Chapter 52
Lucy - Present Day
My eyes burn behind the dark visor, my chest screaming at me from under my clothes. My nose is running, and I can’t stop coughing.
Fucking pepper spray.
Roman taps my shoulder as we pull up to a set of red lights. “You’re struggling. Pull over and let me drive.”
“I’m fine,” I reply between bouts of coughs.
“He’s right, Kara. You sound like you smoke fifty a day,” Henry adds.
“I’m fine.”
“Listen to him, Cookie.”
“You told on me,” I say into the receiver at hearing Owen’s voice.
“No, he’s been pacing the apartment for the past two hours. You’ll owe me some new flooring at this rate.”
Roman taps my shoulder again. “Stop being a stubborn arse.”
“Stop ganging up on me already,” I say, but even as I say it, I start coughing again. I can barely see through the tears that run from my eyes.
The light turns to green, and I accelerate. Roman grabs my waist, but I indicate and pull up in the bus stop over the road. I turn off the engine and climb off, pull off my helmet, and cough until I’m retching on the side of the road.
Bending over the grass verge as I gag, snot, tears, and now puke, adding to the fun.
I feel a hand rub my back. The helmet in my hand is soon removed.
“I’m really sorry about this.”
It takes me a moment for the words that have just come out Roman’s mouth to sink in, but when they do, it’s already too late.
I stand up, and turn, as Roman strikes me smack across the jaw and cheek with my bike helmet.
Already fighting the aftereffects of the pepper spray, I hit the deck, my vision blurring as more tears jump to my eyes as pain registers, black spots dotting my vision.
“Motherfucker,” I groan into the earpiece.
I roll onto my back, stare up at the sky, then across at my bike that Roman fucking Rook is now climbing onto. The last thing I see as I desperately fight to hold on to consciousness is Roman driving away.
Blinking back the darkness, shaking my head to keep myself from passing out, I roll onto my front.
It takes everything in me to get to all fours, but then I’m up. Standing. Or wobbling more like.
“The fucker has done a runner,” I say into the earpiece.
“He won’t have gone far,” Henry says confidently.
“Go far? He’s on my fucking bike, and knowing that slippery arse hole, he will be out the city in the next twenty minutes.” I cough again and spit onto the ground.
“No, he won’t. I know exactly where he’s going. Just let him do what he needs to do. He’ll be back.”
“Henry.” I move my jaw and touch my cheek bone. “Let’s not forget what Roman Rook is capable of.”
“I haven’t, which is why I paid a guard five thousand pounds to plant a tracker on him at the courthouse. Not that I need it.”
“Okay, Mr Cocky, where is the bellend going?”
“The bellend is going to St Thomas’ Hospital to see Katy.”
“Who?”
“Katy Murdoch.”
“That doesn’t help me, Henry,” I reply, pulling out my phone and bringing up the Uber app.
“Katy is Layla Johnson’s best friend.”
“Wait, Roman was fucking Luca’s girlfriend’s best friend?” I snort. “Talk about keeping it in the family. Do I need to go and retrieve him?”
“No. Give him time. He won’t stay long, police are already on the scene and starting the manhunt. I can slow things for a bit, but sooner or later Roman is going to be wanted again, which means being in a public place like St Thomas’ is not something he will want to be doing.”
“For the record, if he’s not back by 7:00 p.m., I’ll go and drag him out kicking and screaming if needed.”
“You won’t need to, Kara, he’ll be back.”
“Jesus Christ, Luce.” Owen is on me as soon as I’ve closed the apartment’s black front door. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. And he’s right. Jesus Christ.
My eyes are red, raw, puffy, and still streaming. My nose, a snotty mess. I’ve finally stopped hacking up a lung, so that’s a win.
But my jaw and cheek.
Yeah, that twat waffle got me good and proper.
His arm goes around me. “What do you need?”
“A shower. I need to rinse the shit off me and a tissue.”
“You definitely need a tissue.”
I snort and elbow him in the ribs, and he lets out a single laugh.
“Trust you to be honest in my moment of need.”
“Cookie, you really, really need a tissue.”
“Fuck off.”
He grins at me and plants a kiss on my forehead. “Jesus, I can taste it on you.” He pulls a face and sneezes.
“Pussy.”
“We need to ice your face.”
“We do need to ice my face, but do you know what I really, really want?”
“We’ve already acknowledged you need a tissue.”
“Stop,” I say through laughter, and the fucker grins at me. And even though I barely have a home address, I feel like I’m home, because I’m with him.
“Rook’s still at the hospital.”
“Of course he is, the fucker. He has his priorities all wrong.”
“I dunno. Running to the woman he cares about seems like a no brainer to me,” Owen says, tucking a bit of dark hair behind my ear.
I shrug. “Can you do me a favour?”
“Anything.”
“Can you make me a cuppa?”
“What is it with you and tea all of a sudden?” he asks, shaking his head.
“Not all of a sudden, it’s just something I do.”
“Like a ritual.”
“Sure. I’m gonna go rinse off.”
“Remember the tissue,” he calls over his shoulder.
The front door closes as we sit in Bishop’s living room, Chinese pots in our hands, chop sticks shovelling our food.
Henry was adamant that Roman would reappear and since the front door had just closed and Henry hadn’t moved but had looked at his phone a few moments before, tells me that Roman has made himself present.
“About fucking time,” Henry says as Roman stands in the doorway, his complexion pale and haunted.
I calmly put the Chinese box to the side as I climb from between Owen’s legs and off the floor where I had made my little nest.
I cross the living room, stop in front of Roman. I tilt my head, his hazel eyes assess me, and I punch him hard on the face. His head whips to the side as he absorbs the blow, the crack deafening in the quiet living room.
But he doesn’t retaliate. The fucker knows he deserves it.
I humph, tut, then stride back and reposition myself back between Owen’s legs where he squeezes my shoulder, a smirk dusting his lips.
“Where’s the hard drive?” I ask when settled.
Roman doesn’t say anything. Just stares at me, then Owen, before reaching into his back pocket.
He pulls out an identical looking external hard drive, black and unimposing and launches it across the room where I pluck it out the air, still balancing my Chinese box in my hand.
“Does it have everything on it?” Owen asks, as I pass it to him.
“It’s a carbon copy. Everything about that hard drive is identical to the original,” Roman replies, joining us in the living room where he sits on the large L-shaped black sofa.
“How is she?” Henry asks, passing Roman a box of Chinese with some noodles in it. Roman takes it and starts poking at it.
“Stable.”
“I’ve been checking in. She’s lucky.”
“Nothing about the predicament she is in is luck. That is full-blown Katy stubbornness,” Roman replies. I watch the exchange quietly.
It shows how tight their bond is, going from wanting to kill each other one minute to now talking like no time has passed at all. Like Roman hasn’t been in prison for the so-called murder of Luca Knight, not to mention the betrayal of him.
“So, we just gonna sit here and ignore the elephant in the room then?” I ask.
“There is no elephant in the room, Kara,” Roman replies. “Henry knows I had no choice.”
“You always have a choice. Does loyalty mean nothing to you?”
“Careful,” Roman says.
I point my chopstick at him. “I will ram this through your eye socket.”
Roman smirks at me. “Still as savage as you always were then.”
“Fuck off.”
“How much time do I have?” Roman asks Henry, who shrugs.
“Hard to say. I’ve wiped the cameras, but they’ve reported you as missing. You aren’t at the top of the list, surprisingly.”
He snorts. “I guess being broken out with a load of rapists and murderers will bump me down the list. I’m only maybe a murderer.”
“Yeah, well. If we’d had an alternate option, I think I’d rather have not let out a load of criminals,” Owen pipes up, having been quiet until now.
As a matter of fact, he’s been quiet since I’ve been back. Something’s playing on his mind. And something tells me it’s more than the hard drive.
“Can’t you make some calls?” Henry asks Owen.
“Not a chance,” he says, shaking his head. “It’s bad enough that she’s linked with this. I do not need this coming back to me.” He rubs at the stubble on his cheeks. “Can you check the hard drive, Henry?”
“Sure.”
He passes it over to Henry, who reaches behind him to a small set of tables to where his laptop is sitting. He pulls out a cable, plugs it in, and we wait in silence as Henry does his thing.
“It’s all here,” he says after a minute. “I’d love to properly go through all of this.”
“No need to. I know what’s on it,” Owen replies, tapping his head.
“But I do need to get it to my contact. Can you arrange for more copies? I want you to send it to the main news outlets, but have it as a delayed send. I want it to hit all of them whilst I’m giving the interview live on TV tomorrow. ”
“They will want to verify it.”
“Obviously.”
“What will happen when this hits?” Roman asks. “You’ve thought all this through?”
“As opposed to what?” Owen asks. “You’ve seen what is on this, otherwise you wouldn’t have taken a copy. You know the importance, you’ve seen what they have done. How many people they have killed to hide this? How far this goes. And what, you think we should just let them get away with it?”
“This will bring the country to its knees.”
“Wake up, Roman.” I pitch in. “This country has been on its knees for fucking years.”
“It’s time for a change,” Owen agrees.
“What makes you think this will make a difference in the long run? Where one corrupted arsehole falls and another replaces them?” Roman challenges.
“I have to believe that it’s worth it, that there’s hope,” Owen says resolutely, his chin lifted. “That people, that my friends haven’t been killed for nothing.”
“I hope so, too. I really do, but I guess I’m all out of hope right now,” Roman replies, looking blankly into his Chinese box.
But Owen’s right. Without hope, there’s nothing but fear and failure.