It began to rain. I took Dom and Lucky to the van, then immediately wished I hadn’t when Lucky broke down. His tears terrified me. A helicopter buzzed above the camp.
“Police,” Dom confirmed.
And something inside me broke. I didn’t cry, didn’t scream, or lash out, but as the crack inside me widened, I knew whatever happened today, nothing would ever be the same.
A torturous hour later, Dom’s phone rang.
He stepped away from the van to answer it, but I knew the moment his face changed that something had happened.
I scrambled out of the van, pulling Lucky with me. “What is it?”
Dom held up his hand, still listening to whoever was on the other end, then hung up, his expression grim. “Nothing in the woods, but the squad car up at the house have found something in the kennel block. Blood, and some boots. It could be from some dead animals they’ve found too, but they’re sending that copper a picture of the boots. You’d recognise them if they were Cash’s? We might not…he never brought them in the house.”
“Yes.” Of course I would. How many times had I fantasised about easing them slowly off his perfect feet? Of kissing him from his anklebone to his dick, and so much more?
Too many in comparison to the occasions fantasy had become a reality, and the very real possibility that our story had ended hit me like a truck. Blood. Death.Please don’t let those boots be his.
But they were. I stared at the grainy photo and horror built in my chest until I couldn’t breathe. “They’re his,” I gasped out. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. They’ve got him.”
Dom was in motion immediately, dashing to his car. I shot after him, Lucky right behind me, and we were in the powerful Lexus before I could blink, me and Dom up front, Lucky thrown into the back.
“Direct me,” Dom ground out as he spun the car around. “We won’t have long before they pull us over.”
Dom’s car was designed for rich people to rumble around London, blocking the roads and parking badly in disabled bays, but beneath the bling were huge off-road tyres and a powerful engine. I directed him to the farmer’s track that cut through the woods, and prayed he could drive like Cash.
He wasn’t far off, but I hardly noticed the breakneck speed of the tight bends, or the narrowing of the already claustrophobic lane. My gaze remained fixed on the horizon, waiting on the first glimpse of Goon’s house of horrors.
“There it is!” I hit the dashboard with my fist as the house came into view. “The gates are open!”
Dom sped up the driveway. Three police cars were already outside the house. He skidded to a stop beside them, and I hit the ground before he’d even shut off the engine.
I followed the trail of coppers through the grounds, past the stables and kennels. The orchards. Past the gardens, a gate half hidden by the ornamental hedges was open. I shot through it, and then stumbled, pulled up short by the sight of three police officers in the distance, crouched on the ground at the edge of the woods.
They were cradling a lifeless body.
It was Cash.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Rae
He was alive, but unconscious, and really fucking cold, and I only knew this because Dom had texted Lucky. The police had apprehended me when I’d been ten feet away from him, and the air ambulance had been and gone by the time they’d let me go.
“Dom doesn’t like flying.”
I glanced at Lucky. We were in the van, driving to the hospital, him in the passenger seat, Isha in the back, and me trying to keep my shaking hands steady at the wheel. “Why did he go, then?”
“Because he loves Cash as much as we do.”
I didn’t believe that. Not that I doubted Lucky and Dom’s sentiment, but more because I couldn’t comprehend that there wasanyonewho felt about Cash the way I did. Since we’d met, he’d monopolised my every thought, and now there was a very real risk I’d lose him for good, I was so scared I could hardly breathe.
We made it to the hospital. Isha took pity on me and offered to park the van.
I dashed inside with Lucky, following the trail of police through A&E until I spotted an officer I recognised—the out-of-town PC who still had my phone.
He beckoned us through a set of double doors and into an empty corridor. “They’ve arrested the landowner and two of his sons. I don’t know much more than that, but I thought you’d like to know. If you wait here, I’ll tell your friend you’ve arrived.”
His words sank in as he slipped back through the double doors, and I realised I didn’t care about Goon, or anything that was happening outside of the hospital. What was done was done, and it meant nothing unless Cash was okay.
