For as useful as Warren was at gathering information, Sinclair did not reach out to include him in this little venture.

In fact, he did not seek out any of his usual assets. He could list a hundred perfectly acceptable reasons as to why he decided to keep this so self contained, but at the top of his list was the knowledge that when Fontaine was involved, it was best to have as few witnesses and loose ends as possible.

Besides, he set about this task with the expectation that it would be a relatively anti-climactic conclusion.

Perhaps Fontaine was up to his usual tricks and the orphanage would be grossly inadequate for the children there. Hardly respectable thing to do, but then again it was a charity in Rapture. Its mere existence at all gave it far more in the way of brownie points with the big man upstairs than any one of Ryan's own businesses. Even if it was subpar, a roof over their heads was still a roof.

Regardless, he'd still delight in returning to Jacyln with something to say. It might be a knife in Fontaine's back, he was sure, but neither of them had ever been shy about their willingness to sell the other out should the situation arise.

Friends they may be, but they were friends with the understanding that they'd just as soon be enemies if it suited them. Sinclair found Fontaine oddly pleasing in that way. Even if he were to stab him in the back or vice-versa, he doubted there'd be any true bad blood between them.

So, he set out on his lonesome to the orphanage. Not particularly worried about what he might find.

Although, before he'd even knocked at the front door, Sinclair noticed something a little peculiar at its doorstep. Namely Jacyln's right hand man.

Now what was good ol' Edmund Riles doing out this way?

Sinclair watched from an easy distance down the road as Edmund made his way to the gates of the orphanage. This area was more industrial despite its close proximity to the suites. Nothing much had developed here besides the train tracks and the odd pop up store. Not until you reached the little hub that Fontain had set up at least.

And that, well that was crawling with life. Splicers specifically.

Sinclair was glad for the distance as he watched Eddie draw closer. Able to see even from here how the young man's posture grew tense and uneasy as he neared the splicers that lurked around the entrance. Slithering across the walls like spiders, no longer able to fit into civilised society.

Now, Sinclair did not share Jacyln's great distaste for plasmids, but even he had to admit the results of excessive consumption were...unsavoury.

And they flocked here it seemed. Drawn in by Fontaine's monopoly on ADAM, they were slaves to their own cravings by now. But really, how different was that to any other addict in Rapture? The people that crawled to Ava-Marie Tate's parties or clamoured for the attention of the girls at Eve's Garden were all just as blinded by their need as the splicers.

At least most of them still had the self respect not to drool and scuttle along the ground like rabid dogs.

Most of them.

Sinclair waited patiently, cigar slowly shortening as he did. By the time he caught sight of Edmund again the man looked more haggard than when he'd entered. Out he came, shuffling miserably with another man at his side.

Reggie, Sinclair distantly recognised, Fontaine's own right hand man. The two men were talking, Reggie smiling and laughing while Edmund remained dower and slumped as it seemed a bit more of his strength sapped with every word he exchanged with the larger man.

Fontaine's right hand next to Jacyln's. It was all quite curious but Sinclair's focus narrowed in on Eddie again. Jacyln was the one that asked this favour of him, which made it clear that her right hand man ought to not be here. Either Edmund was keeping secrets from Jacyln or Sinclair had been lied to.

Given Jacyln's nature it would not have been out of character for the woman to set him up with a nasty trap, but Sinclair didn't give the possibility much thought. Memories of the night she'd come to him, downtrodden and borderline desperate, continued to plague him.

An actor she may be, but even she couldn't fake sincerity like that. Sinclair knew the look in her eyes as she lied, the spark of delight. There'd been nothing so bright that night.

That left one option, Edmund was the liar here and just looking at him now, he seemed a poor one at that.

So Sinclair waited. Snubbing out his cigar under his heel by the time Reggie departed, leaving an exhausted Edmund behind. Alone and looking far too easy a target, Sincair thought that he was truly a lesser evil when the place was crawling with splicers.

Finally, Sinclair left from behind the corner, approaching Edmund with an open smile. In turn he was greeted with a sharp look of alarm that edged on terror and then a hardening of the eyes as Edmund scowled at him as though he were an overly friendly snake come to bite him.

"Edmund! Curious to see you 'round these here parts." Sinclair mused as he came to stand across from the stiff man. "Does your dear ol' boss know about these day trips?"

An accomplished liar he was not. The expression of fear that flickered across Eddie's face was more telling than anything he could have said in answer. Sinclair's smile stretched wider still.

"I'll take that as a resounding 'no,' a mite guilty are we, Eddie boy?"

"Get out of here, Sinclair." Edmund bit out harshly, putting bark behind what Augustus expected would be a fairly severe bite if the man was pushed. He kept a good distance between them and a lax stance, giving away nothing while Eddie's guilt had his expression twisting up, his insides were probably knotting together in a similar fashion.

"Get out of here while you still can." This warning seemed a touch more genuine and Sinclair lofted a brow, more curious than concerned. Edmund clarified in hopes it would send him running with his tail between his legs. "Mister Fontaine is still in there. If you knew what was good for you, you'd clear out."

"Frank is in, huh? Wonderful, about time he and I had a chat. Got plenty of catching up to do."

"No, Sinclair you don't… damn it, you can't be here!" Edmund tried and failed to appeal to a fear of Fontaine that did not exist in Augustus.

Oh, of course he was under no illusions about the man, of Fontaine's ruthlessness he had no doubt.

But similarly, Sinclair knew where they stood and that Fontaine was not so quick to write him off either. Mutual respect you could call it.

Sinclair shrugged off Eddie's pleas and stepped up to the iron gates of the orphanage. "Not terribly inviting for the girlys is it?" he mused, noticing Edmund's fidgeting and restless swaying from the corner of his eye. "If this is the front he's putting up, I shudder to ponder what it's like inside."

With that Sinclair let out a hefty sigh, turned and smiled at Edmund before announcing, "Well then, let's have ourselves a tour, hm?"

Edmund balked. "What?" the horrified man took a little step back, head shaking as his hands raised in desperate refusal. "Leave me out of this."

"I'm afraid not, sport. Your boss has asked a favour of me and I'm sure you don't fancy me returning to her with only your name to share."

Conflicted, Eddie looked towards the orphanage, hesitation and guilt written across his open face. Sinclair idly wondered what he was more afraid of, Miss Wayne, Fontaine or whatever it was they had him torn between.

Call it morbid curiosity but Sinclair had become considerably more interested in what Fontaine was doing with this orphanage.

Ever so slowly Edmund looked back to the ever patient fox, expression grim. "Ya askin' me to take a fuckin' bullet for betraying one of 'em…"

"Looks like you've already put one foot in the grave on that one, kid." Edmund's eyes flashed and Sinclair was sure he wanted to argue the point of their minimal age disparity. "If it makes the journey any easier for you, I also have a very nice gun. I'm sure Fontaine will understand."

He would most definitely not.

"Come now, sport. I can see this whole ugly business doesn't sit well with you. Got yourself a working heart according to Jacyln. So, how about you let me wash your hands of all this. You take me in to have a look at what Fontaine is hiding and you can run on back to Miss Wayne. I'm sure she's wondering where her right hand man is. I'll gladly put in a good word for you."

At this Eddie scoffed. "A good word? From you? Miss Wayne would definitely shoot me for that."

"A bad word then. What say you, chief? We have ourselves a deal?"

There was a brief pause from Edmund but his hesitation was answer enough for Sinclair. He knew he had him, the rest was just a matter of waiting on Eddie to realise that too. Finally he broke with a snarl under his breath, turning on his heel and stepping towards the gates.

"I wasn't here. I didn't see you. Fontaine don't need to know about this."

"Knew you'd come around, Edmund."

Grunting, Eddie pulled the gate open and beckoned Augustus inside. Despite the twisted up expression on his face, there was some uneasy optimism there that Sinclair did not wholly understand just yet.

In time he would, but for now Sinclair didn't grasp the depths of Edmund's desperation. The guard dog let the fox in hopes that perhaps it would deal with the snake inside and leave the lambs unharmed.

…

…

Edmund's guidance was limited. He let Sinclair inside and offered quick directions, warnings and instructions on how to avoid the splicers.

"And if they stumble across me?"

"Fontaine don't care if he loses splicers, they replace themselves quickly enough. Shoot them if you think they're getting too close. Just… don't scare the girls."

"Oh so there are actually children here." Sinclair had remarked. "I wasn't sure if there really were any or if it was all some unusual ruse. Never seen any of the little tykes myself."

"Yeah… people don't tend to." Eddie replied grimly as he turned his back on Sinclair. His hollowed out tone drawing the man's questioning stare though he offered little explanation. "You want to see it yourself? Top floor. Don't say I didn't give you plenty of warning."

With that Edmund had left Sinclair to it. Rushing off quick as he could, likely knowing he was already off the deep end in all this. Still, Sinclair had promised him a word to Jacyln when he went back to her, anyone's guess as to if that word would be positive or negative.

Now he was left to his own devices and the first thing Sinclair noticed upon entering the orphanage in earnest was the stillness of it. The quiet. If there were really children here, they most certainly were not making the noise Sinclair associated with their ilk.

But it was silent. Lifeless.

The sound of his own footsteps sounded too loud and Sinclair cringed when a step beneath his foot creaked, shattering the quiet. He winced but carried on and mercifully none of the other steps had anything to say about the weight he placed down onto them.

The third floor was when he finally began to hear scuffling of little feet. He'd started to wonder if Edmund was lying when he asserted there were children up there but he could hear them now. Little giggles and the voices of girls. Although Sinclair found them odd to listen to. Unable to make out any firm words and even when hearing them playing with one another, there was a distinct wrongness about it.

The eeriness must have been getting to him, his mind playing tricks on him and making the sounds of kids playing more ominous than it really was. But he couldn't quite explain the strange accent to the snippets of voices he caught. If it could be called an accent at all, this strange trill like quality.

Now his curiosity was burning in earnest. No longer a little chore to run for Jacyln. He had to know and this was a trait that he was well aware got plenty of people sent out to float. Augustus also knew he was incapable of not knowing now he was here. Information collection had become something of an obsession and he couldn't very well turn away now just because the hairs on the back of his neck had risen to stand on their ends.

Stepping off the stairs Sinclair looked around but couldn't see any splicers lurking around and the voices were louder now. Even more unusual the closer he got.

Now he wondered with a tad more trepidation, What are you up to, Fontaine?

Augustus stopped outside of the last door on the uppermost floor. With it shut he could still hear the children on the other side. Every other door on the floor was open and it was obvious where the source of the noise was. For a moment Sinclair paused, not quite second guessing himself but understandably uneasy.

But backing out now would be as counterproductive as it was humiliating. He was here now, might as well take a look. So Sinclair slid the door open, just a small amount at first. Seeing it was dim inside. The light that dangled from the ceiling swaying as if freshly batted by one of the rowdier children, how they would reach he couldn't say.

Their voices became clearer to Sinclair as the door was cracked open and an unexpected chill rushed down his spine as, rather than make more sense to his ears, it became all the more unnatural. The room was not brightly lit and that only made it easier to see every single pair of yellow glowing eyes within. The children were most certainly here but Sinclair couldn't have been sure that's what they really were as he watched them scurrying about. Playing with toys and one another, easy to follow as their illuminated eyes lit up the space around them.

Augustus was frozen as he watched, the door opening a little wider even as his hand remained right where it was. Unable to muster up enough self control to open or close the door himself, letting gravity take it.

And among the children that played with hushed whispers that rang with two voices, stood the man of the hour himself.

Fontaine seemed unbothered by the unnatural children that rushed past him and chittered to one another. He had one hand planted on his hip, the other atop one of the little girl's heads. Speaking to her in an exasperated tone as though she'd just been caught misbehaving in some way. Sinclair didn't process exactly what he was chiding the girl for, too caught up in the sight of it all to really focus on the minute details.

The snapshot of the room in that moment was all he could see and abruptly he understood that things were definitely not as simple as a charity scheme.

In a moment of dazed confusion, Sinclair's voice betrayed him by slipping free from him.

"Frank?"

And for a precious moment, there was vulnerability in Fontaine's wide eyes as he turned and they met with Sinclair's own alarmed stare.

Not many of the girls showed them any attention, going about their games. Only the child closest to Fontaine seemed to take notice of the unwelcome adult and, like many children would have hidden behind their parents from a stranger, edged behind Fontaine.

A beat of silence passed and then ever so quietly Fontaine murmured his name in return but seemed unable to follow it up with anything else, letting them lapse into a terse silence.

There were a thousand things he could have said, likely considered saying. A hundred lies, threats and covers. But most of all, in that single breath, there was a sense of understanding his situation.

Seeing Sinclair standing there meant only one thing to Fontaine and it wasn't that he was caught by Ryan or his goons. It wasn't that his secrets would spill to Rapture's citizens or enforcers. Oh no. What Sinclair seeing this meant was very simple.

His sister was as good as already told.

Unless he killed Sinclair that was and Fontaine might have genuinely considered it. The gun at his side felt awfully heavy and perfectly available for use. But Fontaine did not reach for it. Instead he let out a slow, steadying breath and instead reached for a cigar, if only to ease his nerves, and with a cold void addressed Sinclair again.

"Augustus… you do have a nasty habit o' showin' up when you're not wanted." He muttered, voice lowered to an unfriendly growl. All the while hoping that Sinclair had enough sense to just walk the fuck away and not try his hand at using this for leverage.

It seemed that Augustus was slowly breaking from his statuesque state. Though Fontiane thought he might have noticed the man's hands trembling. Shock or anger he couldn't say but knowing Sinclair, surely it wasn't some sort of crisis of conscience? That didn't seem like the man he knew.

"Quite the little brood you have here…" Sinclair began slowly, eyes sweeping across the gathering of girls and he did seem a bit paler after taking a better look. He seemed no less enlightened by what he was seeing.

"What is this? What are they…"

The question trailed off as Sinclair looked at the girl hiding behind Fontaine's back. Her sweet baby eyes seeming all the larger as they filled entirely with golden light, looking right through him even as she cowered away from the unknown man behind the one she ought to have been afraid of.

Fontaine's eyebrow twitched in irritation as he was clung to, wanting to bat the girl away and snap at her to keep her hands off, but refusing to do so when still caught in Sinclair's stare. Knowing how very delicate this all was. Best behaviour it was, then.

"Let's make a deal, Auggie." Fontaine broke in firmly. A smile forced onto his face as he attempted to play into their rather reliable working relationship. "You and me. We do fine work together, what do ya say? A little investment?"

It was a first for Fontaine. Seeing Sinclair recoiling just a fraction.

It stung and that sharp sting turned to a knife in Frank's mind, betrayal before Sinclair had uttered a word of rejection.

"Don't suddenly grow a conscience on me, Sinclair. You know damn well this is hardly the worst thing you've been involved in. Where do you think all this ADAM is coming from?"

"They're just children, Frank."

"No. They ain't 'just children', they're ADAM factories and they're where your paycheck is coming from!" The vitriol in Fontaine's tone caused both the girl behind him and Sinclair to tense. His venom was no less biting as he continued. "Don't tell me ya don't have your own two hands deep in exploitation as it is. I won't hear it from you."

And perhaps because Fontaine understood how grown men's stomachs turned when first facing the fact that they'd sell children for a shiny profit, he went on to add a condolence of sorts. Even if it felt more like a final nail being hammered into place.

"Besides, this is the best deal they're gonna get down here. Half o' them don't got any family to speak of and the other half are better off without. Here they don't starve, they don't want for nuthin'. Living grand little lives these ones. It's a mutual investment for them,"

Fontaine made sure he didn't let his eyes move from Sinclair for a single moment as he sunk the nail in deeper.

"And for us."

For a short time Sinclair was left speechless, mind racing to put together the shreds of information and understanding he'd scarcely been provided. Linking these ghouls to ADAM production and that to their business and in turn having to reevaluate an awful lot.

Before he could gather all his thoughts Sinclair again took note of the little girl that had edged back away from them some, no comprehension of the conversation going on before in her little scared face. A face that, while eerily similar to every other girl there, still had some features that stood out to Sinclair.

He recognised that child.

She was no orphan or abandoned brat, that much he knew.

Sinclair was by no means a man of great loyalty to anything beyond himself, but seeing the little girl that Warren had introduced to him as his own flesh and blood not a month prior did something to chill his blood. She did not look like the girl Warren had called his sister with such excitement. She didn't look like much of a person at all anymore.

It may have simply been easier to think of her in such inhuman terms because if Sinclair thought of her by name now, he was sure he'd be sick.

Without a word Sinclair turned on his heel and went for the door.

"What do you think you're doing, Augustus?" Fontaine's steely voice asked sharply and Sinclair knew he heard a gun's safety being clicked off. Part of him wanted to turn and look but he knew it wouldn't do him any good if Fontaine chose to pull the trigger.

"This whole business… it ain't the least bit right." Sinclair bit out, shoulders hunched as he grasped the door tight, not yet fleeing knowing he would be shot in his retreat. "... but this here is Rapture and there's not much right about any of it. ADAM is the city's lifesblood and if it comes from these… things, then it's best left alone by the likes of me."

Atrocities happened every day to keep the little society they'd built running, no different from life on the surface in that respect. This may have been an escalation, certainly, but it was not unique. Many industries were built off the backs of children and the dead. His own family had not been spared that fate in the Panama Canal.

These ghouls just so happened linger somewhere between children and the dead. It was all very sick, but Sinclair had never had a healer's hands and he wasn't about to try now.

"So, we have an understanding then?" Fontaine pressed and Sinclair felt a sickly, hot bile like hatred for him crawling up into his mouth.

Not because Fontaine was a monster, even that too was undeniable, but because he'd forced Sinclair to recall there were very few differences between the two of them. He'd call it shame if he had the spine to admit to it.

"Yes, I suppose we do, chief." Sinclair uttered quietly, blocking out the sounds of the monsters playing. Tuning them out as he forced himself not to think of them as children anymore. "It also just so happens I still have other 'understandings' to keep to."

Sinclair was sure Fontaine considered shooting him as he took his exit. Weighing the options he had and choosing not to in the end for whatever conclusion he came to.

But they both knew, they were parting that day as less of friends then they'd started it.