Chapter 51
TOM
Water rushes over my face, through the towel, into my mouth, up my nose. My lungs scream for air. My throat convulses. The sound of it—the endless rush, the hiss of the shower—becomes all there is.
I can’t breathe.
I thrash against the tape holding my wrists to the toilet, but there’s no strength left, only panic. The instinct to survive overpowers everything—thought, reason, dignity. My body becomes a thing trying not to drown.
And just when I think I’m going to pass out, when the burning in my chest turns white-hot and the edges of my vision blur—Daniel pulls the towel away.
I gasp. A ragged, animal noise. Air floods in, harsh and raw. I cough, splutter, twist onto my side, choking up water, bile, fragments of panic.
Daniel watches me, chest heaving, face pale and shining with sweat. His hands shake, but his eyes are wild, fixed, burning.
“You made me do that,” he says quietly.
I can barely form words.
He shakes his head, crouching in front of me. “I needed you to listen.”
“By drowning me?” I rasp. “You’ve lost your fucking mind.”
He doesn’t answer. Just stares. The silence stretches. The drip-drip from the showerhead fills the space like a metronome.
“Daniel, listen to me,” I start, forcing my voice steady. “I don’t have what you think I have.”
He laughs—short, bitter. “Bullshit. Your dad dies, and suddenly you’ve got a new house, new furniture, a new car. Long term sabbatical. You think I don’t see it?”
“It’s not like that.”
“Then tell me how it is.”
My mind races. I could lie, but he’ll see through it. He always could. He knows my tells—the way my voice rises, the twitch in my jaw. He used to find it endearing. Now it’s ammunition.
“I did get money,” I admit. I don’t say it out loud, but after inheritance tax, it was about one-point-six million.
His eyes flash.
“Most of it went into this house,” I continue quickly. Again, not that I’m telling him this, but it was around nine hundred thousand, gone straight into the purchase. “The rest—it’s tied up. Locked away in schemes, investments, stuff I can’t access. Not tonight. I can’t get to it, Daniel.”
Again, this is true. Most of it is not readily accessible.
He tilts his head, studying me. “How much can you get?”
“I told you, thirty thousand. Maybe thirty-five at most.”
He gives a humourless smile. “You expect me to believe that?”
“It’s the truth.”
“Truth?” he snorts. “You don’t know what the truth is, Tom. You’re a liar, you always have been! A liar and a cheat.”
My throat tightens. I can’t find my voice.
Daniel crouches again, inches from my face. His breath smells faintly of whisky and toothpaste. “Sneaking off, behind my back. Your weekly hookups with lover boy in that sleazy hotel.”
I say nothing. Even now, the guilt kills me.
“I felt sick when I found out,” he continues. “When I got those videos.”
I have no idea what he’s talking about. “Videos?” I ask. “What videos?”
He shakes his head, eyes burning into me. “Videos of you and him, walking into that hotel on Park Street, every week.”
My heart stops for a beat.
The hotel on Park Street.
Our regular meeting point outside of work. Mine and Guy’s time together, alone.
Daniel knew about it.
“That’s how you found out?” I whisper.
“They came from some mystery number. And it was clear as day what was going on. It still makes me sick to think of you and him together, behind my back.”
My brain is a whirlwind. I never knew how Daniel had found out about me and Guy, but now, the truth is coming out.
“Why didn’t you say?” I stutter.
“I didn’t need to. You just admitted it as soon as I challenged you,” Daniel hisses.
“Challenge” is a light word. The last time we talked about this was the night Daniel punched me in the face, the first time he was violent, and the last time we called ourselves a couple.
Those videos broke us apart.
“Who sent them to you?” I have to ask.
“Well, for a long time, I had no idea. Figured it was a friend or his wife.”
Evelyn.
“Yeah,” Daniel continues, “I found out he had a wife too. Both as shameful as each other.”
My mouth goes dry. “Who sent it?”
“It was from an unrecognised number, but it hit me the other day, when I was looking through your laptop, it would be worth a check. It didn’t take long to match it to one of your contacts.”
“Who?” I demand a third time.
Daniel gives me a self-righteous smile. “Craig,” Daniel says. “Your friend. The copper.”
That can’t be true. My brain rejects it outright. Craig wouldn’t—he couldn’t.
But Daniel’s eyes are steady, convinced.
“Why would Craig—”
“No idea,” Daniel snaps. “Maybe he thought I deserved to see what you were doing behind my back.”
Why, why would Craig do that?
“But it doesn’t matter now though does it,” Daniel says with venom.
“Daniel...” I whisper.
“Dead as a dodo. Sliced up and left on the pavement like the trash he is. He got what was coming to him,” he hisses.
There’s something in his voice that makes me look up.
He’s staring past me, eyes unfocused, almost… detached.
I’m struggling to process this—what is Daniel telling me?
He got what was coming to him.
“What do you mean? What did you do?” I plead.
“What did I do?!” he shouts. “You were the one sneaking around, lying, betraying me! You broke us, Tom. You made me do everything that came after!” He slaps me again, harder this time. My head cracks against the porcelain.
I taste blood. My ears ring.
He crouches again, grabs the towel. “Let’s try this one more time, yeah?”
“No—please, don’t—”
The towel comes down again. The water hits.
This time, I don’t even fight. My body convulses once, twice. The world dissolves into a blur of sound and colour, the hiss of water, the burning in my lungs, the black spots blooming behind my eyes.
“Where is my money?!” Daniel screams.
Just as I’m about to pass out, the towel is off me again. I gasp as much air as I can. “Daniel… please,” I splutter. “I don’t have that much. Give me a few days and I can help you.”
I flinch as he grabs the towel again.
“Daniel, please,” I gasp. “You don’t have to—”
He doesn’t listen.
The towel hits my face again, wet and heavy. The water starts instantly. Cold this time. I can’t scream. The sound turns into bubbles, trapped under fabric. My lungs seize. My body jerks violently.
I try to tilt my head, to move away, but his grip is iron. The panic consumes everything. Memories flash behind my eyes—Guy’s smile, my dad’s laugh, Craig’s steady voice telling me to stay away from danger.
When the towel finally lifts, I vomit water onto the tiles. My vision swims.
Daniel crouches close, breathing hard, eyes wild but glistening. “Just tell me where it is,” he says softly, almost pleading now. “Please, Tom. Just tell me, and this ends.”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“Liar!”
Daniel storms out of the bathroom. For a moment, all I can hear is my own breathing — rough, ragged, animal. Water still drips from the shower, pooling under my knees. The air smells like damp fear and iron.
Downstairs, a door slams. Footsteps. Then silence. Maybe he’s gone. Maybe it’s over.
But I know better.
The house hums with something electric — the kind of quiet that comes before a scream. My pulse thunders in my ears. And then it starts again: the heavy tread on the stairs, faster this time, heavier.
When Daniel bursts back into the bathroom, he looks like someone else. His pupils blown wide, his face slick with sweat.
Possessed.
In his hand — a teaspoon.
For a second, my mind refuses to register it. The banality of it. A kitchen spoon, shining under the harsh light. But then I see how tightly he’s gripping it, the tremor in his wrist, and suddenly it’s worse than any knife.
He drops to his knees in front of me, grabs my throat, jerking my head back so hard my neck cracks. His breath is sour, furious, inches from my face.
“This is your last chance,” he spits. “Tell me you can transfer the money tonight.”
“Daniel, please—”
He raises the spoon, the curved edge trembling above my cheek.
“Or I’ll take your eye out.”
The words hit like a gunshot. My vision tunnels.
The metal is cold when it touches my skin. He presses the rounded tip into the flesh just below my eyelid, enough to make the world blur. My body tries to flinch, but the tape holds me fast.
“Tell me!” he shouts. His voice cracks, part rage, part despair.
“I can’t,” I choke out. “Daniel, I can’t—”
The spoon presses harder. My eye floods with tears, and somewhere deep in the dark part of me that still thinks logically, I realise he will actually do it.
Then his grip tightens — and the world narrows to that small, terrible point of pressure as he pushes the spoon in.