Chapter 39
Kara - Present
Okay, so I admit it. I lost my shit…again.
Just a teeny tiny bit, but come on. I’ve been dealing with a lot. Seeing Owen is like seeing my past play out in all its messy details in a shitty, slow-motion film.
Anya, Andrews, Luca Knight, the Covenant, the fucking hard drive.
I’ve spent years honing my skills. I’ve spent years being the best I can be. I’ve also spent years being scared to face the demons of my past.
One of the first things Andrews taught me is that the difference between being a hero and a coward, or having success over failure, is not whether you’re scared, it’s what you do while you’re scared. That’s important.
And I’m scared right now.
Scared that the hard drive is as dangerous as Owen said. Scared that it was enough to have Andrews betray me. Scared that it was enough to send a kill squad after us. Scared to face Owen and our past. Scared to admit that I’m not sure what to do next.
I usually have a team, a plan, Andrews…
But I will not fail, and I will not be a coward.
Owen sits in the car, waiting.
I stand, but I don’t climb back in. Instead, I sit on the bonnet, letting the last bit of the heat of the engine warm me. Grounding myself in the moment.
I watch the small flies fly through the beam of the headlight and look up at the cloudless sky. The peace of the night isn’t lost on me, not when the inside of my head is so full and busy.
The car door opens and closes.
“Andrews used to take me star gazing,” I say as Owen joins me.
“We’d have been training, or I’d have just come back from a mission.
It may have been a heavy one. He used to drive me to the Royal Observatory in Greenwich.
He said that when life gets too overwhelming, look up at the night sky and lose yourself for a while.
That everything will soon quieten down when you take a moment and realise just how insignificant you are in the grand scheme of things. ”
“We aren’t insignificant though, Luce. Far from it, what we have—”
“I know.” I glance across and smile tightly. “I want to see what’s on it. I want to see what he betrayed me for.”
Owen stares at me and nods.
“Are you okay?” he asks, after a moment of stillness.
I let his question linger. Am I okay? Such a simple question, with such a messy answer. “It’s what we do in these moments that makes us who we are.”
“So, what are we doing?”
“I’m still thinking.”
“I’ve got an idea.”
“What is it?” I ask, reaching out to try to catch a passing fly, missing.
“You’re right, we do need to go back to London, but we need to rest. You need to be stitched up…again, and I don’t think they will know to look where I’m going to suggest.”
“Why do I get the feeling I’m not going to like it?”
“You’re not.”
“Go on then, rip off the Band-aid.”
“It’s Maria’s,” Owen says.
“Ahh. Mummy dear’s house,” I reply and go to stand. “But I do think they will look there.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Sarcastic replies, because god forbid you say what you really feel.”
“Sometimes I really want to give you a high five. In the face. With a chair,” I mutter. “Haven’t I shown enough? What more do you want from me?” I slide off the car and go to stomp past him.
“Sometimes, I want to bend you the fuck over,” he growls at me, gripping my wrist as I go to walk past him. “Stop pushing me away. Stop pretending you’re okay. Just stop, Luce. I know what you’re doing, and it may have worked with Andrews, but it won’t work with me.”
“Don’t say his name.”
“Don’t push me away,” he repeats, his eyes boring into mine, the lights from the car illuminating our bodies. But the moment is heavy and heady.
“I don’t know what you want from me,” I whisper, my eyes meeting his. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to do this,” I admit. My throat full, my heart beating rapidly. “I don’t know how to move past what happened between us. I’m so conflicted,” I admit.
His hands come up to my face, gripping them in his huge palms. The pads of his fingers wipe away tears I hadn’t even realised had fallen.
“We talk it through, we share the burden, just like we used to. Nothing has changed,” he says, his eyes beseeching
“Everything’s changed,” I whisper. “Everything.”
But he’s shaking his head. “Nothing’s changed. Why can’t you see that? It’s you and me, just like it used to be. But this time, I’m not walking away. And neither are you.”
He rests his forehead against mine. Our breath mingles as I grip onto his shirt, fisting the material in my hands as I stop myself from falling into his warmth. Because if I fall into it, I won’t want to move. How can I do what comes next if I’m too emotionally involved?
Okay, that ship has sailed.
My eyes clench shut as I try to pull away, but his hold on me tightens.
“No, Luce, I know you.” He kisses my forehead, my cheeks, my lips, all the while tears that I have no control over fall.
“I know you. I know you’re hurting. I know you’re lost. I know that you hate me, and you want to blame me.
I know you want to lash out at Maria. Hell, I know you want to kill Andrews all over again. ”
A small sound escapes my lips as I reach up with my second hand, fisting it into his material. He’s right. Nothing has changed. I am all those things, but I’m so terrified that whatever comes will end up with him walking away and me being alone again.
Just like before.
I’ve done something I never thought I’d do; I’ve given up control.
Temporarily.
I haven’t gone completely insane.
Owen is behind the wheel, driving through the quiet, darkened roads. The only lights come from the odd passing car. Other than that, we are in a quiet area of Surrey.
I open the glove compartment and look for anything to re-wrap my arm, which is still bleeding, but not as heavily. The temporary bandage is saturated.
This is Andrews’ car. There should be a first aid kit.
“How much further?” I ask as I rummage inside the glove compartment. Why hadn’t I sorted it before we had got back in the car? Hindsight was a fucking bitch.
“About fifteen more minutes. What are you doing?” Owen glances across at me.
“I’m still bleeding. I need to re-wrap it.”
“Do you have a knife?” he asks, and I raise my eyebrow. “Of course you have a knife—”
“Never leave home without it.”
“Well. cut some material from my top.” He leans forward and positions himself.
“I can use my own clothes. Besides, there will be a first aid kit.” I bend forward and push my hand under the seat, my hands brushing across a paper file and—
“A first aid kit,” I announce proudly.
I ruffle through it, it’s empty. Throwing it to the floor, and turn my attention to the brown file.
Opening it, I see Owen’s name. His real name.
Owen King.
“He’s got your file here,” I say, turning the middle console light on as I start to read. “Looks like Luca didn’t hide your past as well as you thought.”
“I told Andrews my past,” Owen announces, glancing over before turning his attention back to the road. “What’s the point in hiding it from someone like Apex Security? He would have just found it.”
“True.” My eyes scan the facts, and see that unlike the version I got, another smack in the face that Andrews hid so much from me, it has information about his time in prison. “Why did you serve time?”
He glances across and shakes his head. “Long story,” he replies.
“What was it you said? Sharing’s caring, and all that?”
“Not when I’m driving.”
“Suit yourself,” I reply, shrugging.
“It was where I met Luca.” He says, and I stop trying to read the file and glance across at him.
“Really? Actually, why would that even surprise me? What was he in for? Money Laundering?”
He lets out a single laugh and shakes his head. “Surprisingly not. You may think things about Luca, but he is an honest man. He has never tried to hide who he is.”
“With the exception from authorities, and all that jazz.” I wave my hand dismissively before bending forward and grabbing the knife from my boot. “Luca Knight is many things, but a good Samaritan is not one of them. He’s more of an if it helps me with my agenda, then so be it, kinda guy.”
“Would it surprise you to hear that he wanted change, just as much as me?”
“Yes, but his change involved taking back the London underworld, not the country.”
“I thought we were all the same in your eyes; criminals, politicians, all liars and manipulators to work our angle, to get power and control.”
“See, we do agree on some things.” I glance across, waving my knife, before gripping my shirt and cutting a strip of material from it, working to re-patch my wound.
“Believe it or not, we found a common ground, and I’m not that na?ve. I’m going to need contacts across industries.”
“Owen,” I snort. “You make it sound like you’re talking about the private sector and getting into bed with multinational companies. You’re talking about building relationships with some of the most dangerous people in London.”
“He has legitimate businesses, too.”
“Oh well, my mistake.” I pull the material tight and hiss out a breath. “Fuck me. I need to stop getting shot.” I lean my head back and close my eyes until the pain subsides. “So, he funded your campaign.”
“He’s done way more than that. He’s changed my past—”
“Nothing can change your past.”
“He’s changed Maria’s identity. Allowed me to set her up for life.”
I tut.
“She’s not the villain in all of this,” he says looking across, his eyes boring into mine, his frown lines showing. “Remember that, Lucy. She’s just as much of a victim.”
“So, you met Luca, became best friends forever, he changed your past and Maria’s, and funded your campaign.
For a smart man, Owen, you’re very thick sometimes.
He’s funded your campaign to do exactly what the Covenant has spent decades doing.
Paving the way for the political parties they want in power.
You are going to be his puppet, just like the current politicians are the Covenants. ”
“You’re so tainted.”
“Being a realist doesn’t make me tainted.”
“Do you know what I still can’t work out? You sit there, trying to be all high and mighty, but you’re an assassin, Lucy. You kill people for a living. Tell me, when you take your gun out and shoot a target, do you know anything about them?”
“I don’t need to know.”
“Of course not, because knowing might mean acknowledging something, and maybe question whether what you are doing is actually wrong. That the person you’re shooting is actually an innocent.”
“They won’t be innocent.”
“You can say that with 100% confidence, can you?”
“It’s not my job to question it,” I say. It’s lucky that he’s driving, because I really do want to sucker punch him in the throat, which would only make him crash the car. “We aren’t talking about me right now.”
“God forbid.”
“What made him pass the hard drive to you?”
“He trusts me.”
“Hmm,” I reply, letting the silence build between us as Owen drives us towards Maria’s new house and life.
Looking back down at his file, the car more illuminated as we drive through a small town, we stop at a set of traffic lights next to a petrol station. The lights from the forecourt shine onto the file on my lap. My eyes fall onto a sentence that makes me question everything.
Owen King sentenced to life imprisonment for murder – later exonerated.
What. The. Fuck.
Luca Knight is good, but to bury murder…
I glance across at the man who has my heart in a vice, and for the first time, I don’t know who I’m looking at.
He was supposed to be the good one. But all this time, is he just like me and Luca? One of the bad ones?
We pull up into the driveway of a small, detached cottage off a quiet street in Leatherhead, Surrey.
Owen turns off the engine and we sit in the loud silence of the car. The quaint little house sits unimposing in front of us, that Maria—no, not Maria—that Susan now lives in. I can’t help but smile.
It’s perfect for her. It’s something that if I thought about where she would be, it would have been somewhere like this.
“It’s nice,” I finally say.
“It is.”
“Is she happy?”
“Yes.”
“I’m glad.” I smile tightly. “Does she know we’re coming? No, obviously not. Stupid question,” I say. shaking my head. Come on, Lucy, get your shit together.
“Ready?”
I let out a long breath and nod. “Yeah. Yeah. Totally. This is totally fine. Completely normal.”
“Need a minute?”
“Yeah. Yeah. That would be good.”
“It’s okay, Luce,” he says, reaching over and grabbing my hand. “This will be just as hard for her. Remember that. Try not to be too Kara. I’ll go and tell her you’re here. Give her some time too.”
“Okay.”
He squeezes my hand before he climbs out the car, and I wait.
Stock. Still.
I’m not even sure I’m breathing as Owen crosses the gravel driveway and knocks on the dark blue door with a wreath on it. He knocks, it opens, and light encases her little frame, making it look like she’s been basked in a halo.
Emotion claws at my throat.
My palms sweat, my forehead is clammy, and I grip the knife in my hand as something builds in my throat.
They hug. And it’s so familiar between them. Something bitter sits in my stomach, churning. I clear my throat. I see the moment Owen tells her. Her hands go to her mouth, and she looks around him, straight to the car where I’m sitting, completely unsure what to do.
Completely frozen.
Completely terrified.
Completely and utterly jealous that he found her and not me.
How ridiculous is that? Of all the emotions that I’m feeling, one of them is jealousy.
Luca Knight would have known who I am. Luca Knight would have known that we shared a past, so why didn’t he ever tell Owen?
I rub at my forehead, at more of the unanswered questions, knowing that the only person who can tell me is Luca. And well, he’s a ghost. Hidden so well, not even I know how to reach him.
Owen turns and waves me over.
I climb out the car and glance up at the stars again.
Remembering how insignificant I am. Remembering how insignificant this moment is in the grand scheme of the universe.
Even though I know this is anything but insignificant.
This is me, facing my past.
The gravel crunches under my boots, and I stare at my feet, not ready to meet her eyes. Not ready to look at the kindness of them. I stop next to Owen, still staring at my black boots.
“Lucy.” Her voice washes over me like a blanket. A stifling, yet comforting one, and I’m transported back to being a small girl.
Timid, broken, and terrified.
I’m her again.
No, Lucy. You’re not her. You’re more. You’re Kara.
I swallow down the emotion that threatens to choke me before I look up into the familiar face of the only person I’ve ever called a mother.
“Hello, Mum.”