In Too Deep

13. Chapter Thirteen

~Cara~

Kian and Marco kept talking, but it all sounded like white noise after Marco told me that my injuries had been intentional. Looking down at my hands, I could see them the way they looked when the paramedics lifted the bike off of them, bloodied and flattened, the bones broken, some of my fingers at odd angles. I could see them the way they used to be too, climbing over the keys of the piano, music flowing through them as they formed a connection between the music inside me and the piano.

The idea that someone had taken the one thing from me that brought me joy simply to send my brother a message, simply because of money, filled me with a fury stronger than anything I’d ever felt before. And Marco knew; he knew why it happened and that must be why he went out of his way to help me move on, buying me anything he could to make my life easier, getting me a job when I wanted to do something outside the house to feel useful again. I thought he was being supportive after my accident, but now I saw it for what it truly was.

Guilt.

Did that explain why he gave into my requests to see Kian, despite the very real dangers he knew about? Did seeing me find a new happiness in my life help to ease his conscience? He never took any actual steps to make it better, like getting out of his ridiculously dangerous business. This family ‘business’ had only ever brought me pain, as far as I could see. First, it took my parents, and then it took my music. Now, it might even take my life, or Marco’s, or Kian’s. Maybe even all of us.

Marco lied to me my whole life, and it seemed Kian hadn’t been entirely truthful with me either. As all the pieces began to slot into place in my head, there were still a few I couldn’t make fit.

I forced myself to focus again as Marco pulled himself over the back of the seat and handed Thomas’ phone back to Kian, telling him to set up a meeting with the man behind all of this.

Kian immediately opened up the messages on the phone, scrolling through them as I tried to fill in the blank spaces in everything that had happened today.

“You invited Thomas to our place,” I said to Kian, who glanced up at me for just a second before returning his attention to the phone. “You helped him get through the gate.”

“Yes, but I had no idea he worked for Park.” He continued reading through the messages, only half paying attention to me. “I had no idea he would come into the house.”

“Then why did you ask him over at all? What was so important that he had to drop off for you?”

When Kian looked up at me again, I could see in his eyes that he understood the question I really wanted answered: how did he know Thomas at all?

“Cara, let him finish what he’s doing,” Marco suggested, still in the back of the vehicle. When I glanced back, he actually seemed to be sitting on top of Thomas who, given the circumstances, was unable to move. “We can discuss the rest of it later.”

“No.” My firm refusal took them both by surprise, but I meant it. I was tired of being the only one who didn’t know what was going on. The fact that Marco didn’t want my questions answered must mean he already knew the answers. They both spoke about this ‘David Park’ like everyone knew him, but somewhere along the way, I’d been left behind, again. “He can damn well answer me now. Why did you invite Thomas over in the first place?”

Kian’s jaw clenched as he glanced back at Marco and I thought he might try to put me off too, just as Marco did, but he didn’t. Instead, he put the phone down on his lap and gave me his full attention.

“He was supposed to drop off some surveillance equipment that I could leave in the house to keep an eye on things after I left.”

“What?”

Immediately, I searched for a hidden meaning in his words, trying to think of a good reason he would want to keep an eye on things in my house. Maybe he wanted to protect me the same way that Marco did? Maybe they were just as crazy as each other?

But when I saw the regret in his eyes, I knew that couldn’t be it. There had to be another reason, something that had nothing to do with me. “You were spying on Marco?”

That made more sense. If Kian knew about this David Park guy, he must know about Marco’s business too. How much did he know?

“I was trying to,” Kian admitted. “I wanted to get incriminating evidence on him.”

He had to be telling me the truth since there was no reason he would be lying about this, but I still didn’t understand. “Why?”

“Because he’s a cop, Cara,” Marco interjected from the back. “He was working with this fucker, until he double crossed him.” He gave the man beneath him a sharp kick in the gut, jamming his heel backwards into Thomas’ stomach.

Kian didn’t look at them, though. He kept his eyes on me, watching my reaction, and when he didn’t refute Marco’s statement, or look at all surprised that Marco knew about it, I knew it must be true.

A police officer? If he wanted evidence on Marco, he must have known about the illegal things he was involved in. He wanted to expose Marco, put him in prison, and the sharp sting of betrayal flowed through my body again. “You lied to me. You said you weren’t trying to hurt him.”

“I said I wasn’t with the men who are after him. Semantics, maybe, but I didn’t technically lie.”

A poor excuse, and he knew it. “Are you honestly going to sit here with a straight face and say that in the two weeks since we met, you haven’t lied to me? You never even told me your real job!”

His grimace told me more than any denial ever could, and yet, he still tried to deny it. “I’ve tried not to lie to you, Cara. I knew more about you and Marco than I let on, certainly, but I haven’t out-and-out lied. The things I’ve told you about myself are all true. The connection that we’ve built together, that’s true too.”

“How can it be? And just how much did you know about me?” As I thought back to that first morning we met, the rush of people in the subway and the sound of his guitar, a new, horrible thought occurred to me. “Did you plan all of this? Did you use music, use me, to get to Marco?”

He didn’t deny it that time, nor did he answer my questions. He asked me one of his own, in what felt like a complete change of subject. “Do you remember me telling you about my friend who was killed?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“I’ll tell you,” he promised. “But you remember, right?”

Of course I did. I thought we were connecting, that we had that experience of loss in common, but all the while, he’d just been trying to worm his way closer to my brother.

I thought he cared about me. Suddenly, his reluctance to have sex with me made a lot more sense. He didn’t actually have any feelings for me at all. The whole thing had been an act, and I honestly felt like I might be sick.

“Cara, listen to me, please,” he begged, somehow sensing my panic and spiralling thoughts. “My friend was the police officer that Marco reached out to. He’s the one who was killed that day, and I thought… I was told that Marco did it.”

“What?” That question came not from me but from my brother. Obviously, that part of the story was news to him too. “Why would I…”

He trailed off before his hard gaze focused on the man still beneath him.

“Wait, let me guess? The report was filed by this asshole?” He kicked Thomas again, harder, three or four times as the man grunted in pain against his gag.

“I wanted justice for my friend. That’s why I went undercover, because no one else would take it seriously…” Kian’s eyes widened as something occurred to him, and he also turned towards the back of the car. “Take his gag off, Marco. I need to ask him something.”

From his pocket, my brother pulled out a switchblade, holding it up to Thomas’ face, seeming to enjoy the look of concern in the other man’s eyes until he cut through the fabric that had been preventing his speech.

“You’re all dead,” Thomas immediately started ranting at all of us. “Park will see right through this and he’ll kill you all. He’ll torture you first and then he’ll…”

“Shut the fuck up,” Kian growled at him. “Right now, you should be a lot more worried about us than him. All I want to know right now is how you got this operation approved.”

I didn’t have any idea what he was talking about but Thomas clearly did because he laughed in derision. “I didn’t. I can’t believe you actually thought I did. You handed in your resignation six months ago, the same time we went off the grid. As far as the Met is concerned, Kian O’Donnell no longer exists. You’ve been working for David Park this whole time.”

O’Donnell? My stomach twisted painfully as I realized he even lied to me about his name.

Kian didn’t even seem to notice that bit, too focused on his former friend. “And you were going to kill me too after you got to Marco? That was always your plan?”

Thomas didn’t bother to deny it. “Of course. I deliver Marco to him, Park takes over the business, I get enough money to retire to the Caribbean and never have to see any of this ever again. It’s nothing personal, Kian. You and Matt were both so earnest, such fucking do-gooders, that you played right into it.”

Kian looked livid and nauseated; a lot like I felt, actually. It seemed we both knew how it felt to be betrayed.

“And all the time you’ve wasted in pouring your hearts out to each other has played right into his hands. We’ve got a protocol for checking in, and when I didn’t, he’ll know something’s wrong. He’s probably tracking my phone right now. He’ll be catching up to you any minute. It ends tonight, like you said, but not the way you wanted.”

Almost as if he planned it, a car pulled out in front of us right then. Though the driver tried to stop, he wasn’t quick enough and we hit it, bringing us to a sudden, painful stop.

~Kian~

I never understood the kind of rage that drove a man to destroy another one, to end his existence not out of self-defense but out of pure anger, but as Thomas revealed just how thoroughly he’d manipulated me, I began to understand. I wanted him in agony until he felt even a little of the shame and regret that flowed through my veins.

He used me. The whole fucking time, he’d been using me, and he used Matt too. He used his death to prove his usefulness to Park, and then he used it to get me on board to go undercover and take Marco down. If what he said was true, and I had no reason to doubt it at this point, he handed in my resignation for me. I was still getting paid, I knew that, but the money must have been coming from Park himself. Thomas had always been good with computers, so he made it look like it still came from the Met. While I thought we were deep undercover, this operation didn’t even officially exist. Every fucking thing he ever told me had been a lie.

Would he even have told my family that I died once he killed me? Or would he have simply left them to wonder why I never came back, never knowing what happened?

I had no plans to die, though. Now, more than ever, I wanted justice for Matt, for myself, and for Marco and Cara too. He would have sacrificed them too, all for his own gain. I wanted David Park to pay, definitely, but I wanted Thomas to suffer.

Those thoughts had completely taken over my mind, so much so that I lost track of everything else, including how Cara must have been feeling about everything I admitted to her. So focused on Thomas and my own fury, I didn’t see the car pull out in front of us. I only knew it had when we hit it, the airbags in the front seats deploying as those of us in the back were jerked violently forward with the impact. Marco and Thomas both hit the rear of the seats Cara and I were in since they weren’t restrained in any way.

“Fuck,” Marco muttered, reaching his hand over the seat behind me. “Here, Kian.”

His hand gripped a black Beretta pistol, but I still had Thomas’ Glock on me. “You keep it. I’m good.”

I pulled the gun from behind me to show him and Marco nodded in acknowledgement. He had the best poker face I’d ever seen. I honestly had no idea how he felt about everything I’d just confessed to Cara. I knew he was pissed off at being set up by Thomas and blamed for Matt’s death, but how he felt about me and what I’d done, I didn’t have a clue.

I also hadn’t been paying any attention to where we were, but we seemed to be in a residential part of north London with wide 1930s semi-detached houses stretching out on either side of the road. Traffic honked behind us as people had to go around to avoid our accident, and the man in the passenger seat of the car got out to go see what was going on. Hopefully, this accident happened by coincidence and not, as Thomas suggested, because Park was tracking us, but I kept a tight grip on my gun anyway, just in case.

In a couple of minutes, the man returned. “It’s not Park,” he quickly informed us. “I’ve taken their details and promised to pay for damages even though it was entirely their fault. We should be able to keep driving, I’ll disable the safety measures on the car.”

“Go before the police get here,” Marco ordered, his eyes flitting to me. “We can’t waste any more time. Set up the meeting with Park.”

He held his own gun against Thomas’ head to keep him quiet while I reviewed the messages on the phone, trying to get a feel for his style of communication with Park. Luckily for me, he used a lot of the same shorthand that we used in our own communications, so it should be easy enough to fake.

“Where do we want to meet him?” I asked Marco once I had the bulk of the message composed, missing only the specifics.

Marco immediately rattled off an address. “It’s an out-of-business fast-food place. Not officially connected to me in any way, so if he researches it first, it won’t turn up anything. Lots of glass windows so he can see in from the outside and not be spooked.”

If Marco thought it would work, I trusted him, so I sent the message, saying Park himself had to show up. Things had completely turned around. There I was, working with Marco Russo to help him take out David Park, completely illegally. I had no illusions about what we were doing; Marco didn’t intend to turn him over to the police. He planned to kill him, and I wouldn’t stop him. After killing Matt and injuring Cara, he’d earned whatever Marco had in store for him.

Even if I wanted to involve the police, it would be difficult. My ‘operation’ didn’t even exist, as far as they knew. I no longer worked for them. I’d fallen into a completely different world, one in which the laws I’d sworn to uphold no longer applied.

When we reached the restaurant, we all piled out of the car. Quiet lingered in the street, all the other businesses already closed for the day. Night had fallen, and beneath the murky streetlights, we could hide the fact that Thomas was still restrained. Marco kept his gun against his back to prevent him from calling for help, but he didn’t even try. He was banking on the fact that Park would save him, still trusting that he’d backed the right horse.

“Park will have backup,” Marco announced as soon as we were all in. “We need to be prepared. My men and I will set ourselves up in hiding, with vantage points of the door. As soon as Park walks in, he’s a dead man.”

“And you think he’ll just walk in?” Cara hadn’t said a word since the accident, obviously still processing everything she’d been told, but she spoke up now. “After everything he’s done, you think he’s that stupid?”

“I’m not underestimating him. That’s why…” Marco grimaced as he forced the words out of his mouth. “That’s why you and Kian will be sitting out front with Thomas. He’ll have a clear view of all of you and he won’t expect me to put you in danger. That should convince him that it’s safe.”

“No,” I immediately disagreed. “I can sit with him, but not Cara. It’s too risky.”

“You’re not the one he wants,” Marco reminded me. “He needs to see Cara. That’s the bait. It’s the only way he’ll come in. It’s what I’d do. And if he sends someone else instead, you stand up and walk into the back, where we can cover you.”

“What if he just shoots her through the window?” I couldn’t help asking, even though it made Cara wince.

Marco has an answer for that too. “He doesn’t want her dead. He wants me, and he knows the only way to get to me is through her. He needs her alive for that. Trust me, Kian. I’ve thought this through. I don’t like it any more than you do, but she needs to be on display.”

Frustratingly, I could see his point. “Are you okay with that?” I asked her. We shouldn’t be making any decisions for her.

“If it’s what we have to do, then fine. You’re still shirtless, though,” Cara pointed out. “That won’t seem weird to anyone?”

I had almost forgotten about that myself, but as soon as she mentioned it, a chill ran through my body. My shoulder still ached too, but in the larger scheme of things, it was a minor inconvenience. At the moment, I had much bigger worries.

“No one will be looking at his chest other than you,” Marco deadpanned before turning back to me. “You can keep your gun, keep it under the table and pointed at this piece of shit at all times.” He gestured towards Thomas. “If you need to protect Cara, do it. Otherwise, just get down when the shooting starts.”

With all of us clear on the plan, Marco shoved Thomas into one side of a booth near the front window, his hands still tied. Cara and I sat on the other side, her closer to the window both for visibility and to help conceal the gun I still held, pointed directly at Thomas’ gut.

As Marco and his men left us to conceal themselves and take up their own positions, Thomas smirked over at Cara.

“Rumour is that once Park has killed Marco, he plans to give you to his men as a toy. They’ll shoot you so full of drugs, you’ll be begging them to fuck you to get your next fix. That’ll make a statement to anyone else who tries to defy him. If they don’t want the same to happen to their women, they’ll leave him alone.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I seethed, my finger tightening on the trigger in my hand. How could this be the same man I’d worked with for years? How did he fool me so completely? Or when had he changed, because I couldn’t quite believe the guy I knew during training could ever have been hiding all of this sadistic bitterness. “What happened to make you like this?”

Thomas gave a humourless laugh. “Nothing happened, nothing other than working my ass off every day for lousy pay and watching all the people we arrested use their money to buy their way back onto the streets again. What difference did we make? There’s no real justice. Anything pure in this world gets chewed up and spit out. Isn’t that right, Cara? You know exactly what comes out of trying to help people.”

She glanced down at her hands, understanding the reference to her accident. She’d been horribly punished for trying to be a good person.

“Matt found that out the hard way and you will too,” Thomas continued. “This whole setup? This is amateur hour. Park’s going to destroy all of you. I’ve seen what he can do. The man has no soul.”

“Sounds just like you, then,” I gritted at him, but before I could say anything else, a car drove up, its headlights flashing through the window before turning them off. There was no other reason for anyone to stop here, so we had to assume the car held the people we were waiting for.

“It’s been nice knowing you,” were Thomas’ final words before a man got out of the car and headed to the front door of the restaurant.

~Cara~

Although Kian looked calm and in control, my heart beat so hard against my chest, I thought it might burst. One after another, every certainty I thought I had about my life had been torn down, and now, my life itself hung in the balance. One wrong move, one stray bullet, and everything could end right there at that table. Or worse, if they got Marco but left me alive, like Thomas had threatened, they could torture and abuse me for their own sadistic purposes. With that prospect in front of me, I almost might prefer to die right there in the run-down restaurant, but human nature was always to have hope.

Like he could hear my thoughts, Kian whispered in my ear. “I’m not letting them take you. We’ll make it through this, Cara.”

As good as those words sounded, how could I trust them? How could I trust anything that came out of his mouth? Thomas had betrayed Kian, yes, but he used me and lied to me, just as Marco lied to me. No one was what they seemed, and at that moment, I didn’t trust any of them.

Although I saw the man approaching, the jingle of the bell above the door as it was pushed open still made me jump, and I braced myself for the gunshots I expected to follow. Marco said they would shoot Park on sight, but no shots were fired, and only when the man turned to face us and pulled down his hood did I realize why.

The large, black man at the door must not be David Park.

“Ask him where Park is,” Kian growled at Thomas under his breath as the man walked over to us, but the man spoke first as he walked over to the table.

“Good work, Thomas. You’ve done well but I’ll take it from here.”

Without any further warning, he pulled out a gun and blew a hole through the front of Thomas’ skull.

My scream was lost in the echo of the gun’s discharge, and in the sound of the next one as Kian shot the man’s hand, making him drop his gun and double over in pain.

“Move, now!”

Kian must have shouted it at me but the words sounded almost like a whisper as he pulled me out of the booth, his left hand holding tight to mine. As soon as I was free, he moved me to his other side, putting his body between me and the window as the door opened again.

“Get down!” I heard Marco shout from somewhere to my right, and we both ducked as more shots were fired. Adrenaline and fear shot through my body as Kian kept pushing me forward until we reached the door at the rear of the restaurant, leading into the back room.

Once through the door, we both raised our heads and Kian quickly looked around the small space. “There’s nowhere to hide,” he muttered in frustration. Or maybe he shouted it; I couldn’t tell since my ears were still ringing, guns were still being fired on the other side of the wall, and the image of Thomas’ surprised eyes when the bullet pierced his brain was burned into my mind.

Calling on all my performance experience, all the times I had to push through my fear and stage fright to connect with the music inside me instead of what was happening around me, I managed to push everything else down and look around the restaurant kitchen and back room critically. A grill and some deep fryers stood along one side, with a drinks machine and ice cream machine on the other. The middle island must have been used for assembling orders, and the opening between the kitchen and the front of the restaurant had been closed, giving us some degree of protection, though someone might follow us back there at any moment.

In the rear corner, there seemed to be a door, and I pointed over at it. “What’s that?”

“The freezer,” Kian replied grimly. “And since the power’s still on, I’m assuming it’s still running too.”

There didn’t seem to be any other options, then. “I guess we’ll just have to go under the island?”

We both stepped closer to it just as a bullet blew through the door we’d just entered through, lodging itself into the wall. If we hadn’t moved when we did, it might have hit us.

“Fuck,” Kian growled. “We need better protection than a counter. We have to get behind something.”

Reluctantly, he went over to the walk-in freezer and opened the door. The cool air immediately poured out, making me shiver, and I wasn’t the one without a shirt on. Kian didn’t seem to notice it, though, he just reached up onto the wall on the inside of the freezer until he found what he was looking for.

“There’s a release switch. If you can handle the cold for a few minutes, it might be the safest place. They’ll run out of bodies or bullets soon enough.”

I glanced down at his half-naked body. “I can handle it if you can.”

Kian smiled grimly in acknowledgement and stepped inside. There were a few cardboard boxes on the floor but the shelves on either side were empty. When I’d followed him, closing the door behind me, we were immediately plunged into darkness that made the room feel even colder.

“Keep close to me to keep warm,” Kian requested. “I’ve got the gun aimed at the door in case anyone tries to come in.”

Shivering against the cold, I leaned into him, my head against his chest and my arms wrapped around his waist, though it felt far more awkward than it had earlier that day. We still hadn’t had a chance to talk about any of the revelations from earlier. Part of me appreciated him being there, protecting me, another part wanted to rage at him for how he used me, and another part simply wanted to hide away and go back to my room and the quiet, uncomplicated life I had before any of this began.

Except it had never been uncomplicated; I only thought it was. Now, my eyes had been opened, and there was no way to unlearn the things I’d learned. No matter how this night ended, things would never be the same.

We could still hear the gunfight, though much quieter, muffled by the thick freezer walls, but when the door to the kitchen banged open, it made us both jump.

“Stay still and quiet,” Kian whispered to me in the darkness.

With my head against his chest, I could hear his heart pounding, letting me know that despite outward appearances, he was scared too. The sound of his gun cocking in the small space seemed almost impossibly loud.

No one opened the freezer door, though. We could hear a scraping noise, sounding like it came from literally inches from us, but then… nothing. The kitchen door slammed shut again as the gunshots carried on.

“It worked,” I breathed. “They didn’t find us.”

“Not yet,” he agreed, not letting his guard down.

It felt impossible to gauge time in the darkness and cold, but eventually, the gunshots ceased. Whether we’d won or Park had, I couldn’t tell, but nobody else came into the kitchen, which seemed strange to me. Surely, no matter who won, they would know we were back there somewhere. Unless they had all managed to kill each other? The idea of my brother bleeding and dying on his own made me inhale sharply, and Kian’s arm tightened around me.

“We’ll wait another minute and then I’ll go take a look,” he suggested.

I counted to sixty in my head, trying to ignore the cold seeping into my bones and the worry in my heart, and finally, Kian stepped away from me. He pulled his phone from his pocket, using the light of the screen to find the door release. He pulled on it and pushed on the door but nothing happened.

“What the…” he muttered, pushing again and jamming his body against the door, crying out in pain and frustration as he put too much pressure on his injured shoulder.

“Don’t hurt yourself. Let me try,” I offered. With him still holding the release, I pushed on the door hard, using all my strength, but it didn’t budge. “Why isn’t it opening?”

I tried not to panic, but the circumstances weren’t making it easy, and Kian’s answer didn’t help. “I think someone might have blocked it. The latch is giving, we just can’t get it open.”

Blocked it? As I thought back to the scraping noise, my stomach sank even further. Was that what that was? Had Park’s men killed Marco, realized we must be in the freezer, and decided to save their bullets and let the freezer do their job for them?

I couldn’t say for certain, but one thing I did know: if we couldn’t get out of there soon, we were both going to die.