“Look.” Isha put his hand on my arm. “Whatever went on, it’s over now. Shutting the hunt down is what matters to you, right? And you’ve done that. The rest of it is someone else’s problem.”
“Whose problem?”
He shrugged. “Does it matter? This corruption is deep, and it stretches far wider than fox hunting. Take the win and move on.”
“How can we when Goon’s hunt will ride out every weekend regardless of what happens to him over what he did to me?”
This time Isha grinned. “Trust me, they won’t be riding out, at least not in anywhere near the capacity they were before.”
I snorted. “That’s wishful fucking thinking.”
“Not really. The landowner…what do you call him, Goon? Yeah. Him. He was making a fortune from his stud farm, but the RSPCA did a spot inspection, and what you told Lucky about the horses was right on the money. And the dogs. They’ve all been seized.”
A half-formed picture in my patchy memory solidified. The dogs. The horses. The suffering I’d heard but not seen. Fuck. Yeah, I remembered that, though I had no recollection whatsoever of telling Lucky.
“Anyway,” Isha went on when I didn’t speak. “Turns out Goon was gambling in London five days a week, and he’s got massive debts on that estate. With no income, he’ll have to sell it. That hunt is over, Cash, for the foreseeable future, at least.”
The back door opened. Lucky slipped into the kitchen and came up behind me. His arms were cold as he wrapped them around me, but I didn’t mind. Before Rae had come along, a Lucky hug had been the highlight of many days.
I leaned back into him. “All right?”
“Always.” Lucky pressed his forehead between my shoulder blades. “Are you?”
I didn’t know how to answer, so I didn’t, and Lucky let it go. He was my best friend, and he knew me well enough to guess my head was exploding, even if he didn’t know the precise reasons why.
Lucky held me quietly for a long time. Isha said more, but I wasn’t really listening, my ears trained instead to the living room. It felt weird to be apart from Rae, even though we’d lived a whole lifetime without even knowing each other. Somehow, over the last few weeks, I’d grown more addicted to him than ever, and when the living room door finally opened, Isha and Lucky were instantly forgotten.
I rose to meet Rae. His lovely face was a heady mixture of elation, confusion, and shock, and I knew he’d learned as much as I had in the last ten minutes.
Eager to be alone again, I grabbed his hand and hustled him upstairs. We hadn’t slept in my attic room since I’d come home from hospital, but heaving myself through the hatch seemed a small price to pay for the privilege of locking ourselves away for the rest of the day. Downstairs, I heard the front door open and close, the police get in the car, and their departure. Though I knew they’d return, it felt like freedom.
“They’re coming back to take your statement tomorrow.” Rae echoed my thoughts. “We told them you were too tired today.”
“I’m okay.”
Rae closed the hatch and closed the distance between us. “I know.” He slid his hands over my hips and pulled me tighter against him. “But they’ve waited this long. Another day won’t hurt.”
“How much did they tell you?”
“Enough.”
“They told you Goon’s hunt is kaput?”
Rae nodded and rubbed his cheek over mine, threatening my coherent thoughts for all the right reasons. “They did. Most riders will join other hunts, but the terrier men got done for drug possession, and most of the quad bike squad are on the CCTV at Goon’s place, so the main players are all off the scene.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Me?”
“Yeah.” I sat on the bed, tugging him down to straddle me. “I heard Fletch and Meg are taking some time out, Sprig and Drey have joined with Bucks. What about you?”
Rae chuckled. “Wow. And here was me thinking you’d spent the last few weeks in your own little world.”
“I have, but Lucky talks at me whether I want him to or not, and sometimes I listen.”
“Did you listen when I told you I’d been offered a freelance gig at theObserver?”
“Um…yeah?”
