Sebastian didn’t make it back to his flat until well after midnight. He woke a scant few hours later, the light of dawn streaming through his bedroom window, and groaned.
A quick glance at his phone, sitting on the bedside table, confirmed his alarm hadn’t gone off. He’d had the good sense to deactivate it last night before he went to bed. It was possible he’d awakened naturally; he liked to get an early start in the mornings, putting in a few hours at the gym before he sat down to handle phone calls and emails with his clients.
With no intention of doing anything of the sort today, Sebastian rolled over and tugged the covers over his head.
There was a knock at his front door. A second knock, Sebastian quickly realised—the first had been what woke him.
Instinct jolted him to full awareness, while years of military training had him reaching for the knife he’d stashed beneath the mattress—a nine-inch Bowie knife which was fantastically illegal to carry on the streets and therefore had to be kept in the house. Creeping silently through the flat to his front door, knife tucked close to his forearm in a reverse grip, he put his eye to the peephole.
Jay Moriarty stood on the pavement outside his flat, bouncing impatiently on his heels.
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