Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
LEON - PRESENT DAY
The ride back to Mum’s that evening feels surreal. While I weave through traffic, my mind whirls with this new information. I knew my father was a grade-A bastard, but working closely with Orlov?
What the fuck?
As I pass by familiar landmarks, memories spring up like corpses that won’t stay buried, their skeletal hands reaching for me.
There’s the park where Mum would push me on the swings while we waited for him to show.
My fragile heart full of hope as she pushed me higher and higher, chattering on about clouds in the shape of animals, or what new movie was playing at the cinema.
I’d barely listen, too busy checking the gate every few minutes, certain this time would be different.
This time he’d show, and I’d tell him all about my high marks in school. He’d smile down at me, finally proud.
Years of rejection became nothing but a hollow ache in my chest. He never showed and I finally stopped waiting.
I idle at a light in front of the corner shop where Mum used to buy me sweets after we waited long enough. We could never afford it, but she couldn’t bear to see me upset. She’d skip meals if it meant spending that extra money brought a smile to my face.
I’d get to pick whatever I wanted, even the sticky taffy that would rot my teeth or the fancy chocolate bars in the foil wrapping, and we’d sit on the bench outside sharing them while she told me that some people just didn’t know how to love properly, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t worth loving.
She’d pull me into her side and stroke my hair while I let myself cry over a man who was never worth a single tear.
I was lucky to have Mum, and Nana, and Pops.
They were my rocks in a childhood marked by disappointment and broken promises.
They picked up the pieces, assuring that his absence had nothing to do with me, even when I was convinced otherwise.
What kind of father looks at his son and decides he’s not worth the effort?
Now I know the answer to that question. The kind who associates himself with someone like Orlov.
I park the bike with shaking hands. Without the hum of the engine, my thoughts grow louder, more demanding, and my jaw clenches to the point of pain. The receptionist’s words replay on loop. “Mr. Orlov... and that diplomat who comes with him sometimes. Very posh, very cold... Colter.”
Mum greets me at the door before I can reach for my keys. Her face lights up when she sees me, but as I step inside, her smile drops.
“What’s wrong, love? You don’t look well.”
I want to unload, to tell her everything.
About Bailey, about what Alfred’s involved in, about the hell I’ve been living in for the past year and a half.
Instead, I let her wrap me in one of her fierce hugs.
I can’t put my burdens on her, she’s gone through enough, and for reasons I can’t understand, she still holds Alfred on a pedestal, even after all this time.
“I’m fine. Just a long day, is all,” I murmur into her shoulder, breathing the familiar scent of her rose hair oil.
She pulls back to study my face. Mine is a mirror of hers, full lips, down-turned like a reverse bow, identical noses, straight with a subtle upturn at the tip, dark expressive brows, prominent cheekbones. The only exception are my eyes. Those I inherited from him. “Tea?”
“Please,” I say.
I put my helmet away, grab my sketchpad and pencil from the small black backpack I carry on me at all times, and follow Mum into the kitchen.
She goes about her ritual, filling the kettle, setting tea bags into mugs, arranging biscuits on the handprint plate I painted in primary.
The normalcy of it warms my chest. This is the sort of thing I’ve missed.
The same type of thing Bailey had with her family before she was ripped away.
“So,” Mum says, settling across from me at the small table, “tell me about this business that brought you home.”
I can’t help but chuckle despite my dark mood. “You’re almost as nosey as Nana and Pops.”
“Well, I learned from the best,” she muses.
I flip to a blank page in my sketchbook, and without a conscious thought, start sketching Bailey’s eyes. Mum bites into a biscuit, keeping her gaze trained on my downcast face. I don’t want to drag her into this, but I know I need to give her something or I won’t hear the end of it.
“There’s someone,” I say quietly, focusing on the curve of Bailey’s cheekbone coming to life. “Someone important to me who’s... missing.”
Through my periphery, I see her hand pause halfway to her mouth before she calmly places her half-eaten biscuit back on the plate. I force myself to look up from the sketch, needing to gauge her reaction.
Her face has gone still, her lips pressed into a tight crescent. I remember that expression from childhood, the same one she’d wear when I’d get home late without calling, a split lip and bruises adorning my face.
“Missing? What happened?” she finally asks.
“She was taken. I’ve been trying to find her for over a year now.” I avoid the harsh reality—words like trafficked, kidnapped, sold. Even letting them float around my mind has me clenching my pencil.
I add more details to my sketch, the scattering of freckles along the bridge of her nose, the hint of a scar on her chin from where she tripped on a rock when she was seven, the way her eyes narrow slightly when she’s deep in thought. Mum watches me draw, until her touch stops my hand in motion.
“You love her.”
Not a question. She knows me better. I swallow hard.
“More than anything.”
Admitting my feelings aloud to someone important feels like releasing myself from a cage. Like busting free into a full blown sprint and running and running until my limbs explode. I’ve been holding it in for so long, I almost forgot I was in a cage of my own making.
“Oh, son,” Mum croons.
I force myself to focus on my drawing, because I know if I were to look into her eyes, I’d see sadness there, and I can’t let myself break. I add shading to Bailey’s hair, remembering how soft it felt between my fingers.
Now that I’ve thrown open those cage doors, I can’t stop the words from spilling out. “She’s Jasper’s sister, Mum. My best mate’s little sister, and I failed her. She texted me the night she was taken, and I didn’t answer. I was in some stupid study group when I could have—”
“Leon,” she cuts in. “Stop. Look at me.”
I drop my pencil and hide my face in my hands. She pries them free, one finger at a time, giving me no choice but to meet her gaze.
“It’s not your fault.”
I shake my head. She doesn’t know. Doesn’t understand. “How can you say that? If I’d answered her text, if I’d gone to meet her—”
“You don’t know that. Whoever took her could have hurt you or worse. You cannot carry this burden.”
She pushes the steaming cup of tea in front of me. Instead of arguing, I sip and go back to my drawing. I want to believe her, but I can’t. I won’t. I know I could have prevented her being taken. There’s no guesswork to it.
“What’s her name?” Mum asks gently.
“Bailey.” Saying it aloud makes my skin tingle, my stomach flip. “Bailey Shea.”
“She’s beautiful.”
I take in the nearly finished sketch. Even in pencil, even from memory, Bailey’s warmth comes through.
“She is. Inside and out. She was studying to be a teacher, wanted to help kids learn how to read. She bakes when she’s stressed and loves to joke around, especially with her brother.
She’s fierce, but not afraid to be vulnerable, kind and unselfish, and so damn brilliant, and she’s been trapped in hell for eighteen months because I wasn’t there when she needed me. ”
Mum is quiet, studying both me and the drawing. “And this business in London? It’s about finding her?”
“The trail led here. To people with connections...” I hesitate, then decide she can handle a version of the truth. I’ve told her this much already. “To powerful people,” I continue. “People who can make others disappear.”
“Dangerous people?”
“Yes.”
She sips her tea, her hand shaking slightly.
I hope she’s putting the pieces together, because I don’t want to outright tell her much more.
She’s wise, knows how to read the spaces between my words more than most. I never told her why I suddenly transferred universities and left home.
Why I haven’t come back since. But I’m sure she has an idea.
“You can’t do this alone,” she says finally.
“I know.” I close the sketchbook and reach for my phone. “That’s why I need to make some calls.”
I hug Mum again, thank her for the tea and the chat, and head up the staircase to my bedroom.
I want to analyze all the information I gathered at the global outreach office.
It’s not much, but maybe it’ll offer another important detail, preferably about Orlov’s connection to my father.
But first, I flop onto the bed and call Damon.
It’s time I update him and the others on everything I found today.
He answers on the first ring.
“What’d you find out?”
I laugh and shake my head. Just like Damon to get straight to the point. “What if I was just calling to say hi?”
“Then I’d have to fly there tonight and take you to get your head examined.”
“Ouch,” I say. “You act as if I don’t like a friendly chat now and again.”
“I call bullshit. What’s going on? Should I get everyone? Put it on speaker?”
I think on it. This is going to be a difficult conversation—telling them what I’ve discovered about my father, possibly revealing pieces of my past I should have shared with them long ago. I draw in a deep breath and release it in one long, steadying stream.
“Yeah, if they’re available they should hear this.” I owe it to them to open up. After letting Mum in and feeling that weight off my back, I’m surprised how ready I am to unburden myself with more. Not everything, some ghosts aren’t ready to fly free. I only hope they don’t hate me for holding on.