Page 46 of Compulsion

Peck shrugged again. “No fucking idea what you’re going on about. But I’ve got no time for tossers who are in the way. Who threaten me and mine.” He snapped his fingers as if to illustrate how easily he’d deal with that. He didn’t need to say more. One snap… one knife… one fatal wound. I bit back a groan.

Peck had been watching my approach with narrowed eyes. “You tempted to do something rash, Max? You want me to make a better job of it than last time?” His eyes glinted. “You think I ought to take out that loose tongue for good?”

“I didn’t go to the police,” I said. “But I will.”

“Yeah? You think they’ll believe a word you say?”

I wasn’t going to tell him what I knew, what evidence I might have. My silence frustrated him.

“What are you, after all? A courier, a dealer, a user. A street kid, a dosser. You’ll be in the shit before they even question anyone else. You think Mr. Medina won’t protect his own? He has plenty of fancy-arse lawyers for just this reason.”

I shrugged. I was trying to show a hell of a lot of confidence I didn’t really have.

Peck bit his lower lip. His knuckles were whitening. “And so what if you take that insane little fucker down with you. I couldn’t give a shit. He’s becoming more trouble than he’s worth.”

So Baz was still around. Deranged, dangerous little Baz. For a moment, hope flared in me. I could take him to the cops, get him to confess to killing Stewart. To tell them about Peck. I had no doubt that Baz knew even more of what went on than I did. Then I remembered the kid’s weird darting eyes and fractured speech, and I knew it wasn’t going to happen.

Peck rolled his shoulders and widened his stance. He leaned forward, and his grin at me was more of a snarl. Things were decidedly colder out here now. I’d played my only card and probably too early and too rashly. But then I’d never been any good at poker.

Time to move.

I took three loping steps backward and threw myself at the exit door, expecting the momentum to push me on through the opening doorway and into the warm, suffocating safety of the club. But the lock never moved. My right side thudded heavily against the door, and it never shifted a bloody inch. Instead, the leap knocked the breath out of me and I sank clumsily to my knees on the cold ground, crumpling down like a broken toy. My whole body was jarred, every nerve shocked.

I could hear Peck laughing behind me. “Got new security arrangements now, Max. All private doors lock from the inside. Health and Safety regulations, you know.”

I wheezed painfully and lurched up onto my knees. My right arm was numb and the rest of my body was shaking with a healthy side order of fear. Louis would be bloody disappointed if I spoilt his birthday party by ending up dead in a backyard.

Peck crouched down a few feet from me, near enough so I could see him but just outside my reach. “Feel better for that little drama? I’d love to stay for an encore, but I’ve got more important things to do. I’ve explained the important facts to you, so you know what’s in your best interests. Keep your mouth shut and stay away from the Medinas. If you can’t manage that….” He held out his hands, palms upward. “I’ll have to come back and visit you again, won’t I? A proper little Friends Reunited it’ll be.”

He stood, towering over me. He nudged at me with his boot—just trying out the feel of it, I guess—then he reached over and tapped three times on the door. It opened from the inside and the music blared out.

“Get the fuck out of here, Max. And stay out of our business. You talk like some kind of gangster movie, but things are professional nowadays, you know. Mr. Medina’s got standards and strategies and proper business advisors. And a loyal family too.” He leaned down, and his spit dribbled onto my cheek. “And no sniveling arse bandit is going to bother me. Got it?”

One last kick, and I nodded that I’d got it. He stepped over me and walked into the club. I heard him laughing until the door snapped shut again.

Things were really cold out here tonight.

Chapter Nineteen

IT WAS nearly 1:00 a.m. and I was at the Sussex Square house where Seve’s flat was, pressing every damned buzzer on the entry intercom that I could find. My body was still shaken from the impact of the door at the club, which had resurrected the barely recovered pain in my ribs. Fuck, I thought, it’s only pain. Of more importance were the fear—and the anger.

After Peck left me, I’d taken some time to regain my breath. Then I tried out his stupid secret knock and they let me stagger back inside. The first thing I did was look for Seve, but there was no sign of him. Instead, I’d found a deliriously, drunkenly euphoric Louis and a happily distracted Jack. They did ask where I’d been, but I didn’t think my experience would add any value, so I brushed off the questions. The music throbbed through the floor, the drink flowed, and the partygoers were committed until dawn. I managed to prop myself against the table long enough to mime along to “Happy Birthday” when they all sang to Louis, but I couldn’t take much more. Assuming that Seve had left the building, I just snuck myself away.

I’d had enough. The legacy of my former life was thick like mud in my mind and more or less as filthy. Unless I did something about it, it looked like I was destined to have it with me forever. It had already followed me to my new life like an albatross around my neck, spoiled the recovery I was trying to make, and—worst of all—was now irretrievably linked to the man I loved.

I’d been sitting at the back of the number 14 night bus on its route back toward town from the marina when that particular epiphany struck me. Love… what the hell was that, appearing suddenly in my vocabulary? I rolled the word around on my mind’s tongue. Tried to ignore it. Never been there before. Not something I’d been looking for. But whether I liked it or not, I suspected there was no other description for the way I felt. More emotional than lust, more intimate than friendship. Disturbingly unfamiliar, yet mixed with an almost obsessive desire to know more. And that was all there, whether Seve gave a fuck in return or not. Had the impact with the door knocked my brain off-line as well?

If a couple of girls hadn’t lurched up in front of me, yelling and giggling they’d missed their stop, I might have missed mine too. But I limped off the bus at Sussex Square, and here I was now, at Seve’s place and determined to see him. He must have come back here. That was after protesting his innocence—after begging to meet me later. And after one of his uncle’s staff threatened me yet again, kicked the hell out of my existing injuries, and humiliated me about my former life. No, I wasn’t in the best of moods.

There was no answer on his button, but eventually someone in one of the other flats buzzed the front door open. I could only hope they hadn’t called the police at the same time. And as I stumbled into the hallway, I heard the lift arrive with a rattle and wheeze and Seve stepped out to face me. He was dressed in the sweats I’d seen him in before, with a thin denim shirt. He looked as if he’d recently showered and washed his hair and was settling down to finish the night at home. Quietly, with little fuss. And definitely not with a semihysterical lover whose clothes were looking the worse for wear and whose body was aching with several new and exciting bruises.

“Max?” He looked tense now I saw him up close. “I was in the shower. I only caught the end of your buzz but I came straight down. What are you doing here?”

“You left the club.”

He winced at my abrupt tone. “Yes. But you know that. You told me not to look for you later, and as I had finished my business, I came home.”

“I told you…?” I stared at him.