Page 40 of Trained In Sin

Seb

She walks away.

I watch her leave the police station, her spine rigid with anger, Beth protectively at her side, and something breaks inside my chest. Something that I thought had been destroyed years ago, in a council flat with broken windows and empty bottles scattered across the floor.

I was so certain. So fucking certain that once she knew the truth, once she understood what Phillips really was, what I'd saved her from, she'd see it differently. She'd understand that I eliminated a monster, not an innocent man. She'd be grateful.

Instead, she's angrier than before.

Matthew appears at my side, his expression carefully neutral. "Seb?"

"Not now." My voice sounds hollow, distant.

"The car…."

"I said not now."

He nods and retreats, understanding something I'm only beginning to grasp myself. This isn't going according to plan because there is no plan. There's no strategy for dealing with this level of rejection, this complete dismissal of everything I thought I was offering her.

I make it to the Range Rover on autopilot, Matthew navigating us through the London streets while my mind replays every word of our conversation. The fury in her voice when she accused me of controlling her. The way she flinched when I stepped closer. The absolute finality in her demand for space.

"That wasn't your choice to make."

But it was my choice. It had to be my choice because I was the only one with the resources to discover what Phillips really was. I was the only one willing to do what needed to be done to stop him.

"You kept saying you did everything to protect me, but you can't see that keeping the truth from me was just another way of controlling me."

Controlling her. As if wanting to shield her from the horror of knowing she'd shared her bed with a paedophile was somehow manipulation rather than mercy.

But even as I justify my actions, her words echo in my head. Another way of controlling her. Another way of deciding what she could and couldn't handle.

Maybe she's right. Maybe I did make those choices for her, about her, without consulting her. But what was the alternative? Tell her immediately that the man she'd lived with for three years was a monster who collected images of children being abused? Watch her fall apart from guilt and self-blame?

I reach Syren without conscious awareness of the journey, finding myself in the car park staring at the windscreen. My hands are shaking, when did that start?

The elevator ride to my office feels endless.

Every floor, every second, the reality settles deeper: she knows the truth now, and it doesn't matter.

She understands what Phillips was, what I saved her from, and she's still angry.

Still wants space from me. Still sees me as the villain in this story.

My office feels different when I enter. The space where she surrendered herself to me, where I thought I'd finally found something worth keeping, now feels like a mausoleum. The desk where I took her, claimed her, convinced myself that she was mine, it's just furniture now.

I pour myself a measure of whisky with hands that refuse to steady. The amber liquid burns going down, but it's nothing compared to the fire in my chest.

She doesn't want me.

Even knowing what Phillips was, even understanding that I eliminated a threat to her and countless other victims, she doesn't want me.

The thought triggers something I haven't felt since I was seven years old, standing in a doorway watching my mother pack her suitcase.

"Where are you going, Mummy?"

"Away, Sebastian. Just... away."

"When will you come back?"

She'd looked at me then with the same expression I saw on Saphy's face tonight. Not hatred, exactly. Something worse: exhaustion. Like I was a burden she couldn't carry anymore.

"I won't be coming back, sweetheart. You'll understand when you're older. "

But I never understood. Not when my father explained that she left because I was too difficult, too demanding, too much trouble for a woman who just wanted a normal life.

Not when the bruises started appearing after she was gone, when his grief and rage found a convenient target.

Not when I realised that loving someone, needing someone, was just giving them power to destroy you.

I built walls after that. Became someone who took what he wanted without asking, who didn't need anyone's approval or affection to survive. I created an empire where I controlled everything and everyone, where love was a weakness I couldn't afford.

And then Saphy walked into my club in that stunning dress, looking lost and beautiful and completely unimpressed by my power, and all those walls crumbled like they were made of sand.

For the first time in twenty-seven years, I let myself love someone. Let myself need someone. Let myself believe that maybe, maybe, someone could see past the violence and control to whatever was left of the boy who just wanted his mother to come home.

And she's rejecting me anyway.

Not because she doesn't understand what I am, she understands perfectly. Not because she doesn't know what I'm capable of, she's seen it firsthand. She's rejecting me because of who I am, fundamentally, at my core.

Someone who solves problems with violence. Someone who makes decisions for others without consulting them. Someone who controls and manipulates and takes what he wants regardless of the consequences.

She's right. That's exactly who I am .

The realization should be liberating. Should free me from the delusion that I could ever be anything else, that anyone could ever love the monster I've become.

Instead, it's devastating.

I hear Matthew’s phone buzz. He clears his throat.

"The board meeting for tomorrow has been moved to Thursday. Wilson needs…."

"Cancel it."

"Sir?"

"Cancel everything. The meetings, the calls, all of it."

"For how long?"

I look around the office that's been my kingdom for the past eight years. The empire I built through careful calculation and controlled violence. The life I created where I never had to need anyone, never had to risk rejection, never had to face the possibility that I might not be enough.

"Indefinitely."

"Seb, what's going on?"

"I'm done."

“What do you….”

“Get out Matthew.”

“Why… ”

“I said get the fuck out.” And I throw my whiskey glass at the wall beside him. He leaves, knowing not to push me.

I grab a glass from the counter and pour another whisky, then another. The alcohol doesn't help, nothing touches the hollow ache in my chest, the certainty that I've lost the only thing that ever really mattered.

*

By midnight, I've worked my way through half the bottle and made my decision.

I call my lawyer, my accountant, my business manager. I make arrangements for Syren, for Pulse, for all the other properties and investments that suddenly feel meaningless. Matthew can handle the day-to-day operations. The board can make the strategic decisions. I don't care anymore.

What's the point of an empire if you have no one to share it with? What's the point of power if the one person you want to use it to protect doesn't want your protection?

I pack a bag, not much, just the essentials. Credit cards, enough clothes for a few days, I add in another bottle of whisky for good measure. Everything else feels like dead weight, like props from a play I no longer want to perform in.

The hardest part should be writing the letter to Matthew. But as I sit at my desk, pen in hand, I realize I can't do it. Can't pretend this is a temporary absence or a business decision. Can't maintain the fiction that any of this matters anymore.

Instead, I call him.

"Seb? It's nearly two in the morning. What's…. "

"You're fired."

Silence. Then: "I'm sorry, what?"

"Your services are no longer required. Effective immediately." The words come out flat, emotionless. "I'll have accounting transfer your severance pay and final wages tomorrow."

"Seb, what the hell is going on? This afternoon you were…."

"This afternoon I was delusional. Tonight, I'm thinking clearly." I pour another whisky, surprised my hands are steady now. "Five years of loyal service, Matthew. I won't forget that. But it's over."

"Because of her? Because of what happened at the police station?"

The fact that he understands makes it worse somehow. That even Matthew can see how completely she's unmade me.

"Don't." My voice carries enough warning to stop him mid-sentence. "Don't analyse this. Don't try to fix it. Just... go home to your life and forget you ever worked for me."

"I can't do that. You know I can't."

"You can and you will. Because the alternative is me making your life very difficult, and we both know I'm capable of that."

Another silence, longer this time. When Matthew speaks again, his voice is careful, measured. "Where are you going?"

"Away."

"For how long?"

"I don't know. Maybe forever. "

"And the businesses? The investments? The people who work for you?"

"Figure it out. Or don't. I don't care anymore."

I can hear him moving around, probably getting dressed, probably planning to come to the office and talk sense into me. The thought is exhausting.

"Matthew, listen to me very carefully. If you show up here, if you try to stop me or change my mind, I will destroy everything you care about. Your reputation, your future, your ability to work in this city. Do you understand?"

"Seb…."

"Do you understand?"

A long pause. "Yes."

"Good. Thank you for five years of excellent service. Consider this your reference, you're the most competent, loyal, and professional person I've ever worked with. Any employer would be lucky to have you. I’m proud to have called you my friend.”

"This isn't how it ends. Not like this."

"This is exactly how it ends. With me walking away before I hurt anyone else."

I hang up before he can respond, keeping my phone on but silencing it. Let him call. Let them all call. I'll ignore every ring, every text, every desperate attempt to drag me back to a life that no longer has any meaning .

By dawn, I’ve sobered up enough to drive, and I'm heading west on the M4, leaving London in the rearview mirror.

No destination in mind, just the need to put distance between myself and everything I've built.

The Range Rover eats up the miles as the sun rises, and I keep driving until I reach Wales, until the motorway gives way to winding country roads and the industrial sprawl of Cardiff fades into rolling hills and ancient stone walls.

I find a cottage to rent in a village so small it barely registers on the map.

The kind of place where no one asks questions about the man who pays three months in advance, in cash, and wants to be left completely alone.

The kind of place where Sebastian Blackwood doesn't exist, where I can just be another broken soul seeking isolation in the Welsh countryside.

*

My phone buzzes constantly, Matthew, Danny, Wilson, board members, people whose livelihoods depend on my decisions. I watch the calls come in and let every single one go to voicemail. I read the texts as they pile up, urgent, concerned, increasingly desperate and delete them without responding.

Matthew: Seb, please. Just tell me you're alive.

Danny: Sir, we need instructions on the Phillips investigation cleanup.

Wilson: The riverside project needs your approval by Friday, or we lose the investors.

Matthew: I don't care what you threatened. I'm not abandoning you .

Board Member Collins: Emergency meeting called for tomorrow. Your presence required.

Matthew: It's been three days. People are starting to ask questions.

Delete. Delete. Delete.

Let them ask questions. Let the empire crumble. Let everything I spent years building turn to ash while I sit in this cottage, staring out at hills that have stood for millennia and will stand long after everyone who's trying to reach me is dead.

The cottage is sparse, just a bed, a chair, a table, a small kitchen. No television, no internet, just silence and the distant sound of sheep in the fields. It's perfect for disappearing, for becoming no one, for letting the world move on without Sebastian Blackwood.

She'll never know that asking for space was like asking me to stop breathing. That the space between us feels like dying.

But maybe that's for the best. Maybe she's right that I'm too controlling, too violent, too fundamentally damaged to be with someone like her. Maybe the kindest thing I can do is disappear completely, let her build a life with someone who doesn't solve problems by killing people.

Someone who doesn't love her so desperately that he'd burn down the world to keep her safe.

I pour myself a glass of water from the tap, and it tastes of nothing. Alcohol won't help with this kind of pain. Nothing will help except time, and maybe not even that.

I sink into the single chair and close my eyes, trying not to think about the way she felt in my arms that night in my office. The way she looked at me afterward, like I was something miraculous instead of monstrous. The way she said my name when she came apart beneath me.

But the memories are relentless, playing on loop in the silence of the cottage as the Welsh countryside settles into darkness around me, carrying me away from everything I've ever wanted and can never have.

I built an empire to prove I was worth something, worth staying for. I eliminated monsters to prove I could protect the people I loved. I tried to be honest about what I was while still being worthy of someone like her.

None of it mattered.

In the end, I'm still just the seven-year-old boy watching his mother walk away, understanding for the first time that love doesn't conquer anything. That some people are meant to be left behind.

That some monsters don't get happy endings, no matter how much they love someone.

I finally let myself cry for everything I've lost in the dim light of the cottage. For the woman who was brave enough to love me despite what I am, then brave enough to walk away when she realised what loving me would cost.

For the boy who never learned that some people leave not because you're not enough, but because they're smart enough to save themselves.

And for the man I became, who had everything he thought he wanted and lost it all because he never learned the difference between protection and possession, between love and control .

Outside, the Welsh hills are shrouded in darkness, ancient and indifferent to human suffering. I stop crying and stare out the small window at nothing. This is what I deserve. This is what I've always deserved.

And maybe, maybe, this is what love really looks like: knowing when to walk away.