46. Chapter 46
46
Layla
The penthouse is a hive of activity, or at least I think it is. I wouldn’t know because he’s shut me out. Which hurts more than I care to admit. He left me standing in the foyer of his plush, crisp penthouse as my world falls apart.
Trust me , he had whispered before he walked away.
I do trust him.
I’m curled up on the sofa staring at the handwritten letter from my parents, the safety deposit box information beside me.
“What was the last code on that piece of paper?” Katy asks, tapping away on her laptop. She’s on the floor, her back against the sofa. She balances the laptop in her hand and shows me the screen where a single box flashes. A cable running from her MacBook to the hard drive.
I pass her the piece of paper and sit forward as she taps in the long digits.
We watch mesmerised as the screen goes black. “What the—”
“No, wait, something’s happening,” she says as a loading bar comes up. “Look, it’s decrypting.” We watch in silence as the bar counts to 100% and it’s like watching cement dry. Time stands still.
A window pops up with a single folder, Katy double clicks on it, opening more folders, along with documents, PDFs, spreadsheets. Hundreds upon hundreds of electronic documents all stored neatly in different named files.
“What the hell is this,” Katy asks looking over to me.
“Click one?” I suggest.
“Any one in particular.”
“Not a clue.”
She moves her mouse to a subfolder, then double-clicks a random excel document, opening what looks to be a balance sheet of some sort.
She closes it down, then opens another one, followed by another one, as she quickly scans the contents.
“What the fuck?”
We sit in silence as we read one, two, three of the documents, me peering over her shoulder as we both take words in that we can’t quite comprehend. She pushes the laptop away. “Holy fucking shit.”
Katy jumps up.
I rub my eyes. “This is…this is huge.” anxiety building in my stomach, making me queasy. “This is bigger than just the Covenant. This is—”
“This is evidence of how corrupt the fucking government is.”
“Fuck.”
“What?”
I puff out a breath. “Grandad.” I throw off the blanket, lean forward and unhook the hard drive, pocketing it. “This is what they were after, the evidence.” I state the obvious. “It’s been sitting in a box gathering dust at the care home of the father of two British agents that were murdered.”
“Yeah,” Katy says, nodding.
“Don’t you see?” I grab the newspaper cuttings and Katy just sits shaking her head. “His fall. What if someone went to the village on Sunday. They searched his room, looking for all of this, and covered up their tracks with Grandad’s fall. But I’d already asked Sylvia to get the boxes out of storage. Katy, what if what they wanted was the hard drive?”
“What are you going to do with it?”
“Luca—” I look to the doorway, my heart racing.
“I need Luca to move him somewhere safe. If they still think he has it, they will continue to target him.” I run through the penthouse to his study.
I burst through the door, my breath ragged, only to be met with a sight that shocks me to my core. The ground beneath me feels as though it’s been torn away, and I fall into the door frame for support.
Time slows to a crawl.
Blood splatters across the bookcase behind him, ruining the beautifully bound leather books. My pulse rapid, my breathing shallow as pain rips through my chest so much that I’m convinced it’s cracked open.
My knees weaken, threatening to collapse as the weight of seeing Luca motionless, slumped over his desk.
Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.
“No. No, no, no! Roman.”
I barely recognise the shrill panic of my voice.
A woman dressed in black, with a dangerous elegance about her stands with her phone raised snapping a picture as if it’s a normal day out at the park and she’s making a memory.
My heart pounds erratically, adrenaline pumping through my veins. I need a weapon. Something— anything —to defend myself. My fingers close around a heavy ornament, and I launch it as hard as I can at the woman who has just killed the person I love more than anything in this world.
Because I do.
I love that man.
Moving with a grace so fluid it’s almost inhuman, she ducks out the way, and the ornament smashes into the wall behind her, shattering into a storm of shards that rain down with my tears.
She arches a perfectly shaped eyebrow, her piercing icy blue eyes fixate on me, studying me as if I’m a puzzle that she needs to solve.
“Really?”
My legs finally give way, and I crumple to the floor as a sob claws at my throat. My ears roar with the sound of my own blood pumping through me.
“You must be Layla Johnson.” Her voice seeps through the chaos of my mind, distorted and muted.
I blink through the unshed tears, and it’s as if I’m having a weird out of body experience, I’m looking down on myself, broken on the office floor. My heart breaking.
“Just shoot me already.” I hear myself say the words, but I don’t remember saying them, I clench my eyes shut, waiting for the darkness to erase the pain that makes it hard to breath.
“You better be fucking joking that you’re giving up that easily, sunshine.”
The familiar voice, his voice pierces through the fog. I blink. Luca crouches in front of me, alive, the smudge of red on his cheek glaring like a cruel joke.
He puts his hand out, and I just stare at him.
“Layla, meet Kara Snow.”
My gaze drifts down to my hands, shaking and smeared with a sticky red substance that glistens like blood, but it feels off. It’s too thick, too gooey.
“This is fake? What the fuck is going on!”
“Nice to meet you.” Kara sticks out her hand with a serene smile, it feels out of place, it’s feels absurd, and I can only stare between the pair of them. Torn between rage, confusion, and relief at seeing him breathing. With stupid fake blood on his, stupid handsome face.
“I thought you were dead.” Tears fill my eyes again. “I thought you were—”
“He needs to be dead, as do you.”
I search his eyes, his face, his handsome stupid face with fake blood running over it. I reach out and run my finger over the fake bullet wound on his head.
“Grandad needs moving,” I blurt out, not following anything that is happening. “He’s not safe. Terry is behind what happened on Sunday, he sent someone to get the—” I stop myself and glance at Kara, I don’t know this woman. “Box.”
“Have you got what you need, Kara?”
“It will buy you some time, just tell me when you want it released, and I’ll take care of the rest. Watch your back, Knight. Layla, it’s been a pleasure.” It has not been a pleasure. She nods once more at Luca.
“Oh, Kara,” Luca calls after her, “did you want to say goodbye to Roman before you go?” The woman doesn’t turn around, but her hand comes up without missing a beat and she sticks her middle finger up.
He laughs, the sound rich and warm.
“Always a pleasure.”
And with that she’s gone, and I’m sitting there looking to Luca for some sort of explanation to what the hell has just happened.
I stand and the room tilts and my vision blurs as I wobble into Luca.
“Easy.” He grips my elbow.
I push him off me, “You’re a prick, a little bit of a heads-up would be nice.”
“About what?” he asks, leading me over to the desk chair.
“That you’re in here faking your death, I think I’ve aged ten years.” I wrench my arm out of his and put distance between us. “I thought you were dead.” I ball my fist up, but he sees the move before I make contact, his eyes flashing.
“What have I told you?”
“Hit you! I want to castrate you, you piece of shit.”
“There she is.” He kisses me on my nose.
“You fucking—”
“I’m fine, Layla.” He cups my cheek. “Your grandad is also fine. I’d never have left him in the care home unprotected. He’s safe, no one will get anywhere near him again.”
At a knock at the door we turn to find Roman standing there, blood splattered all over his face, his top saturated in it.
“Did someone call?”
“That took you too long,” I snap. “Don’t you fucking smirk, Luca Knight, I swear to God, I will shove it up your arse. I scream like a banshee and you fucking knock?”
“It’s called manners.”
I hold up my finger. “Don’t push me.”
He leans in and takes it in his mouth and sucks.
I roll my eyes.
“I’ll leave you two to it,” Roman says.
“Anything?” Luca calls after him.
“No, fucking man has balls of steel, oooh!” His face lights up. “I’ve not tried that angle yet.”
“I don’t want to know,” I say holding up my hands.
“Are you okay?” He asks nibbling each of my fingertips, before taking each knuckle to his lips individually kissing each one.
“No, Luca, I’m not okay.”
“You love me.”
“Don’t look so arrogant and proud of yourself. You love me too.”
“Love is a weakness.”
“And I’m yours,” I reply, my eyes searching his face.
“Yes,” he agrees. “From the moment you pulled me out of that car, sunshine.” He drops my hands and grips my cheeks roughly. “You are my fucking world, and love doesn’t describe the feelings I have for you. I want to burn London to the ground. I want to walk away as the last embers go out and turn my back on everything I have ever known. You have made me think that maybe a man like me can have more.”
“You can,” I whisper. “We can walk away, Luca.” I plead with him, but he’s already shaking his head, and I grip his hands on my cheeks. “Yes.” My eyes are wide and beseeching. “You can, we can. We-we don’t have to do whatever you’re planning.”
“You’re not safe, Layla. This isn’t the time to run away. This is the time to fight.”
“But who are we even fighting?” I snap angrily. “The government? The Covenant? Albanians? Who even is our enemy, Luca?”
“They all are. Do you know what this is?” He turns, holding a piece of paper. I shake my head. “This is a fucking government contract for your murder.”
My jaw drops. “What?”
“Whatever your parents found, it’s enough to want you dead, sunshine.” He throws it on the floor and walks back to me, gripping my neck and pulling me to him, smashing his lips to mine.
Desperation fuels him, his tongue thrusting into my mouth, his movements harsh, rough and impatient.
He breaks the kiss, his forehead resting against mine, our breaths mingling. I fist his shirt.
“I can’t walk away, sunshine, not yet. Not while you’re a target.”
I reach into my back pocket and pull out the hard drive. “I think whatever is on this, is what they want. And I think this is everything that corrupts half of the standing cabinet members of the government. This must be why Grandad was attacked and why they want me dead.”
He looks at it, something so small and normal that will bring it all down.