49 #2
But the secret remains between us while Conall makes calls and the legal plan takes shape. I’ll give my statement, he’ll handle the prison records and witnesses and keep trying to find whatever Cromwell has tried to bury.
He also orders us not to phone, message or breathe in the wrong way that might lead Cromwell’s people to where we are.
I don’t hear the rest. Because all I can see is Elias beneath fluorescent lights again. Behind another locked door. Waiting for strangers to decide his fate.
The officer taking my statement cannot see me for another forty minutes, which is how we end up in the coffee shop opposite the station. Olle tries to order enough coffee and pastries to sustain a small village – or two giants and a fury – while the said fury murders the display with her eyes.
‘Leah?’
My name hits the back of my head in a voice I haven’t heard in a while.
The hospital entrance catches in the café glass across from me, and recognition lands a second too late. Of all the police stations in London, apparently, we’ve ended up within walking distance of the one place I could happily never see again.
I turn so fast the coffee shop spins around me and I nearly lose my balance.
Dark-blond hair cut close at the sides. Clean-shaven jaw. Brown eyes I once mistook for warmth.
Ron stands a few feet away with one hand around a takeaway cup, wearing navy scrubs and a hospital identification clipped to his chest.
For a second, I can only stare as though I can’t place him.
At first glance, he is exactly as I remember him: polished, expensive and convinced that charm equals honesty. Then I notice the small things: his hair is thinner, his face narrower, his frame leaner beneath the white coat.
The mischievous twinkle is still there in his eyes. The smug little smile, too – the one that says he expects the world to forgive him for soiling it.
‘God, Leah,’ he says warmly, as if greeting an old friend and not the woman whom he had hollowed out. ‘Look at you!’
My hand slides into my pocket before I can stop it, fingers closing around Frida’s ring until its edge steadies me.
I breathe once. Then again. And this time, my knees do not even think about giving.
‘Ronald,’ I acknowledge him without a smile.
His smile holds for a second too long, waiting for me to look away. When I don’t, a crease appears between his brows.
Once, that tiny sign of displeasure would have sent me searching for what I had done wrong.
I turn before he can dress it up with another charming sentence and push through the line of people waiting patiently, completely ignoring Olle calling my name behind me.
Outside, the warm air hits my face hard enough to sober me. Brute rises, placing himself against my leg, broad chest blocking the world.
I scratch the rough fur between his ears, using the solid warmth of him to pull myself back into my body.
His head lifts, stare suddenly fixing over my shoulder, pupils dilating.
I stiffen.
The bell above the coffee-shop door gives a bright shriek, and Ron steps out after me.
‘Hey,’ he says, softer, almost wounded. ‘Don’t be like that. After all this time we could at least speak like adults. I haven’t seen you in a while.’
I turn very slowly and look at him. Then past him—
Deciding what I could possibly tell the police about the man who stood inches from me in one moment, then found himself beneath a lorry in the next.
‘I’ve been away,’ I say lightly.
His brows lift with interest, and he steps closer in that same easy way he used to when he wanted something forgiven before I could even know what his crime was.
I feel every inch of that step like a blade drawn too near, but I only give him a small, polite smile. ‘Busy.’
He laughs softly, but it sounds rehearsed. I don’t know how I never recognised it for what it was before now.
He glances down, then back up through his thick lashes as his charm paints his mouth a brighter shade.
There it is.
The old performance.
The debonair smile.
‘I’ve been busy, too. Mad, really. But listen—’ He bends down slightly, and I feel Brute’s hackles rising beneath my palm as his jaw snaps shut and his ears lower. ‘Are you free later? We could get a drink. Catch up. Properly.’
The word lands exactly where he intends it to.
Brute rises, placing himself against my leg, broad chest blocking the space between us. A low sound begins in his throat.
‘Steady,’ I tell him.
His eyes remain fixed on Ron, but the sound stops at once.
Somehow, all I hear is the echo of Marina’s voice in my head: engaged to the mother of his child; already seen with someone else.
The anger comes, but the old questions don’t: what does she have? What was wrong with me? Why wasn’t I enough?
Nothing.
My eyes lift to his. I finally see how little there actually is underneath all that charisma. He’s reaching for whatever reflection makes him feel good.
I keep a calm smile, tilting my head to the side. ‘What’s the baby’s name?’
And the mask falls. His attention darts towards the window before returning to me. ‘Ah, that… It turned out it wasn’t mine.’
The coffee-shop door opens again and Inga steps out with Olle behind her, both of them taking in the scene with the stillness that makes people rethink their choices.
Olle looks Ron over from head to toe, unimpressed, towering over him by nearly a head.
‘Everything all right?’ he asks, raking his blond hair with a giant hand that had probably lifted timber heavier than the man in front of me.
Ron straightens at once, smoothing his face into something pleasant.
‘Of course. I’m Ron. Leah’s old friend.’ He holds out his hand to Inga’s brother, who looks down at it, then at me with soundless assessment. Brute shifts half a step forward without a sound.
Inga’s gaze cuts to me. Her expression drops. Then recognition lands, followed by a shine in her eyes that promises an exceptionally unpleasant few minutes.
‘Douchebag Ron, of course,’ she says as she looks at him.
‘I beg your pardon?’ he asks, hand still hanging in the air.
‘Oh, I apologise,’ I rush, glancing over at him. ‘Inga believes arseholery is contagious, so she doesn’t shake hands with those who suffer from it.’
A hilarious scoff escapes Olle when he zeros in on Brute, who has now taken another step forward. He reaches down and pats him lightly in a useless attempt to settle him down.
‘Is that how this is going to go?’ Ron asks, audaciously.
But then his hand retreats slowly, his attention shifting to the dog with considerably less confidence than he had arrived with.
‘Is that dog… safe?’ he asks.
Brute answers by lowering his head another inch.
‘Perfectly,’ I say. ‘He understands boundaries.’
Inga tilts her head. ‘A rare quality.’
I look down at the dog, who looks far too committed to the bit, though I am very much aware he is – for all intents and purposes – a guard dog whose talents lie in sounding alarms and following trails – not eating adulterous doctors.
But Ron doesn’t need to know that.
So I give the bastard the sweetest expression I can manage. ‘He’s a trained Norwegian elkhound.’ Brown eyes find mine. The suppressed rage and frustrations I’ve been piling up for much of the last few years break through the barriers. ‘Want to see him play fetch?’
His smile loosens a few degrees, stance easing backwards when he realises at least one of us might bite.
His palms lift in a thin attempt to soothe the situation. ‘I see you have acquired quite an entourage.’
‘I acquired standards,’ I say. ‘You should go back to one of your fiancées.’
His smile tightens. ‘It was nice seeing you. I like this new backbone of yours.’
‘It’s not new. You simply benefited from me forgetting I had one.’
His eyes flick to Brute again. I turn my back on him before he can manufacture a reply.
As my entourage and I walk onwards, out of the corner of my eye, I watch him cross the road, shoulders slightly hunched, his reflection breaking apart on the hot tarmac.
I brace for the influx of all things an old wound might summon.
But still… nothing happens. No desperate inventory is made of everything I lacked. I simply watch his small shadow disappear behind a building and feel as if someone had pulled me straight out of the sewers.
Brute’s stomach gives a low, tragic grumble and the world gains the colours of practicality again. Dog food. Caffeine. Statement.
Elias.
I drag a hand through my scalp, then turn back towards the road and let the traffic pull me out of Ron’s pathetic aftershock.
Tomorrow, all hell either breaks loose or finally realises it has picked the wrong man to swallow.
My man.
But first… there are a few things that need doing.
Like aiding the law to be entirely lawful.