It was devastation.
So Warren reached into the passenger seat for the burner and his warrant card. He thumbed the phone alive, still panting, his eyes never leaving Jude.
“UC compromised,” he said into the handset, clipped and precise. “Target secured. Requesting urgent backup.”
He snapped the phone shut, shoved it onto the dash, and only then looked at Jude properly. He was standing there, pale and trembling, staring at Warren as if he was a stranger and they hadn’t shared a bed. A shower. A kiss and a release that had meant everything.
Warren’s stomach turned to lead.
Because hewasa stranger.
The mask was gone. The cover blown. And whatever trust he’d managed to build with Jude, whatever fragile thing had sparked between them, burned away right there on the pavement.
Chapter twenty
Dealing with the Facts
Everything blurred.
Jude was dazed. Confused.Numb. The world moved around him at double speed while he stood frozen in the middle of it.
He could hear Callum. His screaming and the spit-flecked insults, fighting Warren holding him. Then, as if on a switch, Callum’s tone shifted, oily threats sliding through his teeth: promises of lawyers, revenge, the smug promise that none of this would stick. That he had contacts. He was untouchable and this was now a bigger problem.
Delirious.
The man was delirious.
He heard Warren too.Not Warren.DS Beckford. That clipped, controlled tone, low-level aggression sheathed in professionalism, his stance squared and immovable as he kept Callum locked tight until the cavalry arrived.
Blue lights flashed across wet brick. Radios crackled. Uniforms swarmed.
Jude was almost certain Freddie was among them. He didn’t need to see him. He could sense him. That familiar aftershave,the one Jude had liked when Freddie wore it on one of their dates to mask his heavy shift. The scent lodged sharp in his throat, taking him back to the time he’d taken the first step to rediscovering himself. And now it all crashed down tothis.
Orders cut across the chaos. Warren barking them with authority. Freddie’s voice responding, flat and efficient:“Yes, Sarge.”
Sarge.
That word made Jude’s stomach pitch. Freddie callingWarrenSarge, as if the whole world had known who he was except him.
Freddie might have looked at him. Wanted to talk to him. But responsibility and protocol took precedent, and he had to force Callum into the back of a police vehicle, knees buckling, head clipped by a palm as they shoved him inside the caged rear seat. The door slammed. Sirens wailed again, carrying him away into the night, leaving Jude stranded.
Alone.
Except not alone.
“Jude?”
The sound of his name pulled him back. He blinked. Wrapped his arms tight around himself. If he didn’t, he’d fall apart. Warren stepped in front of him, close enough to touch, then clamped one hand around his arm, stroking his thumb across his sleeve.
“Hey,” he said, low and quiet. Gentle and cautious. “You okay?”
Was he okay?
No. No, he wasn’t.
But Jude couldn’t make the words leave his mouth. He stared straight through him, into nothing, because looking at Warren —this Warren— made the bottom fall out of everything. Soon enough, the thumb stroking his arm vanished, snapped back astyres crackled on tarmac and another car pulled up. No blue lights, but official. Jude could feel it in the way the uniforms straightened, the hush following. And when a woman stepped out, long coat, hair pinned neatly, presence heavy, Warren changed.
“Ma’am.” Warren dipped his head in respect.
