Chapter 57
DANIEL
Daniel sits in the car, engine off, the only sound the low hiss of rain on the windscreen.
His body throbs with pain — ribs, shoulder, the dull pulse behind his eyes from where he hit the stairs.
Every movement feels jagged. He grips the steering wheel, trying to steady his breathing, but his chest still rattles like a cracked pipe.
The laptop sits on the passenger seat. His last hope.
He’s already past his midnight deadline. The people he owes don’t do grace periods. They do reminders — sharp, physical ones. He’s seen what happens when they get impatient.
He checks his phone again. No new messages, but he knows they’re coming.
They know where he lives. They know his car.
They’ll be looking all the right places.
If Tom’s called the police — and he will have, of course he will — then there’ll be sirens in the mix too.
The debt collectors and the law, a tag team designed to crush whatever’s left of him.
He looks at the laptop again, rubs his jaw. This was his desperate last attempt. To spend the last few hours trying to get into Tom’s online banking. He’d not tried previously because he didn’t want it to be flagged if he got it wrong. But we’re beyond that now.
Tom inherited over a million. Daniel knows it. He was married to him; he’s entitled to a share. Legally, ethically. That’s what he told himself at first.
But before he even made a start with his banking, he noticed the video files. A folder on the desktop that wasn’t there last time he looked.
He wasn’t really interested in them, but curiosity is a weakness he’s never learned to master. He clicked. And then clicked again.
What he saw made his stomach turn.
The first few were small — arguments, shouting, a shove, a thrown glass.
Then worse: violence, fear. Always the same man — tall, sharp, angry — and another man taking the hits.
The footage had the eerie, fixed perspective of CCTV, emotion drained by cold technology.
But the final video… that one he watched twice.
The fight in the kitchen. The chaos. The man — the victim — trying to fight back, failing. And the knife. Over and over.
Daniel had seen death before, but not like that.
He recognised the attacker. Not the name — that hadn’t come up — but the face. He’d seen him leave the same house he’d watched Tom and his new boyfriend come out of as he followed them.
So, this is what Tom’s caught up in. Wealth, deceit, violence.
And maybe, just maybe, opportunity.
He can use this. A video of a man being murdered — that’s leverage. That’s worth something. If the people in that house are mixed up in it, they’ll pay to make it go away.
He doesn’t need much. Just enough to disappear. Five hundred thousand. That’s the figure echoing in his skull like a hymn. Enough to clear the debts and start over somewhere warm. Somewhere without cold English rain or polite letters that become threats.
He leans back and stares out the windscreen.
He’s parked outside their house. It’s a handsome place, too handsome. Lights low but still on inside. He can smell the money from here.
He reaches into the glove compartment and pulls out the gun.
Cold, heavier than it looks. It isn’t his—it belonged to one of the men who lent him money, the kind who laugh when you ask for receipts.
They didn’t lend to be repaid; they lent to own you.
He’d gone back to his house to grab it. After what happened at Tom’s earlier, it was clear he needed some added protection.
He doesn’t plan to use it. Not really. But desperation has a way of making promises it can’t keep.
He imagines how it’ll go. Knock on the door. Calm voice. “We need to talk.” Show them the video. Let them see the problem. Let them understand that unless he gets what he wants, that footage finds its way somewhere public. Simple business.
He’s good at sounding reasonable, even when he’s drowning.
Then he closes the laptop, tucks it under his arm, and opens the car door. The rain hits like cold needles. He pulls up his collar and starts walking toward the house.
His steps are slow, deliberate. The gun feels heavier with every one.
He hesitates at the gate. This is it—the final roll of the dice. The house looms over him, silent, unaware that its walls are about to hold one more desperate act.