Chapter 17 Rhys
Rhys
Rhys took a slow sip of coffee, watching commuters line the streets below.
They cast long shadows in the early morning light.
Most were heading in the direction of the nearest tube station, and more than a few would soon be going into the City, but he was pleased not to be joining them this morning.
He glanced behind him, wearing only his old joggers.
The door to the bedroom was ajar, giving him a brief glimpse of the artificial aurora cast upon the ceiling. Penny remained asleep. She’d been draped over him for most of the night, and—as much as he had wanted to remain in bed with her—his bladder had been about to explode.
A flash of light caught his eye on the coffee table—his phone. The Monopoly game was strewn on the floor next to it, a scattering of little red hotels around it.
Rhys swiped his phone off the floor, noticing he had multiple missed messages in the family group chat. Most were from last night.
Just got a notification through. Rhys has arrived at my place
ROMAN
Good
JENSEN
Took him long enough
WARREN
There was an hour gap before the messages began again.
Oh my god
ROMAN
He’s trying to play strip fucking Monopoly
ROMAN
That’s actually embarrassing
WARREN
Maybe you should stop spying on them
JENSEN
I swear a fucking spoon could come up with a better idea than that
ROMAN
Scratch that, she’s game. Someone for everyone, I guess
ROMAN
Stop watching them, it’s weird
ALDOUS
On an unrelated note, never stay at a hotel owned by Rhys
ROMAN
Rhys sent his gaze flying across the room.
Fuck. He’d forgotten about Roman’s cameras.
His nostrils flared in anger as he saw the little camera overlooking the room.
He didn’t care too much about his own nudity—a decade-long stretch in prison had rid him of any self-consciousness—but Penny was different.
He punched the ‘call’ button, holding the phone to his ear.
Given the time difference, Rhys expected the call to go to voicemail, but he was surprised when Roman picked up. “’Ello, gorgeous.”
Rhys didn’t beat about the bush. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” he hissed, not wanting to wake Penny up.
“If I had a dollar every time someone started a conversation with me like that, I’d be richer than you.”
“How much did you see on the cameras last night?”
“I dipped out when you asked for her underwear,” Roman answered, his voice echoing slightly. “I’m not a pervert.”
Rhys bit back on his laugh of disbelief. “Oh really?”
“All I did was check in on the cameras to make sure you were okay. It was literally thirty seconds. I heard you offering to come to an arrangement and thought she was going to laugh in your face. Once I realised she was into it, I turned the cameras off.”
He wasn’t convinced. “Swear on Jasmine’s life?” If there was one way to get Roman to tell the truth, it was to bring his beloved Dalmatian into contention.
“For god’s sake, I swear on Jasmine’s life. Happy?”
“Ecstatic,” he replied flatly. “Why are you up?” Given the time difference, Roman should be fast asleep in the enormous bed he, Aldous, and Brianna shared.
Roman inhaled in a sigh. “I’m on a job with Bri’s dad.
Came up last minute. While I have you on the phone, I’ve sent an email to your inbox.
Dex and Laila sent it to me. It’s basically a file full of what they’ve gathered on Chomsky so far.
They can meet up at the end of the week, by the way. The details are included in the email.”
“I’ll take a look at it. Tell them tha—”
“Shit, gotta go. My work’s just walked through the door. Byeeee.”
At the abrupt end to the call, Rhys took the chance to go through the file Roman had sent over.
He sat at the breakfast bar, his coffee in hand, scrolling through a mountain of unread emails.
Finally, he found it, hiding underneath a marketing email trying to entice him to rent a yacht in the south of France. Again.
Dex and Laila had certainly been thorough.
What they’d gathered on Chomsky went all the way back to the man’s childhood.
Rhys scrolled through his criminal record.
He exhaled a surprised breath: arson, burglary, joyriding, assault.
He’d served time at a young offenders' institute as a result, but it was the next document that caught his eye.
An autopsy report. And another. And another. And another.
Rhys soon lost count. The deaths went back twenty-five years, all in some way related to Chomsky.
Dex and Laila had left notes on each, identifying who they were.
Chomsky’s neighbour. His brother-in-law.
His assistant. His accountant. His driver.
An ex-girlfriend. Another ex-girlfriend.
Some were reported to be accidental. Others were suicides.
A few of the more gruesome deaths could only have been murders.
The missing person reports were worse, each with a photograph of the individual in happier times.
Dex and Laila had also included photographs of Chomsky taken at what looked like official functions, rubbing shoulders with people of importance.
Again, there were notes identifying them; members of parliament, local journalists, police officers, councillors, local landowners, yet more police officers, mayors, solicitors, coroners.
On and on and on and on.
Rhys raked a hand over his face, realising how weary he’d become whilst he’d been absorbed in the files. He went to take a sip of coffee, but recoiled when he discovered it had gone cold.
He placed his phone down. There were more files to go through, but he’d seen enough to understand exactly how well-connected Chomsky was—how far his influence extended. And Rhys had the good grace to understand exactly how much danger they were in.
Fuck, he was glad Dex and Laila could meet so soon.
He glanced up as a rhythmic buzzing sound came from the bedroom, loud enough to wake the dead. Sure enough, it was quickly followed by what he assumed were Penny’s nails scrabbling against the wooden bedside table. “Hello?” Penny’s voice was hoarse with sleep.
Rhys got to his feet and headed for the bedroom. Penny had spent far too much time setting up call forwarding on her phone, so he assumed it was someone she knew and not a spam caller, but there was something…uncertain in her voice that caught his attention.
He reached the bedroom doorway just as she spoke again. “Who else is there?” Penny asked, catching Rhys’s eye as she listened to the caller’s response. The duvet covers were strewn around her, covering her nudity. “And what about Joseph?”
Rhys’s spine straightened in an instant. She’d mentioned that name before—Joseph was the stepbrother she hated. The one who used to lock her in the fucking cellar.
So who was on the phone?
“I can’t guarantee anything but I’ll see what I can do.” Penny’s lips were thin as she said goodbye. She dropped the phone onto the bed, the covers almost swallowing it in a puff of fabric.
Rhys approached slowly, perching down on the bed beside her. “What’s wrong?” he murmured, stroking his palm over her bare shoulder. What could her family possibly want from her?
She bit her lip, somehow looking even more unsettled than he must have been reading through the files. “I need to ask you a favour. Another favour.”
“Anything.”
Penny worried at the inside of her cheek. “That was my stepmother. My father hasn’t got much time left. He wants to see me.”
That caught him by surprise. “Jesus, what happened?”
She shook her head. “It’s not as sudden as it sounds.
He’s…he’s been deteriorating for a while.
Liver failure. Originally, he needed a transplant.
I refused to even see if I was a match.” Her lips pressed together.
“Elaine—my stepmother—was furious. I thought I didn’t care if he lived or died.
He abandoned me when I needed him. He favoured my fucking sadist of a stepbrother purely because he was a boy, whilst I tried to do everything to make him… ”
Penny let her voice fall away, and Rhys pulled her into his arms, smoothing his palms along her spine in slow strokes. His lips fell onto the top of her head.
“I need closure.” Her voice was muffled against his shirt.
He pressed a kiss against her temple. Leaving the safety of Roman’s flat was a terrible idea, especially now he knew just how far Chomsky’s rot extended—they couldn’t even trust the police.
But, fuck, he couldn’t say no to Penny. “Okay,” he agreed, pulling back to look her in the eye. “Where are we going?”
Her bottom lip juddered slightly. “Home.”