Chapter 28
CHAPTER 28
THE NEXT MORNING, Black helped me to switch bedrooms. I’d never lie in my old bed again without feeling the crunch of Nick’s nose under my elbow or look at the wall by the door without seeing his bloodied body slumped against it.
My new room was beside Black’s. Nate installed a motion sensor on the door, and once set, if I tried to open it without punching in a six-digit code first, an alarm would sound. Surely even I couldn’t enter six numbers in my sleep?
And having Black next door meant he could deal with me if the worst happened. An interconnecting door, bolted from his side, would let him in to shoot me with a tranquilizer dart, Taser me, something. Anything. Anything to stop a repeat of last night.
He carried in a pile of towels and stowed them in my new bathroom, bigger than my old one but I didn’t deserve the extra space.
“That’s the last of it.”
“How do you cope?” I asked. “You must have seen things every bit as horrible as I have.”
“I block it out,” he answered softly. “If I didn’t I’d never sleep.”
“I wish I could. I try. While I’m awake it’s okay, mind over matter and all that, but the moment I close my eyes, the devil comes out to play.”
“Want me to see if I can find someone to help?”
“What, like a psychiatrist? How do you see that going? ‘So, Emerson, tell me about your day.’ ‘Well, I shot three people and that was fine, just an interesting technical challenge. But I could have done without getting lowered on a rope into a dark hole full of rotting corpses to check for survivors. That made me feel a bit queasy.’ They’d have me committed.”
“Point taken. Is that really what happened?”
“Yes. I was the smallest and lightest, so I got the pleasure of going down there, and no, there weren’t any survivors. Then I threw up over the side of the boat until there wasn’t anything left inside me. I was in good company though—everyone else on the team lost their lunch as well.”
“Well, if you need to talk things through, talk to me. I’ll always be here.”
“Thank you,” I whispered.
My life might have been messed up in ways most people couldn’t even imagine, but at least I wasn’t alone in it.
I’d hoped I wouldn’t have to take Black up on his offer, that the awful night with Nick was a one-off, but little did I know. My sleep would remain on FUBAR status for years to come. Black was to become my sounding board, my confidante, my outlet for the horrors that threatened to consume me.
But back then, I was still blissfully ignorant, and I mustered up a smile when Nick came home later in the day, clutching X-rays that showed two cracked ribs and a broken nose but thankfully no cheek fracture.
“The hospital staff believed my story about getting into a bar fight.”
“Thanks for telling them that.”
He slung an arm around my shoulders and gave me a squeeze. “It was less embarrassing than admitting a one-hundred-and-twenty-five-pound girl did it in her sleep. They probably wouldn’t have believed me if I’d told them that, anyway.”
“I’m so sorry, Nicky. I don’t know what came over me.”
He turned me to face him and put a hand on each of my shoulders. “It wasn’t your fault, baby. I heard you cry out, and when I tried to cuddle you, it triggered, well, something. You weren’t even there. I mean, your eyes were open but they were vacant. You almost gave me a heart attack.”
Nick may have forgiven my actions, but I struggled to cope with them myself. Space. I needed space. Some time away to process things in my own head. So I ran. I flew to London under the pretence of building up business at the new office and spent a month speaking to clients and helping with paperwork.
At night, I stayed in Albany House, but I trained each morning with Jimmy. Whenever a job came up, I foisted it onto someone else. Although I had Ruth on hand to cook for me, I joined Jimmy and Jackie for dinner whenever I had a free evening, mucking in with the washing up and getting in the way. Like in the old days, JJ’s became my sanctuary, except without the cleaning or the stripping parts.
Even though I’d been away from the East End for a while, Jimmy acted as if I’d only been gone overnight. I was beyond lucky to have him in my life. And I wanted to repay the kindness he’d shown me over the years, so one day, I borrowed the folder where he kept his important documents, visited his bank manager, and paid off the mortgage on the gym.
I felt quite pleased with myself until he found out.
“Amanda, you can’t just give us your money. You worked hard for that.”
“Yes, I can. I can do whatever I want with it.”
“Then I’ll repay it. I don’t like being in debt.”
“I’ll tear up the cheque.”
“I’ll write it anyway.”
“He’s a proud man,” Jackie said after Jimmy left the room. “He doesn’t want to take charity.”
“But it’s not charity. You guys did so much for me and you didn’t have to. You could call that charity too. I just see this as returning the favour.”
Jackie settled herself onto the sofa and patted it for me to sit beside her. “Can you afford it? Be honest.”
“Yes, I can. It was sixty thousand pounds. I made that in the last month.”
Jackie’s jaw dropped. “I had no idea you earned so much.”
“Well, I do. And I’m so busy working I barely have time to spend a penny.”
“You need to take a break, darling girl. You’ll burn out.”
“I like work.” A month ago, I’d have said those words with more conviction. I did enjoy work most of the time—it was just the odd nightmare-inducing jobs I could do without.
Jackie squeezed both of my hands. “Then thank you. I’ll speak to Jimmy, see if I can get him to accept it.”
I gave her a hug. “It would mean a lot to me.”
In England, I slept alone, the house silent apart from the creaks and groans as it settled. I spoke to Black most days, and although I was getting kind of lonely, I kept thinking of new reasons not to go home. Eventually, having grown tired of hearing my ever more ridiculous excuses, Black sent Nick over. Ostensibly for a meeting, but the real reason was to drag me back to Virginia.
“I’m not sure I’m ready to leave,” I grumbled to Black.
“You’ve got to face up to things, Diamond. You can’t keep running away from reality. Now, get yourself back over here. I’ve got things for you to do.”
He was right, of course. Nick acted like his normal self, and any tension between us was all in my head. We soon fell back into our old friendship, the only difference being that I never attempted to spend the night with him again.
Weirdly, I discovered that when I went on a job, the nightmares stayed away. A kill switch, if you like. For one crazy moment, I considered moving to a war zone to escape from my own subconscious, but Black quickly vetoed that idea.
“Are you out of your mind?”
“Not on the frontline, no. That’s the whole point.”
“Forget it, Diamond.”
Over the next couple of years, I learned to live better with myself, and Black kept his promise; he was always by my side. Despite our initial plans to divorce, we stayed married. Our relationship remained platonic, but neither of us met anybody we liked enough to warrant filling out the paperwork. I stayed at Riverley Hall, gradually influencing the decor until it was a little less stuffy and formal, while Dan moved into an apartment in Richmond.
I couldn’t entertain the thought of a serious relationship, not after what had happened with Nick. Nor could I bring myself to have the one-night stands that Dan seemed to favour. Instead, I preferred discreet liaisons with a few men I knew well enough to trust with the true reason why I got dressed and left before midnight.
After Nick came Xavier. Edgy in the bedroom, brutal out of it. At that point in our lives, neither of us liked ourselves much, and our time together reflected that darkness. Then there was James, who showed me sweet and kind but only behind closed doors. Those days were…difficult. He wanted more, but I couldn’t give it to him, not when his career aspirations were so incompatible with mine. Our relationship was always doomed to fail.
I went through Gideon and Alaric, neither of whom could be termed easy, before I found Jed. Jed made no secret of liking the ladies, but his easygoing nature made a refreshing change. Not to mention he sure knew how to make me smile.
Black got his kicks too, although I never saw his women. He took them to an apartment in Richmond, and Bradley told me the place was devoid of any personality. No colour, no personal items, no soul.
I asked Nate about it once, why Black didn’t just bring a girlfriend back to Riverley, but he said Black didn’t want the emotional entanglement. That if a woman saw the size of the estate, they’d also know the size of his wallet, and he’d never get rid of her.
Suited me.
Although I didn’t care so much at first, I grew to hate the nights Black spent in Richmond. Those were the nights I lost myself in Jed.
The business went from strength to strength, mainly because Black, Nate, Nick, Dan, and I spent most of our waking hours working. Carmen took a step back after she and Nate had their first child, a boy they named Joshua. The rest of us regularly worked through several time zones each day, and I collected so many airline toiletries I could have stocked my own pharmacy.
In the end, Black did buy a jet, which allowed us to avoid baggage restrictions and meant I could stick my knife in my pocket rather than having to find a creative hiding place every time I went through airline security.
I had ever-growing demands on my time, especially when I followed Black’s lead and diversified my investments. I bought into other businesses, watching them grow alongside Blackwood. And as a person, I grew too.
Despite our hectic lives, Black and I were always there for each other. Even on opposite sides of the world, I knew he was only a phone call away. He was my rock, the one thing that kept me grounded and enabled me to deal with my demons and keep doing the job I did.
Until all that changed one fateful day when a stranger with an itchy trigger finger stole him from me.
My sanity, balanced on a knife-edge for so long, was in serious danger of falling into the abyss below.