Page 77 of Eight of Swords, Part Two

All the blood drains from Lachlan’s face. ‘What?’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘You hired them? No. Why would you do that? We were planning to get you out of there,’ Lachlan tells him in a pained rush. ‘I had plans to get you away before you turned twenty-one.’

‘I guess after reading the journals, he realised it wasn’t soon enough.’

‘Jules would have told me. We never lied to each other.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘It can’t have been you. If it was you...’ Lachlan utters slowly, visibly piecing things together, ‘then that’s how they knew to get in. Not Danya.’

His face drops.

Kade has never seen someone so struck by horror before.

‘No, no, no.’

‘Lachlan—’

‘Oh my God, you were the leak. You. Not Danya.’ Lachlan tries to breathe, but his voice breaks hard. ‘It wasn’t Danya.’

Kade asks, ‘Who’s Danya?’

Lachlan doesn’t seem to hear him.

‘I thought he helped the Front take you both. I thought he betrayed me. They bypassed all our security. They knew things no one ever could have. It was an inside job, no question. He begged me to let him explain.’

A degree of haunted grief so severe settles over Lachlan then, the way storms gather over dark seas. He doesn’t lash out, doesn’t scream or cry. He just stares ahead as things fall into place.

‘Lachlan,’ Kade says, trying to get the older man to look at him with no success. ‘Bodyguard.’

‘Danya... didn’t betray me.’ Tears roll down his shell-shocked face. Slowly, Lachlan looks away and closes his eyes. ‘I killed him for nothing.’

Kade doesn’t know what to say. ‘You didn’t know.’

‘He was my friend. I should have known. I should have... trusted him, but I was crazed. I lost it.’ When he opens his eyes, Kade sees the extent to which he’s shuttering himself so he can continue to talk. ‘Something broke in me after Danya. They had to sedate me. When I woke up, I told my teams to take Zaitsev and Belova, but they were already gone.

‘I was certain it was the Front. While I geared up to pursue them, we learned that it was Iron Star who actually took you. I assumed Danya was working with Troy Harker instead. I didn’t really care at that point. All I wanted to do was get you both back, but Penhalyx forbade me from retrieving you. He said he had an inside source and that we had to let it play out.

‘Once I knew where you were, I went directly against Penhalyx’s order. I suited up and led what was left of my team to come here.’ Lachlan looks around the Watch, oddly disconnected. ‘It wasn’t like this before. Much easier to get in. When I did, fire was spreading. Troy had you both tied up.’ Lachlan takes a shaky breath. ‘I tried to get to you, but I was too slow. He executed both of you in front of me.’

‘And then?’

‘Then... nothing. Jail. Court. Prison.’

Riley turns the screen towards them both.

‘I removed the pictures of Julian Penhalyx from the internet. All of them,’ he says as Kade’s eyes lock onto the photograph in the centre. ‘It took a lot of work, but Céliane helped me.’

Kade stares at the screen, at the black-and-white picture showing a young man with an arm around someone else’s neck, his face just visible over a suit-clad shoulder. The only other detail visible is the telltale curly wire of a rig running down the side of his neck.

Time stops.

The young man is him.

He’s smiling at the man in the suit with abundantly obvious love, such secret things between them. The long-distance shot shows wet hair, a tree in the background.