Leap Of Faith

Four

“I know who you are! I thought you looked familiar.”

Yep……Seph had thought he might. Not everyone would have recognised the family name, but given how smart Spencer apparently was and his line of work, he was bound to pay attention to business news.

Seph’s family owned a large range of luxury business hotels; Lux. Her great grandpa and his brother had started the business in the thirties, it somehow surviving through the war. The brand had grown and expanded throughout the years and now almost every major city in Europe and the USA had a Lux hotel or two. The Bella-Morte name was widely associated with the Lux brand, the hotel bars even having its own cocktails and dessert range featuring various puns on the name.

Persephone had a love/hate relationship with her name though. The surname itself was ridiculous enough without being paired with Persephone, Queen of the Underworld. Once her friends had started to study Greek mythology at school and learnt what the literal translation of her family name was, the nicknames had started. It didn’t help with the film adaptation of the Anne Rice novel “Queen of the Damned” coming out during Seph’s teenage years.

By then though shed started to embrace the name. She’d been heavily into the grunge scene, her parents having a fit when she’d come home with a lip piercing and her auburn hair dyed black, and the nickname her friends bestowed upon her because of the name fit her new look. Growing older Seph had replaced the lip ring with a nipple bar and a few tattoos in places that weren’t visible unless she wanted them to be, gradually returning to her natural hair colour.

“I am so pleased I came across you tonight and stopped you. Your case would have ended up coming across to the BAU if I hadn’t.”

“Do the FBI routinely investigate suicides then?” She definitely didn’t think so.

“You’re a high profile name… Well, at least your family is. And with it happening in D.C too it would have definitely come our way,” Spencer took a sip of his drink.

“Then it will still come across your desk then. Nothing’s changed. I still intend on doing it.”

“Really?…. Perseph…. Seph, I don’t understand though. Surely given who you are, you could have anything and everything you wanted? Your family are millionaires and from I understand you’d have a job there for life.”

“I can feel you judging me… And I know I lied when I said I wasn’t some poor little rich girl like Rose from Titanic. In fact, I have more in common with her than I’d like, right down to the red hair,” she pulled on a strand of her hair, wrapping it around her finger before pushing it back off her face again.

“I’m not judging you I promise, I just…. If you’re going to come across my desk, help me understand why.”

“I can’t though. That’s the thing. When I say it out loud, it sounds ridiculous. Because I should be happy. Alright, my best friend is dead, and my now ex fiancé was a bit of a dickhead…. but I wasn’t overly into him anyway so whatever. But my family do love me and I can pretty much anything I want. But that comes with conditions.”

“Conditions?…. And ex fiancé? Or is that another story?” he asked cautiously.

Seph downed the last of her coffee, looking at him and holding out the empty mug, “Got anything stronger?”