Brotherly Love

A New Job and Old Mistakes

The first meeting had been mildly disastrous, the client, a Mr. Donahue, had thought me the secretary, which didn't go over well with Jamie. When Mr. Donahue had patted me on the ass and told me to get him something to drink, my brother almost had Sebastian kill him right on the spot. The poor man had no idea what was happening and after a lot of crying and grovelling at my brothers feet, including a very lengthy apology towards me, Jamie had let him go. But I knew my brother well enough to know, that Mr. Donahue wouldn't live to see the next day. He just wanted him to spread the word about his new associate and having him killed afterwards send a very clear message to everyone: don't mess with my sister or you wont live long enough to regret it.

Even if I didn't like the way the man had spoken to me, I felt the familiar pull of learned morals, that urged me to talk my brother out of killing the guy, but I kept my mouth shut. This wasn't only about me, it was about upholding a certain reputation my brother had gained over the years and if he just let anybody disrespect me, and by proxy him, it would make him seem soft and that would be very bad for business. The second meeting of the day had gone over a lot more smoothly and I had impressed our next client with the suggestions I had made to fix his little problem. Jamie had been incredibly proud and told me fondly, that I would soon make a name for myself, if I kept going like this. The day went by pretty fast after that, I attended all appointments my brother had had that day and when we finally returned to the mansion, I was exhausted.

At home, Sebastian prepared a quick dinner, which I ate in complete silence, almost falling asleep at the table until Jamie took pity on me and send me upstairs to turn in for the night. While I was dragging my tired body up to our room, I wondered how my brother managed to do this every day. I hadn't expected it to be so depleting and I didn't even have to make any of the big decisions, I only had made a few suggestions here and there and still I was totally drained and I fell asleep as soon as my head touched the pillow. As it turned out, Jamie was so satisfied with the way I had handled myself on our first day of work together, that he insisted on me joining him full-time.

We fell into a new routine, he woke me in the early hours of the morning, we ate breakfast together and then went to his office, sometimes with, sometimes without his trusted sniper, depending on Sebastians own workload. When we went home late at night, I would wolf down dinner and go to sleep afterwards. Some days Jamie would follow me into the bedroom and despite my exhaustion, he would play my body like a fiddle, keeping me on the edge for ages before finally granting me release, either by fucking me senseless or by applying other parts of his body to bring me to completion.

Despite being so tired all the damn time, I felt content with the way things were and days turned into weeks and then into months and before I knew it, I was taking on clients and handling certain aspects of my brothers enterprise on my own. Usually one of his men would accompany me, for protection, Jamie had assured me, when I had reacted sceptically to someone following me around but today I was walking through London's streets alone. I had shook off my detail, because I had decided to meet someone my brother wouldn't have ever let me see again and so I had to sneak behind his back. He wouldn't be very happy with me, when he found out, but I was fairly certain, that he wouldn't hurt me, I hadn't given him any reason to question my loyalty towards him in the least and that had to count for something, right?

Sitting down in a booth inside a quaint little café, I ordered a large cappuccino and kept my eyes on the doors, waiting for my guest to arrive. He did so in his usual dramatic way and after scrutinizing me from head to toe, he slumped down in the seat opposite from me, not even bothering to greet me, a guarded expression on his face. Smiling tentatively at him, I took a sip from my mug, before I decided to speak first, seeing as he refused to talk.

"Hello, Mr. Holmes. Thank you for agreeing to meet me on such short notice, I'm sure you're a busy man and I appreciate that you took the time..."

"Cut the crap, Alice... Why did you want me to come here? You're obviously taking a risk by meeting with me, even if you seem to have hashed things out with your brother. How is that going for you by the way? I've heard a lot of whispers about the mysterious new woman on Moriartys side, am I right in deducing that it's you? What changed? You were terrified of him when we first met and now you're his partner in crime, willingly it seems. I want to know how you could go from having a panic attack at the mere thought of your brother, to helping him with his work and seemingly being happy about that. Maybe my first impression about you wasn't that wrong after all, Miss Moriarty."