Chapter 52
SAM
The vase on the windowsill is the nearest heavy thing and violent improvisation is Sam’s second language.
He swings.
The vase connects with a wet, indisputable thunk against the man’s temple. He drops the spoon as if it has burned him. For a dizzy second, he falls back, mouth open, eyes widening into the shape of a man who has miscalculated his currency of fear.
Tom gasps for breath as his attacker’s hand is released from his throat.
The assailant recovers faster than a person should.
He lunges like a dog with a taste for chaos, grabbing at Sam with brittle anger, fingers clawing for anything to hold.
The two of them collapse backwards, a tangle of limbs and rage on the landing.
Sam feels a knee slam into his ribs, hears the breath leaving him in a harsh little knock.
He tastes copper. He tastes adrenaline. He hits back.
They roll. His attacker lands a punch that stings across Sam’s jaw. Sam is faster, cleverer in the sorts of scrapes that require improvisation and answers with the heel of his hand to the face. He hooks an ankle — the man overbalances. Sam plants a foot and gives him a hard shove.
He tumbles down the stairs in a horrible, ungainly flop. The sound of him hitting wood is grotesque and final: a thud, a soft roll, a silence.
Sam is up instantly. For half a beat he stands on the landing with his heart in his palms, listening for a startled groan or the metallic clatter of someone reaching for a weapon.
Nothing. The body lies silently at the bottom of the stairs.
Sam massages his ribs, still stinging from the blow they received.
He’s been in more fights than he can count — the kind that start with a look and end with a broken bottle.
He grew up around people who solved problems with fists first and feelings later.
He learned early that you don’t always win, but you make sure they remember you were there.
Violence isn’t new to him — it’s muscle memory.
After a final look at the crumpled body at the foot of the stairs, Sam rushes back to the bathroom. “You okay?” he asks.
Tom is still coughing and just nods through it.
Sam scrabbles through the bathroom cabinet like a man picking through pockets after a fight, until his fingers close around a pair of tiny nail scissors. He slices through the tape around Tom’s wrists in one decisive sweep. The skin underneath is red and raw and trembling.
Tom slumps backward against the tiles, still coughing. Sam pauses, allowing him to breathe. His eyes are enormous. “You… how did you—” His voice breaks. “Why are you here?”
Sam thinks fast. The truth that he’d been watching the CCTV, that he’d seen his attacker knock him out in the bedroom, can’t be shared.
“I came back,” he says instead. “James and Pete had a rough day. I came to give you the heads up.”
“What happened?” Tom fires back.
“That doesn’t matter now. How are you feeling?”
Tom’s face crumples into gratitude and something else — confusion, amazement, a raw kind of trust. “Thank you,” he manages.
“Who was that?” Sam asks.
“Daniel…my ex-husband,” Tom admits. “He’s been following me, coming into my house. He’s after money. You were right earlier when you said you saw him trying to get in. I think he has my spare key.”
“Shit, you might need to get the locks changed then.”
Tom almost laughs. “You think?”
So, it was an ex, Sam thinks. Exactly the kind of complication we don’t need right now.
Sam holds out a hand and pulls Tom up. They move to the landing together and peer down.
The floor is empty.
“Where is he?” Tom whispers, panic lacing his voice now.
“He was here,” Sam confirms. “He was at the bottom of the stairs.”
“I need to call the police,” Tom says, because that is what you are supposed to do when someone assaults you. His hands are still shaking; his voice will not be steadied by the legalities Sam is about to articulate.
“No,” Sam says — flat , quick. The word is small and absolute.
Tom blinks. “What?”
“I don’t want the police here while I’m here,” Sam says. He watches Tom register his look, the way his brows pull together like he’s trying to problem-solve a foreign language. “I’ve had a… history with the police before. It’s complicated.”
Tom’s jaw tenses. “Okay… but I need to call them.”
“Yeah, I know. I just don’t want to be involved.”
Tom scrunches his face, still processing what’s unfolded tonight.
“I’ll go, then you can call them. You okay to be alone?” Sam asks.
Tom nods, the movement small. “Thank you.”
They both go downstairs for one final check that Daniel is not still in the house, then Sam turns and leaves as quickly as he can out the front door. Keeping an eye out for any movement around him, he darts to his car and drives away.
That was a detour Sam hadn’t planned for tonight.
When he saw events unfolding on the CCTV, Sam knew he had to intervene. He’s not some cape-wearing saviour; he doesn’t believe in being a hero. But he knows when a situation needs handling, and Tom dead on a bathroom floor would have been very bad for business.
Tom needs to stay upright. Focused. Useful.
Daniel was noise — dangerous, erratic noise — and Sam doesn’t tolerate interference.
Not from ex-husbands, not from anyone.
Whatever is in motion, Tom still has a part to play.
And Sam intends to make sure the stage stays clear.