Is he still alive?"
Fraser greeted Harry at the door to his condo with an eyebrow raised. Harry ignored the question, striding quickly past Fraser. This was the first time he was seeing Fraser's home and it awed him how someone like Fraser had managed to create a family for himself. That was a weakness that could be easily exploited against him… He should know all about that…
Hadn't he vowed that he'd love no one…Because falling love meant providing his enemies with a weakness that could be exploited. And despite that he'd fallen in love with Fenrir and Tom had exploited that to the fullest…Leaving him more broken and devastated than he'd ever been.
When Fraser had texted him the address and invited him to meet him, he'd thought he'd be meeting him at one of his many restaurants… It was when he'd fed the coordinates into the GPS, he'd realized that Fraser was inviting him to a residential building… Even then, he hadn't really thought that Fraser would invite him to his home…Not after he'd threatened to show his husband, the pictures of them kissing.
He supposed that this was meant to be a gesture of trust… It was a gesture of stupidity in his opinion.
He stopped short when he spotted Fraser's husband lying in the middle of the room on a pile of blankets, toddler son clasped to his chest, teenaged daughter curled against him. The kids snored louder than their father, but the sight was so domestic…so homely that Harry had a hard time believing that this was the home of a cold blooded killer.
Fraser closed the door and keyed in the code to securely lock the door before he stepped over his sleeping family, motioning Harry to follow him into the other room. In the spacious office, Harry remained standing against the door while Fraser took a seat.
"You don't look good."
Fraser eyed him up and down,
"Your prisoner being difficult?"
"What scares you?"
Harry asked.
He always felt uncomfortable when Fraser smiled. Maybe because he shouldn't be that beautiful, or maybe because Harry couldn't help being a little mesmerized by that beauty.
"Interesting question. Should I be worried?"
"Men like us, we've seen and done the worst."
Harry crossed his arms,
"So, what would scare a man like you? Or a man like me?"
The mellowness in Fraser's eyes melted away. Picking up a silver letter opener, he stroked it with one finger, gaze dropping to follow the movement as he spoke,
"Everything I do, the people I deal with, and the strings I pull, it's all for my family."
He dropped the letter opener onto the desk and lifted his gaze to Harry,
"The safety and happiness of who's on the other side of that door…"
He pointed past Harry,
"That keeps me up at night."
Fraser was a dangerous man. The burier of bodies and the keeper of dead men's secrets. A title like that would surely keep a man up at night. Fraser pointed at him,
"What about you? What keeps you up at night, Harry?"
Harry lowered his gaze down to the thick shag carpet, focusing on the tightly knotted tendrils as he contemplated his reply,
"Lord Voldemort keeps me up at night."
Fraser sat back in his chair. Heavily.
"At first it was about revenge."
"And now?"
Fraser uncapped the crystal decanter on his desk and poured liquid amber into a single glass,
"What is it now?"
What was it about now? That was a question that he'd been asking himself over and over again since he'd tasted him again.
"Now, it's no longer just about revenge."
It was the best he could do.
"Drink up, Harry… You look like you need it."
Fraser pushed the glass of cognac in his direction. Harry retrieved the drink, and he downed it in one toss,
"You're not surprised."
Fraser's lips quirked,
"No… I am not surprised."
His eyes were full of knowing…
"When will you release him?"
"I won't."
He placed the empty glass back on Fraser's desk,
"That part remains unchanged."
From the slight narrowing of his eyes, Fraser didn't approve. Then again, he hadn't approved of the original plan, either. Maybe he'd been onto something.
"Really?"
Harry ran his fingers through his hair as he spoke,
"My…lapse in judgment was an aberration."
One he still felt clear to his toes,
"Nothing has changed."
Fraser laughed, loud and long, in his face,
"I never took you for the delusional type, but hey…"
He shrugged,
"Good for you."
Harry frowned,
"What does that mean?"
"It means that there's a lot you have yet to learn."