“This your game?” Reid spat through blood. “Pretend you’re filth to get filth? Disgusting cunt.”
Warren slammed Reid’s face harder into the bonnet, voice iron. “That’s Detective Sergeant Beckford,” he barked, cold andclear. “You want a name to spit at the station, that’s the one. You’re under arrest for assault with a deadly weapon. Keep fighting and I’ll add resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer. You know how many years that’ll cost you, Reid. You know the drill.”
Jude then slid into the passenger side of his car, pulling open the glovebox and finding the cuffs. The burner. His warrant card. And Warren watched him through the window checking it. Reading it. Looking at the picture that showed him as someone else to the man Jude had met, maybe even fallen for, and his heart sank. Every secret stuffed in that space, every part of him he’d hidden was now laid bare in Jude’s shaking hands. Jude’s lips parted as he looked up over the roof of the car at Warren, eyes wide.
“I’ll explain,” Warren forced out, hauling Reid harder across the bonnet, voice taut with strain. “When he’s locked down. Please, Jude.”
Jude circled the bonnet, cuffs clutched as if they were poison in his hands. His eyes, that look of shock, betrayal, as if the ground had fallen out from under him, cut straight through Warren, but there wasn’t time to soften it.
“On his wrists!” Warren snapped, wrenching Reid’s arm until the bastard screamed.
Reid twisted his head, lips curling through blood. “Come on, Curls. You’re mine, remember? Not his. I know you, little lamb. Who you are. What you want. Get the knife, and I’ll give you everything.”
Warren’s stomach turned to acid. The venom of it. The way Jude’s breath hitched, caught between the memory and the moment. He couldn’t bear it. Couldn’t stand the way Reid’s words still reached him.
He slammed Reid’s head into the bonnet, steel and bone cracking together. “Don’t you fucking say another word.”
Reid bared bloody teeth, eyes feral. “I’ll fucking kill you if you put those on me, lamb. Ungrateful little fuck. I’llruinyou. Tell them everything you did. You knowI have the pictures.”
Warren’s chest burned. He saw Jude hesitate, shaking, teetering under the weight of every old chain Reid was yanking tight. He could take over. His training was screaming at him to snatch those cuffs from Jude’s shaking hands, secure the suspect, and stabilise the scene.I can't risk the escape. I know the leverage points.But the second Warren shifted his grip, gave up a fraction of control, Reid would exploit it, using the chaos to strike at Jude. That was the immediate risk.
The greater risk was sacrifice.
Warren forced his focus back to Jude. Frozen, clutching the cold steel. He knew what this moment meant. For Jude to physically restrain his abuser, to clamp down the steel around the wrists that had once controlled him, would be the final, potent act of autonomy. Jude would be taking back the power, the control, the dignity Reid had stolen for all those years.I have to let him have this.
So Warren softened, voice breaking through the violence. “C’mon, baby. Look at me. Not him. Me. You’ve got this.”
Jude blinked, met Warren’s gaze, then snapped alert. He dropped to his knees, fumbling but forcing one cuff around Callum’s wrist. Warren then dragged Callum sideways, slamming him into the solid steel of the B-pillar between the front and rear doors. The car rocked with the force, but Warren twisted Callum’s arms up behind his back, wrenching the chain hard so it bit around the narrow metal strut. The link caught perfectly. Callum wasn’t going anywhere unless he tore his own shoulders out of their sockets.
Reid sagged against the pillar, lip split, teeth-streaked red. He turned his head to sneer at Jude. “He played you, lamb. Liedto you. Then fucked you. You’re nothing but a whore to them too.”
The words hit like a lash. Jude flinched, stumbling back.
Warren snapped.
He grabbed Callum by the back of the neck and slammed his face forward, straight into the bonnet. Steel rang. Blood sprayed. “Shut your fucking mouth before I tear your tongue out.”
Reid spat thick, ropey blood across the paintwork. “I’ll do you for police brutality. I’ll get off every charge and come back to fuck him on your doorstep. Make you watch. Make you beg for it too.”
Red fog boiled through Warren’s vision.
Training screamed restraint.
Rage screamed louder.
He hauled Callum upright by the collar, not enough to free him from the pillar, but enough to twist him sideways and drive his fist into his jaw. Bone cracked against knuckle. Callum’s head snapped to the side, another burst of blood spilling from his mouth as he sagged back against the cuff chain.
“Jesus…” Jude staggered back, eyes wide at the man Warren had become.
Warren froze, chest heaving, fist still curled. He knew he’d gone too far. He also knew he’d do it again.
He shoved Callum forward, pinning him against the bonnet with a knee in his back while the cuffs kept him tethered tight to the pillar. Breath ragged, he forced his voice into the cold cadence drilled into him over a decade of service.
“Callum Reid, you’re under arrest for possession of a bladed article, threats to kill, and attempted sexual assault. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Do you understand?”
Protocol. Clean. Precise. A blade against the chaos.
And when Warren risked a glance at Jude, the expression he found wasn’t relief.
