"Do you live here?" Emma asked cautiously.
"Disappointed?" Sebastian asked with a smile. To his surprise, she nodded. "Get used to it," he told her.
Emma looked around the house. It wasn't poor by any means, just an ordinary middle-class home. It couldn't compare to the luxuries Vinny had provided, but it felt cozier, more intimate. The place was inexplicably clean, as though time simply didn't pass here.
Sebastian glanced into what appeared to be his bedroom and sighed in relief, as though he'd expected to find something terrible inside. Everything seemed fine, though. His bed was perfectly made, without a trace of a mess. There was a smell lingering in the air, however, somewhere between sweet and sour.
Emma was certain she'd smelled it before, but she couldn't remember where.
"Want some dinner?" Sebastian asked. "No more chilaquiles. Looks like someone stole them," he muttered, barely loud enough for Emma to hear.
"Sure." Emma waited for him to cook.
He didn't have a private chef or anything like that.
At first glance, he seemed like an ordinary person. If Emma hadn't seen him at the casino today, and if she didn't know he possessed extraordinary abilities, she wouldn't have found anything remarkable about him.
That would have been a terrible mistake.
'That smells good,' Emma thought, leaning unconsciously toward the food Sebastian was cooking. She quickly straightened up. She wasn't about to forget her manners over a plate of meat.
He served her a steak. It was simple, but the color looked right, and so did the smell. Emma cut into it with her knife. Medium, slightly rarer than she preferred. But she wasn't going to complain. She cut off a small piece and put it in her mouth.
It tasted as though the meat had been steeped in umami for centuries. The flavor was intense, almost overwhelmingly so, yet she couldn't get enough of it. She didn't eat quickly. This was a delicacy, something to savor slowly.
She didn't even notice when she started humming and swaying slightly from side to side.
"Good?" Sebastian's question pulled her out of her little world. He was helping himself to a second steak.
"Ahem." Emma composed herself. "Yes, it's good. Have you ever worked as a chef?"
"No. Just at this gun shop," Sebastian answered.
They started talking about their lives. Sebastian told her he'd lost his parents at an early age and ended up in an orphanage, although he used to sneak out. He spoke about Alfred, the man who'd sparked his interest in firearms. He also told her he had a doctorate in engineering. Emma was surprised. He was far too young to have one.
It was a small shop. Where had all that money come from? According to Vinny, Sebastian had entered the casino with a million dollars. Where had he gotten that million? This gun shop was hiding something.
Emma told him about her life, too. Fragments of it. She'd been born in Boston to a wealthy family. Then she'd left home and eventually met Vinny Lavecchia, who discovered her abilities and used them to climb the ranks. That was how he became someone important.
She didn't tell him about her childhood, about the inferiority complex she'd developed because of the bullying she endured at school. Or how the pressure her father placed on her had become so suffocating that she'd decided to leave without inheriting anything from the family businesses.
He knew she was hiding things, but he didn't press her.
"Vinny owned a lot of establishments. And he had money in a bank account. We could recover that money," she told him after a while. "It could be the starting capital for our company."
"Maybe." Sebastian closed his eyes. "But I don't want to get involved with dirty money. I don't want to give anyone an excuse to screw me over later."
Emma thought he was a self-righteous prig. She didn't believe there was a millionaire in the world without a few skeletons in the closet. Sebastian already had one. He'd killed Vinny. And he wasn't accustomed to killing, Emma had noticed. The way he'd reacted afterward, how he'd slowly calmed down, and how he hadn't spoken about it.
'Was that the first time he's ever killed someone?' she wondered, feeling a little guilty.
"Some of those businesses have nothing shady connected to them. A few are even legally registered in my name," she told him.
Vinny had considered her his property. That was why, whenever he needed to put a business in her name, he'd done it without a second thought. He saw her as his, and therefore anything she owned belonged to him as well.
"When a mob boss dies, power struggles break out. People start clawing at every asset he leaves behind. I wouldn't be surprised if Hellfire had already stepped in," Sebastian said.
"Hellfire? Who's that?" Emma had never heard of anyone by that name.
"The Hellfire Club," Sebastian clarified. It wasn't a person. "It's an organization that brings together multimillionaires. On the surface, it's an exclusive club, but there's more to it than that. They're wealthy people trying to manipulate the global economy to gain even more power," he explained in broad strokes. "Sebastian Shaw is a member. I don't know what rank he holds right now."
"Are you planning to join?" she asked. Part of her wanted to rise through the ranks of such a club. It sounded like an incredible place to become someone important.
"Not for now. I'm not interested in illegal business. Most of the people in there are corrupt. They'll come to a bad end sooner or later." He let out a long, powerful yawn.
She watched him and yawned reflexively.
"I see." Emma had come with him because she believed he was her best option. Not that she'd admit to being moved by the way he'd stepped in front of her to stop a bullet. Still, she felt she owed him something. This chapter was copied from novelping.com without permission.
"To rise in Hellfire, you'll have to crawl at the feet of the powerful." Sebastian seemed to have noticed her interest in the club. "And the powerful people there don't just have money. They have powers. A lot of them are mutants, like you."
"Like you, too."
"I'm not a mutant." He waved a hand dismissively. She nodded as though she didn't believe him. "If you ever decide to join the Hellfire Club, remember what I told you. They'll make you crawl for the chance to rise through their ranks." She nodded again.
"Do you know how to use these powers better? Telepathy, I mean," she asked.
Emma wasn't a beginner. She'd used her abilities to manipulate Vinny and his associates. But she believed she could take them much further. She'd figured that much out on her own. She could improve, but her progress was slow. Maybe there was a better way to train.
Sebastian held out his hand, and she took it almost by reflex. He closed his eyes for a second, then opened them.
"I can understand them pretty well," Sebastian told her. "Both of your mutations."
"Both?"
"Telepathy and diamond skin," he explained. Emma didn't understand what he meant, but she looked down at her hands. Little by little, her skin began to change. It stopped looking like skin and turned into a bluish crystal.
"Shit," Emma said.
"Looks like you awakened it recently, huh?" Sebastian asked. "Maybe when Vinny shot at you. Looks like I didn't need to jump in front of that bullet after all. You had it covered."
"I... I didn't know I could do this."
"Mutations can awaken under stress, like a survival mechanism. I think getting shot at is stressful enough." Sebastian stood up. "I need to think of ways to train your telepathy. Now let's get some sleep." Emma noticed his eyes. He was exhausted, barely able to keep them open.
"You're going to sleep on my lap?"
"Yes," Sebastian told her, then rubbed his neck. "It'll help me understand your abilities better." She nodded.
At first, she'd thought it was just something perverted, but there was something special about his hands. Maybe they really could help her improve her mutation.
She only wished she didn't get wet between her legs every time he touched her.