Chapter 33: The Unlikely Duo

The Privatbank am See was a fortress of old money and older discretion, its operations sealed for the night. Their mission to Zurich was a go, but it required the cover of a European business day. They had twelve hours to kill in London, a city that hunted them both, and the claustrophobic studio was no longer an option. They needed space to breathe, to think, to be something other than prey.

Sabe led them to a place Anton would never have found-a private members' bar tucked away in a Knightsbridge mews. There was no sign, just a black door flanked by gas lamps. Sabe gave a code to a camera lens barely visible in the woodwork and the door clicked open.

Inside, it was a capsule of another era. Dark wood, deep leather armchairs, the air hazy with cigar smoke and the low murmur of conversations that were never meant to be overheard. It was a place for men who shaped the world from the shadows. It was, Anton realized with a jolt, Sabe’s natural habitat. Not the gritty underworld, but this rarefied layer of anonymous power.

They took a secluded booth in the back. Anton ordered a Macallan 25, neat. Sabe asked for a double espresso. The contrast was not lost on either of them.

For a very long moment, they sat in silence, the weight of the coming day pressing down on them. The transformation back from ghosts to men was jarring. Anton felt the phantom ache of his slouched shoulders, the unfamiliar cheapness of his jacket against his skin. Sabe had shed his operative's intensity, but the watchfulness remained, a constant hum in his stillness.

“This place,” Anton began, swirling the amber liquid in his glass. “You’re a member.”

“It’s useful,” Sabe said, his gaze scanning the room with practiced casualness. “People talk here. They think they’re safe.”

“And are they?” Anton asked, meeting his eyes.

Sabe's answer was a slight, almost imperceptible shake of his head. The ghost of a smile touched his lips. "No."

The mutual understanding now, the dangerous knowledge they now both possessed, created a bubble of intimacy in the crowded room. The tension that had always been there, a taut thread since the elevator, since the almost-kiss, was now a live wire, humming with the unspoken events of the last few days.

Anton took a sip of the whisky, the complex flavours blooming on his tongue—a taste of his old life. He watched Sabe’s hands, curled around the small espresso cup. They were capable of such violence, such delicate precision. They had saved his life. They had built digital firestorms. Now, they looked strangely vulnerable holding the fragile porcelain.

“What you did today,” Anton said, his voice low. “The hack. It was… formidable.”

Sabe shrugged, a minimal, efficient movement. “It was necessary.”

“Don’t do that,” Anton said, a flash of his old impatience surfacing. “Don’t diminish it. I’ve spent my life surrounded by the so-called ‘best and brightest.’ I’ve never seen anyone do what you did. The precision. The audacity.” He leaned forward. “You terrify me, Sabatine. And I have never admired anyone more.”

The confession hung in the smoky air, raw and undeniable.

Sabe looked down into his espresso, his long lashes casting shadows on his cheeks. The praise seemed to rattle him further than any threat. “It’s just a skill set,” he muttered.

“It’s not,” Anton insisted. “It’s a mindset. You saw the whole board when everyone else was looking at the pieces. You played Evelyn without her even knowing she was in a game.” He paused, then added, the words softer, “You saw me. When the entire world saw a dupe or a madman.”

Sabe finally looked up, and the storm in his eyes was calm, deep, and full of painful honesty. “You're not an easy man to overlook, Anton.”

The double meaning was a physical touch in the space between them. The professional admiration was now inextricably tangled with a personal, magnetic pull. Anton remembered the feel of Sabe's forehead against his shoulder in the safe house, the solid weight of him during the escape under the bridge. He remembered the breathless moment before the alarm had torn them apart.

“This… thing between us,” Anton said, waving his glass vaguely, his voice dropping to a near-whisper. “We can’t afford it. It’s a distraction we can’t have. A vulnerability.”

"I know," Sabe replied with a quiet firmness in his voice.

“It’s combustible.”

“I know that too.”

Their eyes locked. The air sparked. It was an admission. A giving in to a truth they'd both been circling for days. The attraction was there, a banked fire just waiting for one deep breath to roar to life. They were standing in a room full of oxygen.

Sabe broke the gaze first, a tactical retreat. He pulled out his phone, pulling up the schematics of the Zurich bank. “We should focus on the objective. The bank opens at nine. We need a cover story. A reason to be in their archives.”

The shift back to business was a relief and a disappointment. Anton grasped it like a lifeline. “We’re auditors,” he said, the CEO taking over. “From a rival Swiss bank, conducting due diligence on the Aethelred holdings as part of a potential loan portfolio acquisition. It’s flimsy, but it’s a common enough request to get us in the door. Our real weapon will be your skill and my knowledge of their language.”

He outlined the plan, his mind sharpening around the familiar territory of corporate deception. Sabe listened, interjecting with points about security protocols, camera blind spots, the psychology of intimidating low-level clerks into compliance. They were a perfect, unlikely duo: the strategist and the tactician, the sun king and the shadow, building a castle of lies to uncover a deeper truth.

As they spoke, their heads bent over the phone, Anton was acutely conscious of the heat emanating from Sabe's body, the smell of his-clean sweat, coffee, and the faint, sharp smell of gun oil. It was the most unnerving and compelling thing he had ever experienced.

At one point, Sabe leaned across the table to zoom in on a part of the blueprint, his fingers brushing against Anton's. The contact was electric, a jolt that silenced them both for a heartbeat. Sabe's eyes flicked up, meeting Anton's, and in their grey depths, he saw the same war being fought: duty versus desire, survival versus surrender.

Sabe pulled his hand back, as if burned.

“This is impossible,” Anton breathed, not meaning the bank heist.

“It is,” Sabe agreed, his voice hoarse. “But it’s the only game we’re in.”

The waiter came to refresh their drinks. It was the moment that broke-but the charge remained; some subterranean current beneath the strategic discussion.

Later, as they prepared to leave, head back into the night and into their anonymous rooms, Anton stopped Sabe with a hand to his arm.

"Whatever happens tomorrow in Zurich," Anton said, his tone deadly serious. "No heroics. We're partners in this. That means we both get out. Or neither of us does. That's an order."

Sabe held his stare, and for the first time, there was no argument, no insistence on being the protector. He saw the resolve in Anton’s face, the refusal to be left behind.

“Partners,” Sabe agreed, the word a vow.

They stepped out of the warm, smoky bar into the cold London night. The tension between them was still there, a combustible mixture of admiration, strategy, and a raw, unspoken attraction that threatened to set their entire world on fire. But it was now contained, channeled. It had become part of the fuel for the pact they had made.

They were an unlikely duo: a billionaire and his bodyguard, a CEO and a ghost. And as they disappeared into the shadows, they were the most dangerous thing in the city: two men with nothing left to lose, and everything to fight for, bound together by a truth deeper than any lie and a connection more powerful than any bullet.

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