Page 113 of Into the Dark
I reach across to smooth the lock of sandy brown hair back from his eyes, drawing my finger across his forehead and down over the small white scar on his eyebrow. He also has a small very faint scar on the underside of his chin. One day, I’ll ask him how he got both. His nose is very straight, though, meaning he’s somehow managed to get through his life without having it broken at least once. It seems almost incredible right then.
“Will Freddy be angry with you?” I ask.
Jake frowns. “About what?”
“For almost killing Kevin. Doesn’t he work for him too? Won’t he be concerned that you…” I brace myself to say the words. “What if Kevin dies, Jake?”
He doesn’t react. Not at all. Not a flicker of emotion crosses his face at the notion. I should be horrified about that. I should be.
“He won’t,” he says, turning his head.
I frown. “How can you be so sure?”
“Because I’m not that fucking lucky,” he growls.
The image of Kevin’s bloodied, battered face fills my mind. Sustained head trauma like that isn’t something people just walk away from. Did I really just leave him there bleeding and half-conscious? What kind of doctor would do that? We’re taught to save people without prejudice. Do no harm. How can I live with myself after just standing by? What if he does die? What if I could have saved his life? I pushed this thought down when it rose earlier, swallowed it whole and hoped it would go away, but it’s back. I feel the panic rising from my tummy to my chest to my throat.
“He won’t die, Alex.” Jake’s voice cuts through the terror cascading over me. His hand settles on my thigh, comforting. “I promise.” His expression changes, darkening. “What happened before I got there? Did he threaten you? You said he didn’t touch you.”
I drop my eyes from his. “He had his hands on me and he was too close, and I honestly don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t got there.” I close my eyes and think back to how Kevin made me feel, but it’s all distant and blurred. I only remember his size and his tone and his smell. The way he made me feel. The nausea rolls over me as a friendly reminder.
Beside me, Jake lets out a low rumble of rage. “I should have fucking killed him…” he says, voice dark with contempt. “I wanted to kill him. I fucking would have…” He turns to me suddenly, a weighty stare leveling on my face. “I never wanted you to see that. I wanted you gone, Alex. Why didn’t you fucking leave when I asked you to?”
“Because he’s a bloody animal and I was worried about you.” It seems ridiculous now given what followed.
“Yeah, and I’ve told you not to worry about me.” He flares. “When will you just fucking trust me, Alex? When will you ever just do what I ask you to do?”
“Jake, I do trust you. But you can’t just tell me to stop worrying about you and assume that’s that. I can’t just turn that off. I worry about you all the bloody time! Can you blame me when this is your life?”
He lets out a breath to signal his irritation but says nothing. We’re both silent for a moment before I speak again. It’s a rhetorical thought spoken aloud more than anything else; I don’t really expect him to answer.
“It’s almost like he wanted that to happen. I don’t understand it.” Kevin claimed to know Jake better than I ever will. He must have known which buttons to press and what the outcome would be if he did. I felt the tension and the atmosphere in the room. I knew exactly what was about to happen.
“Yeah, and don’t ever try to,” Jake says flatly. “Kevin is…twisted. He likes chaos. Likes things that are bloody and messy. Likes playing with people. I’ve been cleaning up his shit for years, dealing with the aftermath of whenever he goes off. He doesn’t think before he talks or acts, or if he does, he decided a long time ago he doesn’t fucking care what happens.”
“Like an animal then,” I say.
Jake doesn’t respond; he just lets out another weighty breath.
“So he hit Gemma. That was the emergency Rachel called you about.”
“Yeah.” He pinches the bridge of his nose.
“Christ.”
Jake nods his agreement.
“And so how do you ‘clean up’ that mess, exactly?”
He shifts on the couch, not meeting my eye when he speaks. “I apologized. Promised her I’d sort it—sort him. I sacked the other girl he was fucking around on her with. Then I told her to take a vacation, said I’d pay for her to go away somewhere until I deal with it. Gave her a raise.”
“You paid her off?”
His head twists around to me, eyes narrowed and serious again. “I can’t have the police sniffing about my club, Alex. I can’t. You know why I can’t?”
“But I thought the club was completely legitimate, Jake. That’s what you told me.”
“It is, Alex. I promise you it is. But I’m not. And Kev sure as fuck isn’t. Something like that happening on my premises would only bring them to my fucking door, and they want to see that club in the fucking ground. They’re waiting for something like this so they can shut me down. And there are people who need those fucking jobs. Jess you met on the door tonight, she’s a single mum—she needs a job to keep her visa and to feed her little boy. I have a guy on the bar just out of prison—no one else would give him a shot. Frank on the door is fifty-five and can’t drive lorries anymore cause of a heart attack, and no one wants to hire a fucking fifty-five-year-old functioning alcoholic, trust me. Rachel just divorced a cunt of a husband and needs this job to keep a roof over her and her little girl’s head. I can’t have my club closed down, Alex. Not because of Kev.” He shakes his head, that pleading look in his eye again.