“Where is she?” The deep rasp echoed from the front of the station. A beat later he rushed into the room with a squadron of security personnel trailing closely behind him, Gideon to his right, Bear to his left. There wasn’t even a hint of a limp.
Two uniformed police officers immediately jumped in to stop him from coming further into the room. Deubel halted his tirade at Tribolet, and stepped out of the chief’s office, straightening his tie and flexing his neck left and right.
“Mr. Horn,” he said, his hands up in a supplicating gesture. “There’s been a small misunderstanding.”
The pause that followed was brutal. Sebastian stared at him as if he was slicing meat off his bones with a dull pairing knife. “I’d say so.”
Deubel’s rotund physique was blocking me from view. He stepped aside, and all the scrutiny in the room shifted to me. Sebastian’s glare landed on the icepack and his nostrils flared. Gideon came over at once and helped me up.
“Are you all right?” he murmured quietly, wrapping a supportive arm around me.
“My shoulder’s bruised. Otherwise, I’m fine––don’t look so worried,” I whispered back but it was useless, the concern remained stamped on Gideon’s face.
“My colleague tends to be a little overzealous at times. He’s young and passionate about his work,” he pleaded with a thin, crooked smile. “You understand?” A lot of handwringing ensued. If Deubel thought he could salvage Tribolet’s career, he was seriously mistaken…he was lucky to salvage his life.
“Understand?” Sebastian’s voice was eerily calm. His gaze shifted to Tribolet, who was still seated in the office with his back to us. Sebastian’s countenance may have been carved out of ice, but I knew what was churning beneath the surface. “No, I don’t understand.”
“Where’s the chief?” Gideon chimed in.
“Lunch, I’m afraid.”
Shortly afterwards, the chief of police appeared, looking extremely embarrassed, and did his best to calm the situation down. Nothing would have appeased Sebastian, short of putting Tribolet down like a mad dog.
Once we were safely ensconced in the back of the car, Sebastian dialed his cell phone. “Yeah, I have her.” Glancing sideways at me, his eyes did a cursory check for any more injuries. “I want him banished to fucking Siberia if you can swing it…call Fedpol…perfect…yeah, okay.” After ending the call, he breathed out a long sigh, his eyes floating shut while his head fell back onto the headrest. I reached out and covered his hand, lying on his thigh, and his eyes opened again, relief reflected brightly in them.
“I feel like all I ever say to you is how sorry I am.”
He turned in his seat to face me. His hand slowly came up and raked through my messy hair, brushed along my jaw. “There’s nothing for you to be sorry about.” Leaning in, he kissed me gently––one meant to comfort and reassure more than anything else.
“I hate being another burden you have to cope with,” I anxiously admitted. How many times would this man have to come to my rescue? It was starting to border on the ridiculous. He unbuckled my seat belt and pulled me onto his lap, careful not to bump into my sore shoulder.
“None of this is your fault.” And then his gaze turned scalding, directed in the rearview mirror at the man who was driving.
“He’s an officer of the law, Sebastian. One we’re familiar with. When we watched him enter the church––”
“It’s not his fault either,” I exclaimed in Gideon’s defense.
In a self-deprecating voice, Gideon argued for his guilt. “It is my fault. I promised myself I wouldn’t ever let this happen again.”
“Stop it. It’s nobody’s fault––he’s a hammer skin. He has a thing for immigrants.”
The car was suddenly quiet, the atmosphere crackling with an influx of energy. “How do you know?” Matching alert expression were on both Gideon’s and Sebastian’s faces.
“I saw the tattoo on his neck.”
Sebastian’s eyes slammed into Gideon’s in the rearview mirror again, this time a conspiratorial glint in them. He dialed his phone. “David, yeah…the motherfucker’s a skinhead. Vera saw a tattoo…I want him to suffer. Family, friends––take them all down.”
“Sebastian––” No other explanation was necessary; he could see the disapproval on my face.
“Don’t,” he warned. There was no sign of weakness in his bearing. No indication that he would listen to reason. Vengeance was his and he wouldn’t hesitate to act. I stared at the man I loved and saw something I’d seen only once before in his countenance, malice, wrath that reached into my core and turned it to ice. And for the first time, I questioned what he was really capable of.
Back at the manor, he forced me up the stairs and into the bedroom. Immediately, he ran the water for a bath, pouring in half a bag of the bath salts. If I hadn’t been so drained from the aftermath of the fight and the lingering effects of the adrenaline rush, I could’ve appreciated how well he played the part of a lady’s maid.