Chapter 24
Finn
Turns out, heartbreak tastes exactly the same as a cold pizza at midnight.
The light in our flat share has gone the colour of dishwater. I’ve been sitting in the same spot on the sofa for two hours, watching the shadows creep across the walls. It’s too quiet. Scottie’s out somewhere again, leaving me with an army of demons and hellscapes of intrusive thoughts.
I’ve got the telly on – some quiz show with too much shouting and zero brain cells – but I’m not watching it. The volume’s high enough to cover the silence, but it still feels like I’m echoing.
I grab a slice of pizza from the box on the coffee table and lean back. It’s dry, and the cheese has set like rubber. I eat it anyway.
Four days since she was right next to me at the MacKenzie event. Four days of replaying every second, every micro-expression that crossed her face.
She looked good.
Although… She looked breakable underneath that shell.
Untouchable. Every inch of her a line I used to be allowed to cross.
That soft perfume she wears, the one that makes my IQ drop with every inhale.
She tried not to look at me directly. But when our eyes met, I saw a flash of hurt before the walls slammed back up.
But she didn’t waver when we took that picture. Held herself steady beside me, shoulder to shoulder as though we hadn’t been naked in her bed a week ago, making promises with our bodies we weren’t brave enough to speak out loud.
I’d told myself I could handle this event. A bit of PR. Flash a smile. Sign a jersey. Pretend I’m not splitting at the seams inside.
Lie of the fucking year.
Today is Valentine’s Day, and she’s posted a photo of us on my socials. Her all glowing and gorgeous, me looking at her like she hung the bloody moon. And it makes me want to punch a wall, kiss her senseless, and throw up in the same breath.
I get up with a groan and drag myself to the kitchen, flicking on lights as I go. The refrigerator offers slim pickings: half a block of cheddar with suspicious blue spots and milk that’s a day from walking out on its own. There’s a beer in the back. I don’t take it.
Behind a half-empty takeaway container, I find a lone can of Irn Bru. I open it with one hand, and the sweet taste hits my tongue. When I shut the fridge, my dull reflection winks back in the steel.
Silly bastard.
Marseille would’ve been easier, I think as I make my way back to the couch. Sunshine, clean slate, fresh start, life-changing money, and security. Everything I never had growing up. Theo wanted me to take it.
And I nearly did.
But then I saw her at the signing. Putting on an act for the cameras, answering questions she hated, pretending we were still something. She’s got this way of carrying other people’s weight without ever letting them see her knees buckle.
I just stood there, being looked at like I was hers.
And I’m not.
But I know that If I’d gone to Marseille, I’d be rich and miserable. I’d be a quitter with a tan. I’m tired of packing up my damage and calling it reinvention, of leaving when things get hard.
I take my phone out of my pocket and unlock it. Charlie’s text from yesterday still sits there:
You better be serious about staying. I staked my name on you. Don’t make me regret it.
I won’t.
I said say no to Marseille because I couldn’t stomach the thought of being in another country while Theo MacMickin walked through life, shouldering it all, pretending she can do it all and we never mattered.
I know she doesn’t ask for anything, and she won’t ever say she needs me.
But I’ll be here for her anyway.
I’m staying for Theo, even if she doesn’t want me to. Even if the next few months of our ‘relationship’ are pure theatre. Performance. I’m desperate enough to take what I can get.
Pathetic doesn’t even begin to cover it.
It’s fucking ironic: from faking I loved her to faking I don’t.
I scrub a hand over my face. Skin sandpapered, brain splintered. I need to shave. Need to sleep.
The thing is, I simply can’t get on a plane to France knowing I’d be running away.
From the team that gave me a chance. From Theo, who believed in me when I was nothing but a PR disaster with a porn tape.
So yeah, I’m also staying because I need to prove something.
To Charlie, to the team, to myself. That I can stick with something even when it gets tough.
And it’s tough now, Christ, it’s brutal. Training with a heart that’s torn down the middle, smiling for the press when all I want to do is crawl into bed and stay there.
But I’m going to make it work. I’ll pull my shit together.
I’ll bag another brand, a proper one. If I bring in a deal, I prove I’m not dead weight.
Not to the team, not to the agency. And not to the woman who saw something in me before I knew it was there.
Even if she doesn’t want me, I’ll be around. I’ll be here for her.
I toss the pizza crust in the box.
I’ll show her I’ve got loyalty in me too. Theo’s loyalty is relentless. She bleeds for people, cleans up after them, and makes sure the carpet doesn’t stain. I want to be the kind of man who deserves that.
Who deserves her.
And I can’t be that man in Marseille.
The telly howls into the silence. I stab the remote, and the flat collapses into quiet. I scroll on my phone and let the algorithm spoon-feed me other people’s nights out and filtered lives.
Scroll. Swipe. Double tap.
And then I see him.
Kit Lascelles-Finch.
I should’ve blocked that motherfucker. But I didn’t.
And now Kit’s face fills my screen. He’s leaning on wrought-iron railings – cigarette in hand, velvet jacket slung over his shoulder – outside a tall, nondescript Georgian townhouse with pillars.
A single plaque on the wall reads Members Only in matte brass.
The tagged location: The Wolf Room. Edinburgh New Town.
So that’s where he’s slithering right now. I’ve heard the name before, a place where the rich go to misbehave and never get caught.
I watch the story one more time.
My pulse is in my teeth. The room’s too small to hold the heat boiling under my skin. There’s nothing I can fix with Theo. No undoing it, no rewinding the last few days. But I can do this.
So I grab my keys.
There’s the brass plaque, a velvet rope, and a wall of silence behind it. Two doormen in matching suits guard the entrance like it’s MI5. Not bulky lads either. Lean, quiet, and dead serious. You don’t get bounced from this place, you get erased.
I clock the scanner wand tucked behind the door frame. No one’s walking in here with a phone or an ounce of shame.
I nod once. ‘Evenin’.’
The one on the left gives me a once-over, not impressed. The one on the right narrows his eyes as if he’s trying to place me but can’t decide if I belong in the papers or on the list or both.
‘You on the book?’ Left one asks.
‘Not officially,’ I say.
Then the bouncer on the right recognises me. His mouth stays still, but I see the little click behind his eyes when the penny drops. ‘Finn Lennox?’
‘Aye, the very one.’
‘My wee brother’s a fan. Strong season.’
‘Thanks, man.’
He nods, reaching for the drawer behind him. I don’t have to flash anything, my face does the job.
‘Phone,’ he says, and I hand it over. He locks it in one of those rubber sleeves with a snap, drops it into the drawer, and unhooks the rope. ‘No photos. No names. No trouble.’
‘No promises.’ I say with a wink. Can’t help myself.
The rope falls, the door swings wide, and I walk into the dark.
Inside, the air presses in. Everything is low-lit and deliberate, curated to feel secretive. Music pulses from the walls.
I don’t hang about.
I cut through a corridor lined with smoked mirrors and no reflections I want to see and step into something that looks like a red-lit fever dream.
Booths sunken into walls, half-pulled curtains hiding sins no one’s pretending to regret.
Champagne is sweating in silver buckets, glittering watches are flashing as hands wander.
Laughter pitched just low enough to make you wonder what it’s covering.
It’s a depraved playground where bad behaviour’s the whole fucking point, so they don’t bother pretending to be good.
There’s Kit, lounging like a Roman emperor mid-orgy. Centre of his own little solar system. Shirt half undone, mouth curled as if he’s said something clever. High as a fucking kite. He’s got a hand on a girl’s knee and another wrapped around a whisky tumbler.
Probably paid for with that fucking sex tape he made of me, Millie, and Olivia.
My vision tunnels, and pressure needles the backs of my eyeballs. The bass drops out, and all I feel is the grind of my teeth and the throbbing urge to drive him through the wall.
He sees me, eventually. The second I step into his line of sight, the grin twitches.
‘Well, well. Scotland’s favourite redemption story,’ he drawls, like we’re old pals grabbing pints after training. ‘Didn’t think you’d be allowed in here, old chap. Dress code and all that.’
‘We need to talk.’
He pushes up from the booth in that spoilt way of his, slow and fluid, as if he’s never had to rush for anything in his life.
I stop in front of him, close enough to smell the whisky on his breath. ‘I want to hear it from you. Did you leak it?’
His gaze is drifting somewhere over my shoulder. I’m boring him already. ‘Leak what, Lennox?’
‘Don’t piss about. The video. You set us up.’
He sips from his crystal tumbler as if we’re at a garden party. ‘Christ, at least buy me a drink first. Or is this another one of your public meltdowns?’
That’s his trick, reframe fury as hysteria, so any counterpunch makes you the unstable one. I know the script.
When I speak, my voice is quieter than the ice clinking in his glass. Cold, too. ‘You filmed us without consent. Sold it. Let us carry the fallout while you sat here polishing your fucking cufflinks.’
He rolls his eyes. ‘What exactly do you think this is, Finn? A morality tribunal? You got caught shagging in a chalet with a nanny cam hidden in a teddy bear. Boo fucking hoo. Half the lads in this place have done worse this week. Don’t make a fuss.
You’re a fuck up by nature, already sliding downhill. I merely gave you a nudge.’
A hot wire of rage scorches up my throat, logic burned away. ‘Sliding, was I? Funny that I’m still standing. Unlike you, I sorted my shit, and now I know exactly who pushed me. No one drags me or the people I care about through the gutter, you rancid wee fuck.’
‘Oh, I see. You’re doing the whole reformed act. Righteous boyfriend now, is it? Playing knight for your little missus?’
My blood’s howling for revenge. His face, my fist, the wall. Doesn’t matter. Just break something. He doesn’t know Theo, he’s never met her. But of course, he’s seen the photos, and he’s seeing the look on my face, so he decided to aim straight for it.
Sick bastard.
Kit smiles, ripe with rotted charm. ‘They always go for the broken ones, don’t they? The ones with a saviour complex? Sweet of her, really. Being the girlfriend of a rabid dog on a lead.’
He’s off his face, can’t even keep his pupils still. I start to turn away with gritted teeth. That piece of shite isn’t worth it.
He sniffs and rolls his shoulder. ‘Hope she knows what she’s doing. Wouldn’t want her ending up just another dumb bitch in your next video.’ He laughs. ‘Phone me when you’re done. Would love a turn before you chuck her.’
My whole body goes still. Heat floods my ears. The room tilts.
‘What the fuck did you just say?’