okay.”

Frederick pulled his hands out of his grip and levelled him with a stare. “This conversation never happened,” he said. “I’ll have a trusted friend of mine follow you from a distance. Just in case. I’ll cover for you here. But if you’re caught, I’ll pretend I know nothing.”

Then he walked out of his room, and Seb couldn’t believe his luck. He also couldn’t hold back the tears any longer.

“Ugh!” Seb flopped onto his bed. He hated getting into arguments with his father, and he hated his suffocating control even more. It wasn’t beyond him to threaten Nico to stay away if he thought he was a danger or a distraction.

The thought made Seb’s chest tighten. He couldn’t stand the idea of losing him. He couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to go back to his sheltered, boring life without Nico in it.

He’d learned so much in the past few weeks. Things he never would’ve known if Nico hadn’t pushed him out of his comfort zone.

Being with Nico was the closest he’d ever come to feeling alive . Maybe even normal, in a way he never thought he’d want.

And then there was the part he didn’t dare say out loud. His feelings for Nico.