“Teaching doesn’t stretch far these days… you find yourself looking for other ways to keep the lights on.”
Radley’s voice slid in after, silk over steel.“A man who admits his limits. Refreshing. But money, Mr Ellison, comes with obligations. Can you live with that?”
Jude’s breath hitched, faint but audible.“I can live with what I have to.”
And then Reid’s laugh. Close, cutting, meant for Jude’s ear alone but carried to every one of them through the wire.“Told you he was pliable. Didn’t I?”
Warren could almostfeelCallum’s hand around Jude’s throat, squeezing through the wire.
“He’s always been pliable. Tell him he’s special and he’ll bend for you. Not just papers marked and kids kept in line. No,Jude sells himself, don’t you, lamb? Always has, if the price is right. Made me quite the earner before Winchester.”
Warren’s knuckles blanched on the chairback. Rage shot hot through his chest. He straightened, slammed his fist onto the van doors. “Shit! Fuck! Get him out! Get him outnow!”
The tech crew froze, eyes darting. One of them shook his head. “Not our call, Sarge.”
Warren knew it. But he also knew what Reid had just done. One line, dropped like a match. Enough to taint everything. Reid had weaponised the wire. On playback, it wouldn’t sound like malice. It would sound like truth. And it made Jude look compromised. Sound as if he’d been compliant. A teacher turned asset, bending for anyone who offered the right price. Unreliable. A defence barrister would rip him apart with it, paint him as unstable, corruptible, even complicit in Radley’s world. CPS would blanch at the thought of putting him near a witness box.
But beyond court strategy, that had been psychological warfare. Reid had dragged Jude’s most vulnerable history into the room, right in front of Radley, knowing Jude had to keep his composure. And worse—knowing Warren, Naomi, Patel, the entire team were listening. He was taunting them all.
“Get me on mic,” Warren snapped. “Now.”
A tech fumbled, shoved a handset into his palm, tuned to Patel’s channel.
“Get him out,” Warren barked.
Patel’s reply came back clipped.“You’re not making the calls here, DS Beckford.”
“It won’t hold,” Warren shot back. “He’s done his part. Pull him now.”
Desperation clawed at his throat. If he’d been on comms from the start, he’d have caught Reid’s tells, fed what was happening inside the mansion up the chain, built Patel the case she neededto pull Jude clear. That was his job, his skill, and he’d been cut out of it. Sidelined. Powerless.
And Jude was still down there. Alone. With Radley. With Callum.
Someone Warren cared about, more than he dared admit, even to himself. Someone he was falling, hard and fast, in fucking love with.
“DS Beckford, you are to stand down immediately.”Patel’s voice cracked sharp over the channel.“Get off this network and leave the operation to us.”
Fury tore through him, hot enough to choke and he ripped the earpiece out, hurling it at the van doors. He braced his hands on the back of them, breath ragged, about to do something reckless. Career-ending.
But he didn’t get the time.
The ground shivered under his boots. A low vibration, deep enough to rattle his bones. He turned, scanning the screens. “What the—”
Then a sharp crack blasted overhead, and glass splintered, the van jolting sideways on its suspension, the ground lurching beneath him. Warren grabbed the side panel to steady himself.
“Shit!” one of the techs shouted.
An explosion hit like a hammer.
On the screens, the house tore itself apart. A roar of fire punched skyward, orange light ripping into the night, shards of glass spraying out in a glittering storm that would’ve looked staged if Warren hadn’t felt the shockwave roll through his boots. The bassline cut dead mid-beat, replaced by the rawer sound. Screams, high and panicked, carrying sharp across the cliffside air.
The monitors flared into chaos. Cameras fuzzed, feeds juddered, angles slipped into static and smoke. All that money, all that control, gone in a breath. The cliff-top fortress Radleyhad built now writhed on the screens like a carcass set alight. But Warren wasn’t watching a film.
He was watching Jude disappear inside it.
His heart plummeted. “No. No, no, no!”
Snatching up the comms rig he’d thrown, he willed himself to calm then clipped it back to his belt, jammed the earpiece in. Static. Nothing from Jude. Nothing but silence where his voice should’ve been. He shoved the van doors wide, the night air full of smoke and salt, and ran. Across gravel, through the shrieks of fleeing guests, into the rising plume of fire and glass. Boots pounding, lungs burning, his body moving before thought could catch up.
