Chapter 42: Late-Night Debrief

The lull in the Shoreditch safehouse had changed. Before, it had been tense, charged with the frantic energy of the hunt. Now, in the deep hours of the night, it was thick and heavy, saturated with the ghost of the scar and the words left unspoken. The dusty space felt like a confessional, and neither of them knew how to begin the penance.

Anton had made coffee. Not the meticulously pour-over brew he was used to, but a gritty, utilitarian instant mix he’d found in the back of a cupboard, stirring it with a pencil for lack of a spoon. He handed a chipped mug to Sabe, who sat on the floor, his back against a dust-sheeted armchair, his laptop dark for the first time in days.

Sabe took it with a quiet nod of thanks. He didn’t drink, just cradled the warmth in his hands, his gaze fixed on some distant point in the room’s gloom.

They had been trying to work, to focus on Vale Holdings, but the digital trail had gone cold, and the human one was too dangerous to pursue until they had a better plan. The stasis was unbearable. It left too much room for the things they’d been running from.

Anton sat on the floor opposite him, leaning against the wall. The concrete was cold through his clothes. He studied Sabe’s profile in the dim light from a single, low-wattage lamp they’d dared to turn on. The operative’s mask was back in place, but it was fragile now, like cracked porcelain. Anton had seen what was beneath.

“The team you lost,” Anton began, his voice careful, testing the waters. He wasn’t asking about the IED, about the physical wound. He was asking about the one that had never healed. “In your file, it just said ‘mission failure.’ ‘Civilian casualties.’”

Sabe’s fingers tightened around the mug. He didn’t look at Anton. For a long moment, Anton thought he wouldn’t answer, that the shutters would slam down once and for all.

“It wasn’t a battlefield,” Sabe said, his voice so low it was almost absorbed by the dust in the air. “It was a city. A crowded one. We were after a high-value target. The intelligence was gold-plated, they said. Can’t-miss.” He gave a short, bitter sound that wasn’t a laugh. “It missed.”

He took a slow breath, as if steeling himself to step back into a nightmare.

“The target was supposed to be in a safe house. A concrete building on a street full of them. We went in fast and hard. Breached the door.” He closed his eyes. “The intel was wrong. It was the wrong building. The wrong floor.”

He fell silent, the memory playing out behind his eyelids. Anton didn’t dare speak, didn’t dare breathe.

“There was a family,” Sabe continued, the words dragged from a place of profound shame. “Having dinner. A man, his wife. Their two children. A boy and a girl. I… I was on point. I was the first one through the door.”

Anton’s blood ran cold. He could see it. The dark hallway, the burst of movement, the shouts of confusion and terror in a language Sabe didn’t speak. The sudden, horrific realization.

“There was shouting. Crossfire from a neighboring building—the actual target’s guards, we found out later. They’d been watching the wrong place, too. It was a clusterfuck of epic proportions.” Sabe’s voice was a monotone, a defense against the emotion that threatened to shatter it. “I got the family down. I shielded them with my own body. I gave the order to fall back.”

He opened his eyes, but he wasn’t seeing the safehouse. He was seeing a dusty room on the other side of the world.

“The little girl… she was scared. She tried to run. Just as a grenade came through the window.” His jaw worked. “I couldn’t… I couldn’t reach her in time.”

The confession hung in the air, stark and suffocating. The unspoken words were louder than the ones he’d said: She died. Because of my mission. Because of my mistake.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Anton said, the words feeling desperately inadequate.

“The official inquiry said the same thing,” Sabe replied, his gaze finally shifting to Anton. The storm in his eyes was a tempest of self-recrimination. “Faulty intelligence. An unforeseeable tactical complication. They gave me a medal and a discharge. A polite way of saying ‘thank you for your service, now please disappear.’ The guilt… that they let me keep.”

He looked down into his coffee. “That’s why I do this. Why I became a PI. It’s not redemption. You can’t redeem that. It’s… damage control. If I can find the truth for someone else, if I can prevent one more catastrophic lie from destroying a life… maybe the scale tips, just a little. Maybe the weight becomes bearable for a day.”

Anton understood now. The relentless pursuit of truth wasn’t just a professional skill for Sabe; it was a moral lifeline. It was the only thing keeping him from drowning in the memory of that little girl’s death.

“You think that makes you unworthy?” Anton asked, his voice soft but unwavering.

Sabe looked up, surprised by the directness of the question. He seemed to genuinely consider it. “No,” he said, the word quiet but firm. “Not unworthy.”

He paused, his gaze drifting to Anton’s face, tracing the lines of exhaustion and resolve there. The storm in his eyes calmed, replaced by a deep, heartbreaking sadness.

“Just… unfit to protect anyone who matters.”

The admission was a whisper, but it landed between them with the force of a physical blow. It wasn’t about his skills, his courage, his loyalty. It was about a fundamental fracture in his soul. He believed, on a cellular level, that he was a conduit for tragedy. That anyone he truly cared for would be touched by the same darkness that had taken that family.

Anton’s breath caught. This was the core of it. The reason for the walls, the professional distance, the constant, simmering fear beneath the calm exterior. Sabe wasn’t afraid of dying for Anton. He was terrified of failing him. Of his own cursed history repeating itself.

“You’re wrong,” Anton said, the words leaving him in a rush of fierce conviction. He leaned forward, his own coffee forgotten. “You have protected me. From the first moment, you have protected me. From the fire, from Evelyn, from my own damned pride. You are the only reason I am still here.”

“I’m the reason you’re in this mess!” Sabe shot back, a flicker of the old anger surfacing, directed inward. “If I’d been smarter, faster, I would have seen the frame-up coming. I would have found the proof before they could purge it. I dragged you into a gunfight at a charity gala, for Christ’s sake!”

“And you got me out,” Anton countered, his voice rising to match Sabe’s intensity. “You see the failure, Sabe. I see the man who, despite believing he is cursed, stands between me and the bullets every single time. I see the man who, when the world was screaming and the lights went out, thought of my safety before his own life. That doesn’t make you unfit. That makes you the most fit person I have ever known.”

Sabe stared at him, his defenses crumbling under the onslaught of Anton’s unwavering faith. The raw, naked need in his eyes was terrifying in its vulnerability.

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” Sabe whispered, a last, desperate retreat.

“I know exactly what I’m saying,” Anton said, his voice dropping again, becoming intimate, absolute. “The past is a country, Sabe. You don’t have to live there anymore. You are here. With me. And I am trusting you not just with my life, but with my future. Because I believe in the man you are now. Not the ghost you think you are.”

He held Sabe’s gaze, pouring every ounce of his own battered, stubborn hope into the space between them. It was a gamble, laying his heart so bare when they were both so broken.

For a long moment, Sabe didn’t move. He just looked at Anton, as if seeing him for the first time—not as a client, not as a mission, but as a man offering an anchor in his storm.

Then, slowly, as if the movement cost him everything, he uncurled the fingers of one hand from his mug and reached across the space between them. His fingertips brushed against Anton’s knee, a tentative, almost shy point of contact.

It wasn’t an embrace. It wasn’t a kiss. It was something more profound. It was a surrender. An acceptance of the anchor.

“Okay,” Sabe breathed, the word a vow.

Anton covered Sabe’s hand with his own, his thumb stroking the rough skin of his knuckles. The late-night debrief was over. The half-truths and instant coffee had given way to a terrifying, glorious truth.

They sat there in the silent, dusty safehouse, two wounded men on a dirty floor, connected by a single point of contact. The world outside was still full of enemies, the future still hung by a thread. But in that moment, surrounded by shadows and the ghosts of their pasts, they were not a billionaire and his bodyguard. They were not a client and his protector.

They were just Anton and Sabe. And for the first time, they were both, finally, on the same side.

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