18. ~Sebastian~

She'd done it.

Sky had come through in a major way.

What she'd put in place had come to fruition. She'd brought one of our biggest potential leads back here right to us.

God fucking dammit, she was something else for sure.

It should've been a win through and through—on many fronts, actually. One of which, beyond the fact of the lead, was that she had her dad back with her after them being apart for way too long. They'd been so close before everything had gone to hell that night at the Benson home and taken him away from her. Having that void in her life since had been awful for her and part of the reason she'd been in such a state when she'd first come back to us.

Now he was here, there was finally the opportunity for that part of her to heal along with the rest she'd been working so hard to.

Unfortunately, having him back was marred by him being wounded and possibly even more than that, the reason for such an injury. The danger he was now immersed in.

Danger that had been triggered by Caspian's actions.

Yes, me, Caleb and him had wanted Jeremy taken care of. We'd wanted him punished and the threat he posed by still being out there with such a fucked-up fixation with Sky eliminated. But the three of us hadn't agreed for that to mean actual death.

For one thing, for it to go that far, Sky should've been involved in the decision-making.

If Cas had succeeded and she'd found out, even down the road, it would've saddled her with a whole lot of guilt knowing he'd done it predominantly for her. She already had enough of that which she was working through as it was after her bloodletting vengeance crusade she'd been on during her mission to track down Jett Bane.

Fuck, Cas.

He'd crossed so many lines lately and it was only getting worse.

I fought to keep my pissed disposition from breaching the surface as I sat beside Sky stroking her hair while she held her dad's hand in the infirmary room Matteo had only recently left. He was still unconscious but stabilized. Caspian's doctor had sanitized and sealed his wound which had been caused by a serrated blade, and he was being treated for heavy blood loss, as well as being fed a course of antibiotics via an IV. Fortunately, no permanent damage had been done, nothing vital had been compromised.

"I'm gonna whip up some breakfast. Any requests, beautiful?"

Not taking her eyes off her dad, she murmured, "I'm not hungry."

"After last night, that can't possibly be true. You're always famished after some good fucking."

She swung her head toward me. "Bastian!" she whisper-yelled, her cheeks heating.

"You're going to eat, or I'll keep referencing it. In graphic detail."

"You're being a bastard again. Stubborn and relentless."

"All for you, baby."

She glared at me for a moment, before releasing a sigh of resignation. "Fine. I'll eat."

I rose to my feet and patted her head. "There's my good girl."

Her eyes flashed and she reached out with her free hand and snagged my cock through my jeans, the pain making me grunt.

"That's what you get," she said, grinning slyly. She released me, then patted my shaft much harder than necessary, eliciting another grunt from me. "Good boy."

I leaned in and whispered at her ear, "You'll pay for that later, my savage thing."

"Promises, promises."

That sly and challenging look fell away and then she nuzzled against my cheek and told me earnestly, "Thank you."

"For trying to lighten the mood in the most inappropriate way possible?"

A soft smile spread over her lips. "Actually, in a special way that only you can, sweets." She kissed my cheek. "One of the many reasons why I love you so hard."

"So hard, huh?"

"Absolutely."

"I love you too. So hard."

She chuckled and I eased away, then headed out to make her some breakfast.

God, I fucking loved that woman.

As I made my way down the corridor, hushed voices caught my attention.

I pulled up short using the cover of one of the alcoves to remain concealed as I took in the sight of Dante and Asher embroiled in a heated conversation.

Well, the heated part was on Dante's end. Asher was just standing there with his arms folded across his chest that was now covered in a black shirt. He looked completely unaffected. And I would've gone with that for sure if I hadn't noticed his eye twitching once or twice as Dante went at him.

"Telling him while circumstances are what they are was irresponsible."

"It wasn't my intent to tell him at all."

"Excuse me?"

"I was investigating you on behalf of Caleb. Once I'd completed my investigation, the information would've been passed onto him with it being his decision on what to do with it."

"Yet you allowed Caspian to come to know."

"I was focused on tracking Cal when he walked in and saw what else I was working on."

"You're a highly-trained combatant, always aware of your surroundings."

"I was immersed in the program. The complications pertaining to tracking Caleb, tracking Elijah, are… another level."

"Even for you?"

"Even for me."

"You're worried that it can't be done."

"I don't stop when I set my mind to a task or a mission. We will find him. But the time that it could take… that's my concern. While I know Caleb will survive what he's enduring—and there's also the fact that Elijah would be foolish to take his life when Cal is the closest person to Caspian and could provide a font of useful intel—what he might do in order to survive and play Elijah's game is disturbing to consider."

"There are too many leads to sift through?"

"There are too many gaps in the intel. My program works off discerning patterns, which can't be drawn effectively with so many missing pieces. It can infer, yes, but that means a loss of accuracy, and leads generating not being solid enough."

I heard Dante cursing in Italian, then he scrubbed his hand over his goatee, trying to quell the stark emotion all over him. He reminded me of Caspian in that moment. He felt so much and didn't hide it from us, his inner circle. He embraced it, valued it, and gave it all to us in such a courageous way.

But lately that had been missing. He'd been shutting down—just like I used to.

And nobody knew the dangers of doing that more than me.

But I also understood the believed need for it.

He was in so much pain, so burdened, so full of frustration and rage at the situation.

And he was also so beyond tired, which was just serving to exacerbate everything else.

"Frank Bennett being here now will help to fill in some of those gaps. If he doesn't wake up soon, I'll make it so. We can't afford to wait much longer. Every moment that goes by is unhinging Caspian. With the kind of power he wields, it's beyond dangerous."

"I don't disagree."

"Then I expect your support should I need to employ extreme methods."

"The same extreme methods you've condemned Caspian for?"

"It's different for me."

"Yeah, that's what I told myself too. I'm sure it's what Caspian is telling himself."

"Either way, I won't allow it. He's already pushed things too far as it is. But I will get him this intel so we can finally bring his love back to him as he so desperately needs."

"That's my overarching mission and reason for coming here, but torturing his other love's father to get said intel is extremely ill-advised."

"So you're out then?"

"You need to be as well. You'd have all of them coming at you. Not to mention, this intriguing new player, Riley Hutchins. She's dangerous."

"And so are we."

"Division in the midst of war is a bad strategy. Give Bennett time to come around and offer the information at his behest. If undue time passes, then we'll revisit this."

"Asher—"

"You need to tread carefully. You're showing desperation in the moves you're considering making. It's not like you, the Don whose reputation I'm well aware of. And it's because of Caspian, because the truth is out in the open. You didn't get the reaction you'd hoped for. It's because he's compartmentalizing that revelation until things have calmed down."

"Compartmentalizing for somebody like him, so full of love and life, is a dangerous tactic."

"I've already discussed it with him."

"And?"

"And he'll take my advice. He already has, in part."

I watched utter relief fill Dante as he realized what Asher was getting at.

"What I walked in on was just a means for him to unleash?"

"Of course."

"Good. It needs to be kept that way."

"No arguments here. I have my own commitments back home."

"Yet you slept with another in Caspian?"

"Let's just say that it was pre-approved. It will also help alleviate the sticking point that mine and Caleb's interactions not long ago were for Caspian."

Dante shook his head. "Calculating and manipulative even when it comes to your sexual exploits. At least your heart was in the right place. You do possess a heart, yes?"

"Why? Does that do too much harm to your "psychopathic puppet master" opinion of me?"

"You're more than your reputation would suggest."

Asher grinned. "Just don't spread it around."

"I need a smoke. Join me?"

Asher gave a nod, then the two of them headed out to the courtyard to do just that.

I slipped from the shadows and hurried to the kitchen, grimacing that I'd lost time through listening to that.

I'd had to, though. There were so many others—outsiders—around the manor, around Cas, and I'd been away—well kidnapped—from most of it, so I hadn't been able to get a proper read on the situation. Being forced into bed rest since I'd been back hadn't helped with that either. But through that conversation and reading their reactions, I'd now managed to determine a great deal when it came to the both of them. Most importantly, that they were with us, here to help without any detrimental ulterior motives.

Although, Dante considering taking things to an extreme place with Frank Bennett was concerning. Fortunately, Asher had managed to talk him down in an impressively effective way, through using Dante's affinity for Caspian to push him away from that course of action.

Good thing, because there was no way I was going to let anything happen to our woman's father. As far as I was concerned, he was under our protection by association.

As soon as I stepped across the threshold of the kitchen, I pulled up short, more than a little surprised by what I was seeing.

There Caspian was leaning against the kitchen counter sipping at an espresso as he stared at two trays full with food—fried eggs, bacon, tomatoes, toast, hash browns—and a glass of orange juice and a piping hot mug of coffee on each.

"Hungry after your fuck-fest with Asher?"

His head shot up, his gaze snapping to mine.

He'd obviously been deep in thought, because it took him a moment to blink out of it and focus on me properly. He gestured at the trays. "These are for you and Skylar."

"They are?"

He nodded. "You've been in there with Frank for the last couple of hours. We all woke up at the crack of dawn to his arrival and the two of you haven't eaten, so I knew you'd be hungry."

That was beyond thoughtful.

It was the Caspian King I knew.

The surprise that I was seeing this from him after the way he'd been lately was clearly all over me, because he commented, "You're acting like this is the first time I've made you breakfast, Bastian."

"It's not that. It's…" I considered getting into all of that.

But it wasn't really the right time. There was so much else happening.

So, instead, I said, "I figured you'd be with Riley Hutchins demanding information, including about that disturbing tidbit Frank revealed before passing out about us all being in danger."

"She's already been debriefed. She made it clear that her only objective was to track Frank down. She wasn't involved in his mission against Wheeler, nor privy to any intel that Frank may have gathered. Even where she found him was useless to our goal of tracking down Caleb and determining Elijah's whereabouts. He'd passed out in a cornfield miles away from anything whatsoever. Judging by the state of him when she found him, he'd sustained that knife wound then hiked for hours to seek help before succumbing to exhaustion."

"Shit. So it's a waiting game now until he wakes up."

"Pieces of intel are still constantly coming in from my contacts and Dante's, and they're being filtered into the program Asher is working with. We're not at a standstill. But, yes, Frank's information could prove vital if he was able to make contact with Wheeler."

"You think that wound was inflicted by that shithead?"

"I do, yes. It would take somebody highly-skilled to catch Frank Bennett off guard like that, to be able to get one over on him, let alone actually injure him severely enough that he was forced to call a retreat."

"Just like his protégé."

"Precisely."

I frowned. "And you're not bursting into the infirmary to force Frank awake?"

"He's Skylar's father."

"The way you've been lately, I wasn't sure you could recognize that on an emotional level. On any level, actually."

"I know and I'm sorry." He put his espresso down and crossed to me. "I also apologize for the way I was with you and Skylar in your bedroom the other night. My desperation to acquire that intel from her was all I could see."

"It was all you could allow yourself to see."

"Yes," he admitted.

I laid my hand on his shoulder. "Trust me, Cas, I'm kind of the leading authority on shutting down. Adding all this compartmentalization of yours just makes it all the worse, all the more dangerous. I get the need to do it under times of stress, which there's a shitload of right now, especially for you. It'll feel really good at first, a huge weight off, freeing even. But the fallout absolutely isn't worth it. You'll lose yourself. It's already had you pulling away from us, which is the last thing any of us want, you included. I understand you wanting to be willing to do what needs to be done and not pulling any punches when it comes to bringing Caleb back to us and putting Elijah down, but all this blackness engulfing you—"

"It's poisoning me, I know. Poisoning everything around me too."

"Wow, fucking Asher really brought about one hell of an epiphany, huh?"

He gave me a withering look. "It was the discussion we had before that which assisted."

"So fucking around with him was just a release?"

"Much-needed as it turned out." He grimaced. "I hadn't allowed myself to recognize how much it had been building without Caleb here, and with me in such a dark state of mind that I'd been too concerned to go there with you and Skylar."

"And now? You feel lighter?"

"Partially. Enough for it to help. Until Caleb is back here with us, though—"

"I know, Cas," I said, giving his shoulder a squeeze. "Nothing will be right without him back here. There's a hole, a deep fucking hole without him."

"We were all in a good place after everything that had happened, after the estrangement of those two years. Things were picture perfect between the four of us. Having the two of you taken, Skylar injured… now Caleb still out there and beyond my reach… it threatened everything I hold dear in this life. Elijah came at my heart, Bastian."

I grimaced and wrapped my arm around him, holding him against me, giving him the comfort he clearly so desperately needed, comfort he'd been denying and suffering alone as a result.

I'd never seen any opponent get to him like this.

He was shaken, pained. Elijah's actions had triggered his dark side, which he'd always had such extreme control over. He'd gone to great lengths and effort to stand apart from those like Asher Monroe and Dante Mancini who embraced that blackness and their monstrous natures as chief sources of their power and influence. Caspian had found another way. There were lines he just never crossed. It had meant a lot more work, going the harder road, but he'd pulled it off in a spectacular fashion, becoming one hell of a power player.

But this now with Elijah had threatened all of that.

It had threatened to undo him.

Fortunately, he'd been able to recognize that. Asher, of all people, had given him a wakeup call that was managing to pull Cas back from the edge before he drowned in the depths of it all.

"We do this together the rest of the way, Cas."

"I can't allow mercy for our enemies in this," he warned.

"I understand. Just let me and Sky keep you from going too far, all right?"

He nodded against me.

"We'll fix this," I told him. "We'll fix everything."

He patted my back, then eased away. Shoving his hand through his hair and taking a beat, he then let out a weary sigh and told me, "Better get that breakfast to Skylar. I need to attend to a few issues at King, then I'll come and sit with you both for a while."

"Wait, before you go, what's going on with you and the almighty Don? I overheard Asher and him talking about some revelation you found out about? You've been terse with him, did he do something, is there reason for concern where his loyalty is concerned?"

"His loyalty isn't in question. Quite the opposite, actually."

"What does that mean?"

"Believe me, complications already abound as it is, we need to wait until this is over before we get into it."

"Cas, if there's reason to be—"

"It's of a personal nature, nothing to worry about with the war."

The urge to push it, to find out what was causing him grief on top of what he was already bearing was intense, but I could also see his need to hold off with it.

We were just back on the same page with him coming back to us and agreeing to do this together, instead of him going rogue and hella dark. Rocking the boat where that was concerned was the last thing I wanted to do.

Besides, his word was solid. If he was telling me it wasn't a concern from the standpoint of this war, then I respected and trusted in that with him.

So, I gave his shoulder a squeeze and told him, "Do your thing. See you in a few."

He smiled, then took off out of the room, and I grabbed the trays of food for Sky and me.