Page 67 of Fighting Salvation

Lotus was across the street in the shadow of the building, unseen to anyone but him. He felt a sense of pride at how she’d matured and evolved from a young girl chasing so much pain to a woman with a purpose and skills she was now proud of.

“I have the west entrance covered.”

Rafe had been nothing but professional since leaving the house, even though Bás knew his worry for Valentina must match his own. He thought of her as he sat waiting in the open for Hansen to approach him.

He wished he’d told her before that he knew who she was, that he knew she was the woman who’d saved him on his darkest days. Her first letter had literally come the day he was trying to figure out the best way to end his life. He’d never know why he was the one who got to be the recipient or why fate had chosen her but he knew without a single doubt that he’d be dead without her.

Leaving that prison and her behind had been the hardest thing he’d done since finding his family slaughtered, but he’d loved her even then. Although he didn’t know it at the time. He’d known he couldn’t let Hansen go free and planned to find her when he’d rid the world of him. He’d had no clue it would take so much of his life and, honestly, he wasn’t sure he’d change it if he had to do it again.

His attraction to Val when they’d met had been like a punch to the gut. Instant, blinding attraction like he’d never felt before. She was stunningly beautiful, but it was her heart and her personality that had brought him to his knees and he’d felt so guilty. Because in the back of his mind, he couldn’t stop thinking about the girl and her letters.

“Boss, I have eyes on the target.”

He straightened, letting the tension bleed from his shoulders as he glanced to the left and saw Hansen walking toward him as if he hadn’t a care in the world. How could he be his blood? How did his mother keep that from them all? Did she even realise Hansen was her son when she saw him? Was that why she’d been so distant? All questions she couldn’t answer.

“Bás, I see you came.”

Hansen sat beside him and it was the strangest feeling to be there like that. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

“I’m guessing you being here means your team found your little hacker friend and are saving him as we speak, while you keep me distracted?”

Bás tensed but then chuckled. “I guess so.”

“Are you coming quietly or am I going to need to kill all these people first?”

“You brought an army with you?”

He glanced around, not seeing a single person who gave him any indication as to what was happening. He knew his team could hear every word and would be looking now too.

He watched Hansen move his wrist and saw the sleeve pull back to reveal a small pressure switch in his hand. “No need when a perfectly good bomb will do the trick just as well.”

“You’ll die too.”

Hansen chuckled. “I’m not afraid to die, brother.” He practically spat the word out as he spoke.

“When did you find out?”

Hansen twisted slightly on the bench to look at him, and he saw the boy he’d been for just a split second before he covered it with a look of pure hatred. “Trying to stall, Bás?”

He shook his head. “Not at all. I just want to know the truth.”

“I found out the week you moved here. My adopted mother was drunk and she told me all about how your perfect mother had been the village slut and got herself pregnant and given birth to twins. A boy and a girl, but the girl hadn’t lived past her second birthday. She cried as she told me all about how I wasn’t wanted by my birth mother or her. How she’d only taken me because she wanted her precious daughter, my twin. How I was a plague on her life and she wished I was dead instead.”

Bás didn’t remember Mrs Hansen well. She’d always been quiet and reserved, sad almost, and he wondered how much of this was true. “So, what? You blamed my entire family for something my mother did when she was a teenager?”

“You don’t get it. You were living my life. You stole it from me.”

Bás could hear Rafe in his ear telling him he had a shot, and he shook his head slightly. He wouldn’t risk killing all these people for one man. “So you befriended me to get to my mother or to get back at her?”

“Both. I thought if I could just see her she’d want me in her life. That I could be her son, and she’d make me my favourite meals like she did for you and Sean.”

His muscles tensed at his brother’s name. “Did Sean know?”

Hansen smiled with glee. “He did at the end. I made sure they all knew who I was and what I had planned. Oh, how she begged me then. Offering me whatever I wanted in exchange for her children’s lives.”

Bás felt distraught knowing his family suffered both mentally and physically at the end and he couldn’t stop it. “So what now? You gonna kill me too?”

He twisted to look at Hansen, who was watching the crowd of people with utter calm as if this kind of thing was normal for him. He’d lost touch with reality to such a degree that what he did had no effect on him at all. He was a true psychopath, who saw people as disposable, even his own children. Had being discarded by his mother made him into that person? If his mother had made different choices would he have been a good man? He was smart, that was for sure, and that kind of drive could have allowed him to achieve real good in the world. Yet, he was hell-bent on destruction.