Page 169 of In Too Deep

“Jesus fucking Christ, it were you!” Jake rubbed a hand over his mouth. “Did you fucking kill her?”

Roman clenched his fists. “She deserved it. She just had to turn up, look pretty and do what she were told. That were it. Keep the right people happy and everyone gets paid. That’s how it is. But no…she thought she were too good for it. Thought she could mug us off.”

Jake stared at him. “Who’s us?”

Roman’s mouth curved into a malevolent smile. “The ones paying your fucking wages, mate.”

The entire estate seemed to fall silent beneath the rush of Jake’s pulse. Then it all hit him. Why he’d been brought onto this job. Why Levenson suddenly needed him away from the others. And, worst of all, who’d vouched for Jake and put him here in the first place.

So Jake moved. Not towards Roman. Away. Every instinct he’d built over years of working at height screamed the same thing at him.

Get off the fucking roof.

He turned for stairwell, but Roman lunged before he made it two steps. They crashed into the temporary safety railing at the edge of the roof, metal rattling violently beneath their combined weight as Jake caught a sickening glimpse of the concrete four storeys below. He grabbed one of the upright poles before their momentum could carry them any farther.

“You should’ve left it alone!” Roman shouted, both hands twisted into the back of Jake’s harness. “She weren’t worth owt!”

If there was any need for his violent temper to prove itself, it was right then. And he wasted no time driving his fist into Roman’s ribs, then smacking him across the nose with his elbow. Trouble was, Roman was bigger than Andy Mitchell and any of the other blokes Jake had tussled with over the years. And he grunted but held on, so Jake twisted hard, using Roman’s weight against him, and they went down together, skidding across the stripped roof.

Jake scrambled up first.

And ran.

He couldn’t get to the stairwell, so he aimed for the plant room instead. There’d be a way down there, surely. And with his boots skidding over loose grit, he had to veer around the unstable bits of rotted roof.

Then, “Fuck!” The straps of his safety harness bit across his chest as Roman caught the metal D-ring on the back and yanked.

He spun, but Roman slammed him into the metal wall of the plant room. His shoulder hit hard enough to make the whole thing boom, pain shooting down his arm before Roman drove into him again and Jake crashed through the half-open maintenance door behind him into suffocating heat, narrowly avoiding the open hatch in the floor.

Shit.

Jake threw himself sideways.

But Roman then shoved him while already off balance and Jake fell straight through the hole.

For one sickening second there was nothing beneath him. Then metal smashed into his shoulder. Pain tore down his arm as the rest of him crashed onto a narrow walkway, his ankle folding awkwardly beneath him. The impact punched the breath from his lungs, leaving him sprawled on his back, mouth open, body fighting for a breath that wouldn’t fucking come.

Then Jake looked up.