When Sean returned almost an hour later, he brought a suitcase with him. Elliot was sitting at the table, but as soon as he saw Sean, he stood up. He was no longer bleeding and seemed to have managed to get rid of the crimson traces that once covered his face and hands.
"As soon as I knew who you were, I wanted to bash your head in and blow your brains out," Sean said, placing the black bag on the table. "Then I realized you might be my only way out. My father was hiding money from investors. Allegedly funds for hospitals and schools in some miserable corner of the world. Real corruption. That building I blew up... eighty percent of the capital used came from tax havens."
Sean took out something from the bag that he had been holding for a long time and still didn't know exactly how to use. A memory card.
"All involved, all companies, years of information, years of implication... all here."
"Why are you doing this?" Elliot murmured.
"Because I got it all wrong. I realized I've been punishing the wrong people," Sean spoke with a calmness that wasn't true.
He went to where the almost finished bottle of Irish whiskey was. He poured himself a drink and also placed a second glass for Elliot.
"And now you want me to go after these people?"
"The buildings they have... there are bodies in the foundations," Sean informed him as he approached. He handed the glass to Elliot. "Work with me, because that's the only way you stand a chance. These people don't know the inside of prisons, because they build them."
The man accepted the drink though still wary.
"You sound righteous," Elliot said with some disdain.
"It's a damn crusade," Sean grumbled. "All this shit doesn't matter anymore."
"Why not?"
"Because things change and so do priorities, damn it," Sean said. "Because I want to find my wife, because I want you to remember my goodwill in contributing when they're hunting me down like fucking Bin Laden. Because I want a chance to have those things that everyone else has."
Sean desperately wanted to meet the copper-haired boy who wouldn't leave his mind. The boy who stopped him from blowing his own brains out. He wanted to meet him, to truly embrace him, to tell bedtime stories and build Lego sets.
He wanted Alexandra. He wanted to find that woman, run away with her to the ends of the earth, build buildings, and make love to her every damn night. He wanted to give her those simple things she had asked for.
Lexi hadn't asked for diamonds, she hadn't asked for a damn thirty-four million pound yacht. On the day she accepted his marriage proposal, Alexandra told him she wanted a family and a relationship with no secrets and lies.
Sean had promised her those things and so far hadn't been able to deliver anything. Not even a damn decent wedding as she wanted, in the gardens with her family present.
"You can't undo things, Sean," Elliot said with his usual sensibility. "They'll still arrest you."
Sean shook his head.
"I don't intend to get caught, Elliot," he said honestly and firmly. "I'll escape. I need to get back to my wife."
When they heard someone knock on the door, Elliot immediately grabbed the microchip and tucked it into the inner pocket of his jacket.
"Alex Dumani," said the woman guarding Sean's room.
Sean stepped forward in the direction where Alex Dumani was entering.
YOU ARE READING
E M P I R E
Romance"You could be a king. You could have an empire" Lexi and Sean had known each other since childhood and had lived a story for years that involved love, family, business, kisses and guns. When life's turns put both couple together, they try to figur...
