Declan
Alexandria tookoff the next morning, and Declan spent the early part of the day sitting at a desk in the laboratory and reading through the emails Seb had printed out. It was warm enough to melt the snow, and whenever he took a break to check on the property, he ended up with mud splattered on his boots.
“Anything new?” Seb asked, turning from his laptop. He was wearing a collared blue shirt, worn loose at the top, and his hair was neatly combed. Declan remembered how nice it had felt to hold his body all night, between trips to check security, and something stirred alive inside of him.
He dropped the paper to the counter. “Not much, except more proof that this Reed guy is bad news.” He shook his head, battling down frustration that Big Paolo had played him like a fool.
“Is the rest of the security up front okay?” Seb asked.
Declan nodded. “My nephew is running their names one more time for us, but things look fine, at least for the time being. They’re not very experienced, but no one is going to turn around and make a move on the house or anything like that. It might make sense to contact your father, though, and tell him what’s up.”
Seb shook his head quickly. “Absolutely not. He’s as bad as the rest of them.”
“Right.” Declan wasn’t going to argue that one. Hell, he was as eager to tell Seb’s father to shove off as Seb was. But if the man was profiting off of Seb’s research, he at least had a vested interested in keeping his son safe. Still, Declan wasn’t going to argue. That was Seb’s call to make.
“We’ll see if he even notices I’ve stopped talking to him,” Seb said, then sighed.
“Sorry about the turn this took,” Declan said. He and Seb were only a couple of feet away, but still, he stood a little closer. “I know this is a big loss for you.”
Seb closed his laptop. “Even worse than it looks,” he mumbled.
“What’s that?”
“It’s just the research… I was so certain I was close to a big breakthrough. My results were getting more and more promising every month. I really believed I was there, on the edge of something major. But now? Now I’m going to see those same results announced by Horizon Zed, assuming they don’t decide to just gobble up all the patents and bury the technology so no one can have it. It’s like everything I accomplished just disappeared.”
Declan rested his hand on Seb’s back and rubbed it in a slow circle. He didn’t think of himself as being much for comfort, but he did know how he liked to be treated when he was pissed off. “They’re a bunch of assholes,” he said, affirming Seb. “Only a dick would steal work from someone like you.”
“It sucks,” Seb said flatly. “They’re always going to have the power, and people like me are always going to get squished. It doesn’t even matter, really, whether it’s my father who stole my research for his corporation or those criminals, stealing it for some other asshole in a suit. Either way, I’m kicked to the side, and they get to move on, happy and rich.”
Declan felt Seb’s muscles tightening across his shoulders. Since his visit with Gray, Declan had been carrying around a lot of shame, knowing that Big Paolo and Reed saw him as some washed-up fool. It wasn’t the kind of thing he wanted to share with anyone, but right then, he somehow knew it would help Seb.
“I learned something else when I visited my nephew,” he said.
Seb turned to look up at him, and Declan’s breath caught in his throat when he saw the quiver across Seb’s lip and his wide, clear eyes. “What’s that?” he asked.
“The man who hired me out in Vegas? It was another part of the setup with Reed. They wanted someone who had passed his prime, someone to fumble the ball and let the intruders get away.”
“What?” Seb asked. “But you fought them off both times. Why—”
Declan held a hand in the air. “They see me one way,” he said simply. “You see me another way. But that’s my point. Whoever it is that’s reading over your research right now, stealing your ideas? Fuck ‘em. It doesn’t matter what they think of you. You’ll show them the truth once you finish your work.”
Seb shook his head. “I’m not so sure about that.”
Declan took Seb’s chin and turned his eyes up. “You will. You were on the verge of one big breakthrough? I might not know the first thing about what you’re studying, but I do know you. You’ll have a million breakthroughs, Seb, and they’ll still just be a bunch of pathetic suits, leeching off other people’s work.”
Seb’s eyes widened, and a smile turned up one corner of his mouth. “I do have a lot of good ideas…”
Declan barked out a laugh. “You sure as hell do.” His voice came out thin, and he turned his head to cough into his arm.
“Oh my god,” Seb said.
“What?” Declan asked.
“I just realized… did you quit smoking?”
Declan grimaced. He supposed he was glad Seb didn’t notice how agitated he had been the last couple of days, but he’d have much preferred to do something like quitting cigarettes in private. “Just trying something different out,” he grumbled.
Seb blinked quickly. “Are you quitting smoking for me?” he asked.
