In Too Deep

14. Chapter Fourteen

~Kian~

Nothing about this felt quite real. Even though my fingers were numb from the cold and my shoulder throbbed in pain from where I’d just jammed it against the freezer door to try to open it, it didn’t seem possible that things had played out this way.

Nothing had gone to plan. Nothing would go to plan. Thomas was dead, his brains blown out right in front of us, so there would never be a chance to hold him to account for everything he’d done. There would be no confession, no punishment, no closure for me or for Matt’s widow. And what about Park? If Marco killed him, if he prevailed in the deadly fight, someone should be coming to free us from our icy prison, but as the seconds ticked by with no sign of anyone and no sounds at all, it looked less and less likely.

Still, I couldn’t give up yet. As long as the tiniest sliver of hope existed that I could save Cara, I would try. I might not bear all the responsibility for getting her into this situation, but I had certainly contributed to it, intentionally or not, and she had done nothing to deserve everything she’d had to endure, both today and before it too.

We still had my phone, so the first thing I did was to try to call Marco, putting it on speaker so that Cara could hear everything.

“I can hear it ringing,” Cara whispered, her face partly illuminated by the glow of the phone’s screen. I could hear it too, very faintly through the freezer walls, which must mean that the phone at least, if not Marco himself, was still in the front of the restaurant.

To our mutual frustration, no one picked up. It went to voicemail and I left a quick message, just in case it would somehow get to him. “Marco, it’s Kian. Cara and I are stuck in the walk-in freezer in the back. We need help to get out.”

Short and to the point, I hung up and called one of the only other people whose number was in my phone for my undercover alter-ego: Neil at the pub. He was on the other side of the city, but he knew plenty of other pub owners in the city; maybe he would know someone nearby who could come and help us. He didn’t answer either, though. Maybe the pub was busy, or maybe he’d taken a night off.

With no other choice, I called 999. Involving the police would complicate things, especially since Thomas was no longer alive to verify any part of my story, but it would be better than dying. We could deal with everything else later; first, we just had to get out of this freezer.

The operator picked up and asked which service I was calling for. “Whoever’s closest,” I told her, and when that seemed to throw her off, I amended my answer. “Police. Hurry, please.”

She transferred the call, but before anyone could pick up on the other end, the call dropped and my screen went black, plunging us back into darkness.

“What happened?” Cara asked, still whispering.

“The cold must have killed the battery.”

My hand clenched around the useless phone in frustration. I should have called 999 straight away, but that was easy to say in hindsight. I would have to try something else instead, so I resorted to more old-fashioned methods.

“Help!” I shouted, banging on the jammed door with my good hand, just in case anyone might still be within earshot. “Is anybody there?”

I didn’t really expect an answer, and none came.

“What else can we do?” Cara’s voice sounded small and scared in the darkness behind me, and I immediately turned around, reaching for her. When my hand connected with her shoulder, I pulled her to me, trying to share our body warmth again, though there wasn’t much to go around.

“I assume you don’t have your phone on you?” I imagined she would have told me if she did, and she shook her head against my chest.

“No. I never grabbed it when we left home. All I have is the fob on my watch.”

“Your what?”

She wriggled within my arms as she brought her arm up. “It’s like a panic button Marco gave me, but it won’t do any good if he’s…”

Her voice broke as she choked on the word, not wanting to admit that her brother might be dead, and my arms tightened around her. “Let’s not jump to any conclusions. We don’t know why he didn’t answer. Press the button anyway, Cara. It can’t hurt.”

She did as I asked, and it flashed red for a second, sending its signal wherever it was meant to.

Other than that, I really didn’t have any ideas. “I guess we should try to conserve energy, stay as warm as possible, and hope that someone is coming.”

It went against every instinct I had not to do something, but I couldn’t think of anything else to do. If my body were in better shape, I could throw myself at the door harder, but in the darkness, Cara would have to hold the escape latch and it would be hard to judge the angle. The door hadn’t even budged when we pushed it before, so it would need a lot more force than what we gave it before, not just a little.

As defeatist as it seemed, we’d have to wait and hope that either my message to Marco or Cara’s panic button reached someone, or perhaps that the gunshots had attracted attention among the local residents and someone called the police on their own. Hope wasn’t entirely gone, but from our end, it didn’t seem there was anything else we could do.

“I guess I might die a virgin after all,” Cara tried to joke, calling to mind the conversation we’d had the night before when we barricaded ourselves in my bathroom. The situation was similar but also very different, and I could hear the wobble in her voice, her body trembling against me either in fear or from the chill, or both.

“We’re not going to die. We’ve got to stay positive, alright? You’ll get out of here and have a long, full life, making beautiful music, with all the sex you want.”

My chest tightened at the idea of anyone else being intimate with her, but I had to be realistic: after everything that happened, she wouldn’t want anything to do with me once this was over.

She pretty much confirmed that in her next breath, temporarily warming my skin as she exhaled against my chest. “I don’t think that life was ever going to be mine. My parents and my brother kept me locked up so tight, I don’t know how to connect with anyone. You must think I’m such an idiot. I thought there was something between us, but none of it was real.”

She inhaled again, sounding close to tears, and my throat closed up too, knowing that I’d caused her to feel that way. “Cara, you’re not an idiot and I never thought that. I got close to you because of Marco, yes. I played that song on purpose to try to get your attention and I started volunteering at Little Hands to have something in common with you. If you look at it that way, I can see why you might think it wasn’t real.”

I could feel her shoulders hunching, feel her shrinking in on herself, so I hurried to get to the point.

“However, I never expected you to be as sweet and as kind and as brave and as strong as you are. I never expected to feel the way I feel for you. I tried to keep my distance once I realized that you weren’t involved in Marco’s business. I tried not to lead you on because I knew it was wrong, and maybe I should have tried harder, but you’re pretty fucking irresistible. I was selfish and I lied, and you can hate me for that if you want to, but you have to believe that everything that happened between us was real. It might be the most real thing I’ve ever known. In the middle of all of this, I never expected to find you.”

I raised my hand to her face, helping me to find her in the darkness, and I brought my lips softly onto hers. Her lips felt cool, and though she didn’t push me away, she didn’t kiss me back either.

I kept talking, partly to distract her from everything else and partly because this might be the last chance I had to tell her how I felt. “Things aren’t always one thing or the other, just like people aren’t. We’d like things to be black and white, but there’s a hell of a lot of grey in the world. Marco’s not all bad, like I thought, and I’m not all good. I can’t claim to be. But I did what I did because I thought it was right, and I never did anything with the intention of hurting you. That’s the only reason we didn’t have sex. I wanted to, badly, but I knew you’d feel betrayed when you found out the truth. You’d have every right to, and I didn’t want you to think I took advantage of you that way too.”

My forehead rested against hers and I could feel how cold the tip of her nose was, just like mine. My teeth were starting to chatter, but I had to get a few more words out.

“So, even though you’re still technically a sexual virgin, you’re not one when it comes to love. Because I do love you, Cara. If things were different, you would have been the perfect woman for me. I’ve never felt this way for anyone else, and someday, years from now, I hope you can look back on this and realize that as crazy as all of this was, it was also completely and utterly real.”

~Cara~

Though I couldn’t see Kian’s face and could barely feel my own, I could imagine the look in his eyes. I could hear it in the sincerity of his words, so different from the cool, almost clinical way he spoke to Marco.

What reason did he have to lie to me? On their deathbeds, people usually came clean rather than telling more lies. The truth had already come out and he had nothing more to gain from convincing me that he had feelings for me if he didn’t. He even said he loved me. That sounded crazy from someone who hadn’t even told me his real name, someone I’d only known for a couple of weeks, but before the revelations of that day, I would have said I was falling in love with him too. It felt that way, even though I’d never felt it before.

And he said he hadn’t felt it before either, not like this.

I had no way of knowing if that was true, nothing to go on but his words and no way to prove it other than through the passage of time, which seemed to be the one thing we might not have much more of. And if no one was coming, if all of it would end right there in that cold, dark freezer, I didn’t want to let this chance get away. It might literally be the last one I ever had.

“What if we have sex right now?”

Kian went so still against me, even his shivering seemed to stop. “What?”

“We need to keep warm, right? Keep our blood moving. Distract ourselves. It should accomplish all of those things.”

He exhaled in what almost sounded like pain. “Cara, it’s freezing in here. Literally.”

“That’s my point.” If what he’d just told me about why he hadn’t wanted to have sex with me before was true, he shouldn’t have any objections now. He should be jumping at the chance, unless… unless there was a mechanical reason why he didn’t want to? “Is your cock too cold to work?”

He almost choked in surprise. “N-no. Where you’re concerned, I think it wouldn’t have any trouble at all. But you’d have to take some of your clothing off and that could make you colder.”

It didn’t feel that way. Just the memory of his firm, hard body in the shower that morning already had me feeling warmer than I had just a moment ago. “I’ll be alright. I won’t take my trousers off, just pull them down. You could take me from behind, couldn’t you? There were some boxes against the back wall, I could lean against them.”

Kian groaned. “It’s not exactly romantic for your first time.”

“Nothing about my life has been ordinary,” I argued back. “Why should this be any different?”

“This might just be the adrenaline talking. I don’t want you to regret it later.”

His commitment to being ‘noble’ was starting to frustrate me. “That’s my choice to make. You said the only reason you didn’t have sex with me this morning was because I didn’t know who you are. Well, now I know. I know the truth, and I’m still figuring out how I feel about all of it, but I also know how good I felt this morning. I know that I trust you to make it as good for me as you can. So whatever happens, whether we get out of here or not and whatever might be waiting on the other side of that door if we do, for right now, this is what I want. You said I can make my own decisions, right? That’s what you told Marco. So, let me. You don’t need to worry about whether I regret it or not. All you have to decide is what you want.”

I stopped there, hoping I’d made my point, and Kian said nothing either, both of us staying silent in the dark, freezing space as I waited for him to make his choice.

Finally, he spoke, the words muttered and heavy in the confined space. “Fuck, Cara.”

That was all he said, but his hand found the back of my neck, pulling me towards him until our lips collided, awkwardly at first, not quite in line with each other, but more passionately once we could feel our way. His skin was cold, just like mine was, but his tongue was warm as he slipped it into my mouth, and as our bodies rubbed against each other, my heart beat faster and my body began to warm up.

This was really going to happen. Not in a way I could have ever imagined, but I was finally going to lose my virginity, to a man I somehow still trusted despite him lying to me from the very start. It made no sense so I stopped trying to make sense of it. At that moment, all I wanted was to feel.

My hands ran across his bare chest, the feel of it helping me to remember how it had looked earlier today, and in the darkness, each touch seemed to take on extra meaning. Each breath I could hear from him took the place of what I might have been able to see in his eyes. My hands moved lower, rubbing his cock through his pants to try to warm it before exposing it to the freezing air, and was pleasantly surprised to find it had already started to harden. It seemed the cold wouldn’t stop him, just as he said.

Kian couldn’t move his right hand much, his shoulder still limited in its motion thanks to his injury, so he kept it on my hip, keeping us connected as his left hand reached between us, unbuttoning my trousers. When his fingers slipped beneath my underwear, I gasped at the cold touch of his hand, but it didn’t last long. As soon as he thrust his fingers into me, my body quickly warmed them from the inside, just as it would do to his cock as soon as he was ready. We kissed and touched and rubbed each other until the pleasure in my body began to override the cold, and I could only imagine he felt the same.

“Turn around,” he whispered to me. “Step forward slowly until you find the boxes.”

Following his instruction, I turned, his hand still on my hip, and reached my arms out into the darkness in front of me. In my memory, I could see where the boxes should be, but each step felt like stepping off a cliff, nothing to hold me in place and no way of telling up from down.

Finally, my hand brushed the flat top of one of the boxes. I hissed at the cold, curling my fingers up to rest the heel of my hands on it instead as I leaned forward. “There. Does that work?”

Kian tugged my trousers down just a little, the cold air stinging my bare ass, but I forgot about it as soon as his fingers found my pussy again, this time from behind. “That’s perfect. Does it feel okay for you?”

“Yes, but hurry.”

He couldn’t help laughing. “Just what every guy wants to hear. Alright, give me just one second.”

Fabric rustled behind me as he pulled his zip down. A muffled exhale followed, probably the sound of him blowing warm air into his hand, which he then used to pump his cock, trying to warm it up.

“I’m not at my most impressive,” he admitted in self-deprecation. “But I think I know what will help.”

His fingers rubbed me once more before he placed his cock between my legs instead. He didn’t push inside me straight away, though; he thrust between my legs instead, using my body heat and my moisture to warm him. It felt good, actually, but it only increased the aching inside me to have him so close but not quite where I wanted him most.

“Are you absolutely certain?” he asked a moment later, his thrusts growing firmer and stronger, teasing my clit as the head of his cock rubbed against it.

“I’m not standing here waiting for the bus,” I shot back, making him laugh again. “Please, Kian. I want it. I want you.”

With a groan, he changed the angle, his cock pressing against my entrance, my body throbbing for him, and finally, finally, he slid inside me.

It didn’t hurt, exactly. After all the things I’d heard and read, I’d expected some kind of tearing sensation, but that never came. It felt unfamiliar and slightly uncomfortable, but not painful, and I could tell Kian did his best to keep it that way. He pushed in slowly, a bit at a time, moving in and out to create some friction, all while his left hand reached around me to rub against my clit, and when he went in a little deeper each time, I really didn’t feel any pain at all.

I definitely wasn’t thinking about being cold, either.

“You feel incredible,” he murmured from behind me. “And not just because of how warm you are, either.”

“Gee, thanks.” We both laughed, sharing the same gallows humour. I knew he wanted to distract me, and I appreciated it. Just as I expected, he did everything he could to make the experience a good one, despite the circumstances.

And when he began to really move in me, his hard length sliding in and out of me as his hand continued to play with my clit, all the while telling me how good it felt, it didn’t take long to lose myself in it completely. I forgot about the cold box beneath my hands, the freezing air around me, and the darkness. The last one really didn’t matter since my eyes were closed anyway. All I felt at that moment was the feel of him on my body and in my body and the care he took to bring me pleasure.

“Faster,” I moaned, feeling myself getting close. “Harder, please.”

He obliged, his body slamming harder into me, his fingers pressing down on my clit as my legs began to tremble, and when he whispered once again that he loved me, my whole body flooded with pleasure and warmth.

Kian must have been holding himself back, waiting for me to finish, because almost as soon as I did, he let himself go too, exhaling in pleasure as his orgasm hit and his cock pumped deep inside me.

We were both still catching our breath, absorbing everything that had just happened, our bodies still connected, when a new sound reached us through the freezer walls. Technically, the sound wasn’t new, but one that had been silenced ever since we realized we were trapped: the sound of gunshots.

“What’s happening?” I asked Kian, though logically, I knew he had no more idea than I did.

“I don’t know,” he confirmed, his hands gently lifting my torso. “Here, stand up. Are you alright?”

Even with people shooting outside, he was worried about me. “I’m fine. I just need to do my trousers back up.”

“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.” He laughed again, but nervously this time. “Stay behind me, okay? I’ve still got the gun, just in case whoever’s out there isn’t a friendly face. Hopefully, the trigger hasn’t frozen too.”

We’d only just finished straightening ourselves back out when the shots stopped, and a minute later, the kitchen door slammed open, and that loud scraping sound came again from just outside the door.

Someone was letting us out. I blew out a heavy breath of relief, though we still didn’t know who stood on the other side of the door. We couldn’t let our guard down until we knew for sure.

~Kian~

I had given up trying to keep track of all the unexpected turns the day had taken. When Cara said she wanted to have sex with me right there in the frozen darkness, I thought she had to be kidding. The situation couldn’t be any less ideal, but she made it clear that was her choice, and when it really came down to it, I wanted it too. Maybe we wouldn’t make it out of the freezer. Maybe we would and she’d never want to see me again. I noticed that although I’d declared my feelings for her, she hadn’t returned any such sentiments out loud. Absolutely nothing was for certain except that at that moment, we both wanted each other.

I didn’t flatter myself that the cold, slightly uncomfortable experience would stand the test of time as a first time to look back on fondly. Hopefully, she would have far better experiences in far more comfortable and romantic settings, and what we’d just done would be reduced to a footnote in her sexual history: a moment of desperation and connection in an impossible circumstance.

But before that could happen, we had to get out of the freezer, and as I stood there, my body feeling even colder now that the heat of our passion had faded, with Cara behind me and the gun gripped in my hand, I hoped that whoever stood on the other side of the door would be there to help us achieve that rather than stand in our way.

The light as the door cracked open made me wince, squinting into it as I tried to identify the person who swore as the cold air hit him. “Fuck, that’s cold! Are you alright?”

He sounded friendly, at least, but I didn’t recognize the older man at all, standing there in a suit like he’d stopped by on his way home from an office in the City.

“Mr Mitchell?” Cara’s curious voice came from behind me as she peered around my body. “What are you doing here?”

“Mr Mitchell?” I repeated, glancing back at her and over to the man again. “Who’s that?”

“Simon Mitchell, my boss,” she explained, sounding completely bewildered at his presence there.

“And an associate of Marco’s,” he added, holding the door open wider. “Hurry up and get out of there before you both freeze to death.”

That was exactly what we’d been afraid of, and I stepped out first, checking that the room was clear before holding my hand out to Cara. The air outside the freezer felt almost balmy in comparison to where we’d been, but I still shivered and Cara did too. Putting my arms around her to try to help her warm up, I repeated Cara’s questions to her employer. “What’s happening? What are you doing here?”

“I got the alert that Cara needed help.”

Her mouth dropped open in surprise. “You got the alert? Why would it go to you?”

“It goes to Marco as well, and maybe others too, I don’t know. When you came to work for me, I was added to the list. Marco said you were stubborn and wouldn’t use it unless you were in serious danger, so if I ever got the alert and your location sent to me, I should drop everything and come fully prepared. Luckily, tonight, I wasn’t too far away, and when I got here, I found David Park torturing Marco out front.”

Cara tensed against me. “Torturing? Is he okay?”

“Marco? He’s not in great shape, but he’s alive. He was able to tell me you were back here. Apparently, Park’s men trapped you in there and were trying to blackmail Marco with your lives to give up the access to his business accounts, but he’s not that stupid. If he gave them what they wanted, they would have just killed you all, so he held out as long as he could. They broke and shot both his legs and broke his hand too. He’s going to need a doctor soon.”

That sounded like an understatement, and Cara blinked quickly, taking it all in, while I asked about the other man in the equation. “And Park?”

“Dead. My men had to take them all out. It’s a mess out there. We need to move before the police get here.”

That was for certain, and taking one last glance back at the freezer, I led Cara back through the front of the restaurant.

The scene was worse than anything I’d encountered in all my years as a police officer. Bodies lay sprawled across the room. Thomas still sat slumped over the table where we’d left him, a large hole in the back of his head, the man who had shot him lay not far from the table, and Marco’s two bodyguards were almost still concealed in their hiding places, their hanging limbs the only sign that they must also be dead. Three other men formed almost a circle around a chair where they must have been holding Marco, and in the centre of the circle lay none other than David Park himself.

Yet again, justice would be denied. No one remained to pay for what happened to Matt. No one knew the truth but me.

The metallic scent of blood and gunpowder filled the air, and Cara gagged as she breathed in. “Keep going,” I encouraged her. “Let’s get to Marco.”

The front door had been propped open and a couple of men who must have arrived with Simon were loading Marco into the back of an SUV. Cara quickly jogged ahead of me to see him while I turned back to survey the scene.

A couple of holes had been shot through the window besides all the shots that had taken place inside. It seemed impossible that no one had heard them and called the police. Maybe they convinced themselves someone was letting off fireworks, though we were nowhere near November. Whatever the reason, it was a lucky break for us.

No sooner had the thought crossed my mind than flashing blue lights appeared at the end of the street.

“Fuck,” Simon muttered beside me before calling out to his men. “Time to go! Now! In the car!”

He hurried to join the others who ushered Cara into the car, but I stayed put, my eyes flicking between the horror scene behind me and the car containing the woman I’d fallen so hard for.

If I got in that car and we drove away, the police might give chase. All major streets in London had CCTV cameras that would follow the car’s progress through the city, the police car in pursuit making it easy to identify, so even if they didn’t catch up to us immediately, they would have a way to track Simon down, which would lead back to Marco, and to Cara. And at that particular moment, a car chase was not what Marco needed. He should get medical attention and Cara should get as far away from this entire mess as possible.

As the lights drew closer, I made up my mind. “Go without me. I’ll hold them off.”

Simon had been about to pull himself up to the passenger seat, but he stopped to look at me in surprise. “Are you sure?”

“Kian?” Cara’s uncertain voice came from the back where she sat next to her brother. I could just make out her silhouette beneath the streetlights, and I gave her as quick an explanation as I could, hoping it would make sense to her, if not right at that moment, then eventually.

“As soon as Marco’s recovered, get out of the country. Go and start over, Cara, far away from all of this, somewhere you can have the sun on your skin, and live the life you want. You never deserved any of this, and I’m sorry for whatever part I played in involving you in it.”

The reference to sun on her skin called back to the way she looked that first evening we ate together in the park, the way she closed her eyes and turned her face to the sun, innocent and pretty and delicate. I didn’t know what would await me once the police arrived, but I did know what Marco would face, and I wanted to spare Cara that pain if I could. She shouldn’t have to go through any more than she’d already endured. Maybe that was the penance I needed to pay for deceiving her in the first place.

“Go, now.” I spoke those words to Simon and he nodded at me, closing the car door as his driver took off in the opposite direction of the approaching lights.

It seemed the day had one more twist left in it, and with a deep breath, I went and stood out in the street, blocking the officers’ view of the departing vehicle as I raised my hands into the air in surrender.